Speaking at the pre-budget roundtable meeting organised by three Indian markets industry associations – Association of National Exchanges Members of India (ANMI), Bombay Stock Exchange Brokers’ Forum, and the Commodity Participants Association of India, Chauhan urged the trade bodies to back a proposal for longer trading hours.
“If Singapore and America can work for 16-18 hours, India, as a developing market, working for 6 hours and 15 minutes is not a great idea. We continuously resisted longer hours, and countries like Singapore prospered using our prices to trade,” he said.
Chauhan said longer hours would provide mutual funds, banks, and insurance companies with large equity holdings to participate in hedging and providing liquidity.
Currently, commodity markets trade for 15 hours from 9 AM to 11:55 PM. Equity stock exchanges permit trading from 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM.
In October 2018, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) permitted stock exchanges to extend trading hours for equity derivatives between 9 AM and 11.55 PM, similar to the trading hours for the commodity derivatives segment.
