NSE to start trading at 9 am from Dec 18

MUMBAI: India's National Stock Exchange will bring forward the start of trading to 9 a.m

The announcement comes a day after the rival Bombay Stock Exchange said it would advance trading hours by 10 minutes from Dec. 18 in a move to increase investor focus in the derivatives segment.

The NSE, which is the world's largest single stock futures market, has about 1,400 listed companies. Its daily average turnover in 2009 has been treble that of BSE, which is Asia's oldest stock exchange.

The capital market regulator on Oct 23 said it would allow stock exchanges to set their trading hours between 9:00 a.m and 5:00 p.m. Indian exchanges are currently open between 9:55 a.m and 3:30 p.m.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) recently allowed stock exchanges in India to extend their trading hours and allowed a maximum possible window of trading between 9am and 5pm.The SEBI move was prompted by a long-standing demand by the stock exchanges for allowing extension of trading hours to capture more trading from international investors, especially from Asian countries like Singapore where exchanges open much early, Indian time.

However, soon after the regulator gave stock exchanges the go-ahead, opinion in the stock market fraternity was vertically divided with several brokers and brokerages saying lack of infrastructure could prove a hindrance to extend market hours to the full window of 9am to 5pm.

Market experts said the latest move by BSE would not have a major impact on the markets. "There would have been a major impact in case it was preponed by, say, half an hour or 45 minutes. But a 10-minute pre-ponement will not have too much of an impact,” Ambareesh Baliga of Karvy Stock Broking said.