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BSE Confident Of Getting Trading Hours Extension For Equity Market Soon

Stock investors should get ready for longer trading hours in India.

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) logo sit on display inside the bourse in Mumbai. (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)
The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) logo sit on display inside the bourse in Mumbai. (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)

Stock investors should get ready for longer trading hours in India.

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India had earlier this year allowed stock exchanges to extend trading in equity derivatives by more than eight-and-a-half hours to bring the timings in line with the commodity markets.

BSE Ltd. has now applied for an extension in trading hours for the equity market as well, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Ashish Chauhan told BloombergQuint in an interview. “All of us need to work hard. India needs to develop further.”

I am sure investors will slowly adjust (to the extended trading hours) like we did in 1994-95.
Ashish Chauhan, MD & CEO, BSE

Chauhan said the bourse is working on products and services for the next 20 years. That’s where he says analysts tracking Asia’s oldest stock exchange go wrong. “They are used to talking about the business of the past 20 years.”

The exchange’s shares have declined nearly 21 percent so far this year, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex Index has risen over 14 percent during the same period.

Chauhan said the bourse is setting itself as a financial products distribution powerhouse.

Stock Price Distortion

Chauhan said the exchange is working to resolve the wide gap between the prices of stocks under insolvency resolution such as Electrosteel Steels Ltd. on the two bourses.

Shares of the steelmaker, taken over by Vedanta Ltd., closed at Rs 10 apiece on the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. on Wednesday, compared with Rs 48.25 on the BSE Ltd.

“We have proposed a framework to fix the stock price distortion for the IBC companies,” he added.