Indian share markets remain open for equity trading on all weekdays except Saturdays, Sundays and declared market holidays.
- NSE / BSE Opening Time: 09:15 AM IST
- NSE / BSE Closing Time: 3:30 PM IST
The stock market timings can be divided into three sessions. They are:
- Pre-opening session
- Normal session
- Post-closing session
Pre-opening session
The duration of the Pre-opening session is between 9:00 AM to 9:15 AM. This is further divided into three sub-sessions.
- 9:00 AM to 9:08 AM :
- This is the order entry session.
- You can place an order to buy and sell stocks in this duration.
- One can also modify or cancel his orders during this period.
- 9:08 AM to 9:12 AM :
- This session is used for order matching and for calculating the opening price of the normal session.
- You cannot modify or cancel buy/sell order during this time.
- 9:12 AM to 9:15 AM :
- This session is used as a buffer period.
- It is used for the smooth translation of pre-opening session to the normal session.
Opening price of the normal session is calculated using multilateral order matching system. Earlier, the bilateral matching system was used which caused a lot of volatility when the market opened. Later, this was changed to multilateral order matching system to reduce the volatility in the market.
However, most people do not use the pre-opening session and only use the normal session for trading. That’s why there is still huge volatility even in the normal session after the pre-opening session.
Normal session
- This is the actual time where most of the trading takes place.
- Its duration is between 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM.
- You can buy and sell stocks in this session.
- The normal trading session follows bilateral matching session i.e. whenever buying price is equal to the selling price, the transaction is complete. Here transactions are as per price and time priority.
The time between 3:30 PM to 3:40 PM is used for closing price calculation.
- The closing price of a stock is the weighted average of the prices between 3:00 PM to 3:30 PM.
- For the indexes like Sensex & nifty, its closing price is the weighted average of the constituent stocks for the last 30 minutes i.e. Between 3:00 PM to 3:30 PM.
Post-closing session
- The duration of the Post-closing session is between 3:40 PM to 4:00 PM.
- You can place orders to buy or sell stocks in the post-closing session at the closing price.If buyers/sellers are available then your trade will be confirmed at the closing price.
Pre-opening session and the Post-closing session is only for the cash market. There are no such sessions for future & options.
Commodity and Agri-Commodity Market Timings
The commodity i.e. MCX is open from 10 a.m. to 11.30 p.m. Furthermore, the timings for the agri-commodity market is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Both the markets operate from Monday to Friday, unless there is a public holiday. Both remain closed on Saturday and Sunday.