NSE, BSE to open at 9 am from Friday

Minutes after the National Stock Exchange (NSE) announced that it would start equity trading from 9 am from Friday (December 18), rival Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) followed suit.

A top BSE official said the exchange would also trade from 9 am and the window for bulk and block deals would be open from 9 am to 9.35 am.

NSE’s move to advance timings by an hour came in response to BSE’s announcement on Tuesday that it would start at 9.45 am instead of 9.55 am. BSE was the first to announce extension of trading hours by 10 minutes yesterday. It has been trying to implement new strategies to revive its equity derivatives segment, in which NSE has a 95 per cent share. NSE’s daily average turnover in 2009 has been triple that of BSE, which is Asia’s oldest stock exchange.

The capital market regulator had on October 23 said it would allow stock exchanges to set their trading hours between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm. Indian exchanges currently open between 9:55 am and 3:30 pm.

Brokers at both the exchanges said they had no problems with this extension. Deven Choksey, managing director of KR Choksey, said the brokers would welcome the move.

NSE Managing Director Ravi Narain said, “The decision has been taken after extensive consultations with market participants throughout the day.”

Explaining the rationale behind advancing the timings, Madhu Kannan, chief executive officer and managing director, BSE said, “BSE needs to act to bring back interest in its derivatives segment. This should be looked at in the context of our various initiatives to bring liquidity back to BSE.”

Over the last few years, BSE had been steadily losing volumes to NSE.