Stock Market Timings in India – BSE & NSE

There is a certain timing for everything you do in your life. Let it be your schooling, sleeping, working at a job, etc. 

Then why should it not be there for the stock market trading? But, yes, there is some time in the day during which you can do the trading.

We will discuss that in this article, but let us see the basic requirements for trading before that.

Stock Market Training

Are you a beginner and want to invest in the stock market?

Why not? Market trading is such a fascinating thing that it attracts a lot of individuals to grow their capital. However, if you a beginner, then first you need to understand the market and learn the basics of the stock market. You can learn trading by reading stock market books, joining a good stock market course, analysing the market, etc.

The next question that may come to your mind is.

What are the Requirements for Trading?

To trade in Indian Financial Market, firstly, you need to have an Online Demat Account and an Online Trading Account. The use of a Demat account is to provide you with a virtual platform for holding your shares. However, the trading account helps you to trade in financial markets.

With the combination of these two, Demat account, and trading account, you can but hold and sell your stocks and the other financial things as per your requirements and whenever you want to do so.

I think now you know how to start investing in the Indian stock market. So, you should be aware of the timings.

Let’s see them in the next section.

Stock Market Timings in India

There is some specific time during which you can buy and sell a stock. This Indian stock market timings are the same throughout the country so, no special treatment for anyone.

There are two stock exchanges in India for trading stocks: the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange. 

The Indian stock market timing can be divided into three segments.

1. Pre-Opening Session
2. Normal Session
3. Post-Closing Session

Let us see them one by one.

Pre-Opening Session

This is the time before the market opening time, i.e., 9:30 a.m. The pre-session starts at 9:00 a.m. and lasts until 9:15 a.m. During this time, the orders to purchase and sell of stocks can be placed.

This session doesn’t end here and is further divided into the following types.

• 9:00 a.m. to 9:08 a.m

This is the first subdivision of the pre-session and starts at 9:00 a.m.

This is the opening of stock market timings in India, and during this time, the main thing is placing the order of transactions in this slot.

When the actual trading time of Indian trading begins, these order entries are given the first preference and are also cleared at the beginning of the market.

One important thing to keep in mind is that no orders can be placed after these 8 minutes of the pre-opening session ends.

Also, any orders placed can be canceled or changed after being placed during this time as per the buyer’s need, convenience, and benefit for him.

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• 9:08 a.m. to 9:12 a.m

This slot of the Indian stock market timings is held responsible for determining the prices of securities.

Now, you might be thinking about how the accurate transactions of price matching are carried out?

The game is of demand and supply. Thus, price matching is done by the corresponding demand and supply prices of the investors who want to sell or buy a stock.

For the final prices, you will have to wait for a little while the stock market timings in India start. After that, the multilateral order matching system does it.

Price matching order plays a vital role for the regular session in the Indian stock market timings to determine the price at which the security is being transacted.

However, keep in mind that the orders placed before this time began not providing the modification benefit during this session or time slot.

• 9:12 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.

This is simply a transition time between the average time and pre-opening time. 

No orders for transactions can be placed during this time slot.

Moreover, the bets placed in the previous time session that is 9:08 to 9:12 cannot be reversed.

Here comes the end of the pre-opening session, and now, we move on to the next session of the Indian stock market timings.

Normal Session

The normal session is primary time starts at 9:15 a.m. and lasts until 3:30 p.m.

The transactions done here do follow the bilateral order matching system, as we discussed earlier.

The process of supply and demand determines the price.

Many of you may know that the bilateral order matching system is volatile. Hence, several market fluctuations are seen as changes in the rates of the stocks. Therefore, the multi-order system was developed for the pre-sessions to control this volatility and was started to be followed in the pre-opening session of the Indian stock market timings.

Moving on, we will now see the post-closing session.

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Post-Closing Session

The Indian stock market closes at 3:30 p.m., and no more transactions are initiated after this time. However, the closing price is determined during this time. Intraday Traders understand the importance of this closing price as it is the one for which they do trading.

Further, there are two sub-sessions after the post-closing session. Let us see them below.

The division of the post-closing session

There are two parts here,

• 3:30 p.m. to 3:40 p.m.

During a stock exchange during the time interval of 3:00 to 3:30 p.m., the closing price is calculated using the weighted average prices of security trading.

For the benchmark and sector indices, the closing price is determined as the weighted average of the securities. This sector includes the popularly known Nifty, Sensex, S&P Auto, etc.

• 3:40 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

This is the post-market session when the bids for the following day’s trade can be placed.

The bids placed during this session or time are confirmed, adequate buyers and sellers must be present in the market.

The price of this transaction is at a fixed price; it doesn’t matter the change in the opening price the next day.

Now, there are two possible conditions.

1. The opening price is more than the closing price at which the bid was placed. There are chances to get a good profit to the investor who already placed the bid can sell them during this condition.
2. The other condition can be the opening price is lower than the bid placed price. Hence, either the investor sells at that price or waits for the day in the hope of an increase in the price and sells as he gets the price he is satisfied with.

The investors are given a small window of improvement to save themselves from loss from 9:00 a.m. to 9:08 a.m. for 8 minutes to cancel the bids.

Let us understand what we discussed till now in brief.

The overall timing of the Indian stock market is below.

1. Pre-opening timing: 9:00 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.
2. Normal timing: 9:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
3. Post-closing timing: 3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

After this, next comes the Aftermarket orders. Let’s understand this below.

Aftermarket Orders

This is an end-time after which no transaction can take place. But the investors can place the aftermarket orders only for the selected company’s securities that would be allocated to them on the next day’s opening market price.

As an Indian, you might have heard something called ‘Mahurat,’ a pretty common term for Indians for doing any work. 

Similarly, there is Muhurat Trading in the stock market as well. Seems interesting? Let us see what that is.

‘Muhurat’ Trading

On Diwali, the Indian stock market is generally closed for any transactions, as it is considered an auspicious festival across the country.

However, there is a one-hour trading session on Diwali from 5:30 p.m. to 6:40 p.m., keeping in mind the auspicious festival, Muhurat Trading.

Read More: How to Invest in the US Stock Market from India

According to Hindi mythology, there is nothing different from other regular days, just because the festival of lights is one of the greatest and biggest festivals. So, the trading on that day is called so.

We have covered the complete details of the Indian stock market timings. Now comes the turn to draw some conclusions based on our discussion.

Conclusion

In the article, we have done a detailed discussion of the Indian stock market timings. 

The knowledge of timings is equally essential as the knowledge of the stock market for making better investments. The investment at the correct timing and on the perfect stock can lead to a great return and turn your fortune.

Many institutes provide the stock market courses available in the market but selecting the best is essential to secure your future.

I recommend joining ‘The Thought Tree’ as they provide the best in class teaching facility and practical knowledge for a better understanding of the market. 

T3 also allows studying with them through online and offline mode, and they cover every basic to advance topics of the stock market.

At last, I end the article hoping that I was able to share the details in the best possible manner, which will help you in your investments.

 Happy Earning! Happy Investing!