NSE extends trading hours till 5 pm after technical snag

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the BSE will keep the trading open today until 5 pm, and the 15-minute pre-open session will be conducted at 3.30 pm. This is after NSE was hit by a technical snag on Wednesday and had to suspend trading at 11.41 am.

BSE equity and equity derivatives markets will also remain open till 5 pm today as decided jointly between exchanges. All other markets timings will remain as normal.’

According to dealers and stock brokers, the problem started with Bank Nifty index rates not updating and later spread to the Nifty index. Both Nifty and Bank Nifty are the largest traded derivative contracts of the NSE. The glitch caused market disruption just a day ahead of the February month futures and options expiry leading to much heartburn among traders. NSE shut trading for entire markets till further notice.

Option writers benefit the most if markets are shut for trading as those who have bought or sold options lose out on time value, brokers said.

According to brokers, the problem with Bank Nifty feeds started between 10 am and 10.20 am. At around 11.40 am, the NSE said it was suspending trading across the futures and options segment. In the next few minutes, the NSE said it was suspending trading for the day until further notice. Bank Nifty index had gained 22 per cent between February 1 and February 16 and fell by around 8 percent in the next few days. However, just two days ahead of the monthly derivatives expiry, the index had started to move up again. On Wednesday, the index was up nearly 2 per cent before a tech glitch hit it.

Before Wednesday, the NSE was hit by a massive tech glitch in December 2020. NSE Clearing, the trade clearing and settlement arm of the NSE, was hit by a ‘technical glitch’ on Monday that affected several stock brokers. Before the Nifty index witnessed its worst singleday fall in nearly seven months by over 3 per cent or 432 points, many brokers saw their trade orders being automatically deleted, and some even had their terminals disabled. In September 2020, the NSE Clearing arm suffered a tech glitch last time in September after SEBI introduced new margin norms. Also, pay-in and pay-out were disrupted for three days then.

"NSE has multiple telecom links with two service providers to ensure redundancy and we have received communication from both the telecom service providers that there are issues with their links due to which there is an impact on NSE system. We are working on restoring the systems as soon as possible. In view of the above all the segments have been closed at 11.40 and will be restored as soon as the issue is resolved," NSE Spokesperson said.

Although tech glitch has been a recurring phenomenon for NSE for the past few years, SEBI has not made public any of its analysist. Last year, brokers association ANMI had even shot-off a letter to NSE alleging severe loss to its members due to tech glitch. In 2017, NSE had to suspend trading for three hours after a tech glitch.

Details:

F&O Segment Normal Market will Re-open as follows:

Normal Market open time : 15:45 hrs

Normal Market close time : 17:00 hrs

Trade Mode cut off time: 17:30 hrs

CD Segment Normal Market will Re-open at 15:30 hrs

COM Segment Normal Market will Re-open at 15:30 hrs

SLB Market will Re-open at 15:30 hrs

CM Segment Market will Re-open as follows:

Pre-Open open time   :  15:30 hrs

Pre-Open* close time : 15:38 hrs (random closure in last minute)

Normal Market open time : 15:45 hrs

Normal Market close time : 17:00 hrs

Call Auction Illiquid session open time (1 sessions of 1 hour) : 16:00

Post close start time : 17:10 hrs

Post close end time : 17:30 hrs

Trade Mod cut off time: 17:45 hrs