Stock Market Timings in India – NSE & BSE Timings

Knowing its operational hours to gain maximum returns from your investments and trade effectively in the financial market is essential. The market timings for the Indian stock market are uniform throughout the country. Anyone from anywhere in India can trade during active hours.

The schedule

The schedule for a day of trading starts at 09:15 a.m. and ends at 03:30 p.m. During the trading period, anyone can buy or sell stocks. There are no breaks. Furthermore, a day of trading in the financial market, whether BSE or NSE, is divided into three sessions. These are:

1. The pre-opening session: The pre-opening session of the stock market lasts for 15 minutes. It starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 09:15 a.m. Pre-open sessions were introduced to reduce the volatility of the securities when the market opens. During the open session, investors can buy or sell stocks. The pre-open session can further be classified into three different sections. 

• 9 a.m. to 09:08 a.m.: This period of the stock market timing in India is the perfect time to place an order, aka buy/sell insecurities, before the market opens. Depending on the sequence of the order entry, orders are given preference when the actual trading begins in the stock market. Orders can be canceled or changed for the benefit of the investors. 
• 09:08 a.m. to 09:12 a.m.: During this 4-minute brief period of the stock market timing, the prices of stocks are determined. The prices are calculated via ‘price matching’. Price matching is a method where the demand and supply of the stocks are compared. The calculated prices are the ones at which the stocks are traded once the financial market opens. Investors cannot change or cancel the buy/sell orders during these 4 minutes. 
• 09:12 a.m. to 09:15 a.m: This segment of the Indian stock market timing is the transition period between pre-opening and the actual opening of the stock market. No modifications can be made to the stocks whose prices have already been set.  

2. Normal session: The normal session starts at 09:15 a.m. and continues till 03:30 p.m. During the normal session of the Indian stock market, investors can trade without any restrictions, with transactions being completed freely. Prices of stocks vary depending on the demand and supply. How? The normal trading session follows the multilateral matching model wherein the value of the stock price of a sell order is matched with that of the same valued buy order and vice-versa. 

The fluctuations of the formerly implemented ‘bilateral matching model’ resulted in volatile values of securities. The Indian stock market brought in the ‘Pre-opening’ session’ to tackle the volatility in prices, implementing the multilateral model. 

3. Post-closing session: The Indian stock market shuts down its operations for the day at 03:30 p.m. During the post-closing session, prices of stocks for the next day’s pre-opening session are determined.  The post-closing session is divided into two segments. These are:

• 03:30 p.m. to 03:40 p.m.: During these 10 minutes, the closing price of a stock is calculated by weighing its average from 3 p.m. to 03:30 p.m. Closing prices of indices such as Nifty and Sensex are calculated by considering the average of securities listed. 
• 03:40 p.m. to 4 p.m.: During these 20 minutes, the investors can still buy and sell stocks if there are sufficient buyers and sellers in the financial market.

Muhurat trading

Although closed on the occasion of Diwali, a one-hour window for trading is open on an auspicious day from 05:30 p.m. to 06:30 p.m. throughout the country.