What are Trading Sessions?

Trading of shares cannot be done as and when you want. It’s not like if one evening you feel like you want to invest in a company’s shares you can do it right away. You need to wait for the Market timings, then only buying or selling of shares can be executed. Trading sessions are the periods within which trading of equities, Debentures, and other marketable securities is done. Every stock exchange all around the world has varying trading sessions. In simple layman’s language, a trading session is the time between the market opening and closing.

Trading Sessions In India

There are two major stock exchanges in India: National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Both these exchanges have the same timings. Trading can be done on all weekdays, except Saturdays and Sundays. The market is also closed on public holidays. The trading session of the stock markets can be broadly classified into three parts:

Pre-Open Session - 9:00 AM to 9:15 AM

This session can be further divided into:

• 9:00 AM to 9:08 AM - The first 8 minutes of the pre-open session are meant to place and modify orders. These orders are then executed once the real trading starts at 9:15 AM
• 9:08 AM to 9:12 AM - On the eighth minute, the window for placing and modifying orders are closed. You can not even cancel pre-placed orders. In these 4 minutes, price matching is done to determine the demand and supply
• 9:12 AM to 9:15 AM - These 3 minutes mark the transition from the pre-open session to the regular session. You can neither place new orders, modify previous ones, or cancel them

Regular Session - 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM

This is the actual trading timing where all buying and selling transactions are executed. Placing new orders, modifying or cancelling previous ones, everything can be done without any restrictions. Buying orders are matched with similar selling orders and transactions are executed. Prices are determined by the forces of demand and supply.

Closing Session - 3:30 PM to 4:00 PM

The trading session closes at 3:30 PM, i.e. all the trading transactions take place only till 3:30 PM. This session is further divided into:

• 3:30 PM to 3:40 PM - Depending upon the demand and supply of shares the whole day, the closing prices are determined in these 10 minutes

• 3:40 PM to 4:00 PM - During this period, orders can still be placed but they are executed only if there are sufficient matching orders

Block Deal Session

Block deals involve a minimum transaction of 5 lakhs shares or a minimum amount of Rs. 5 crores in a single transaction. The timings for these transactions are different from the normal trading sessions. A total of 35 minutes is given for such transactions.

The morning window for block deals is between 8:45 AM to 9:00 AM and the afternoon window is between 2:05 PM to 2:20 PM.

FOREX Session Times in India

Foreign exchange (FOREX) trading starts at 9:00 AM and ends at 5:00 PM for majority currency pairs. However, for some select pairs, the market is open till 7:30 PM.

Conclusion

Investing in the stock markets is often considered a good avenue for allocating your financial resources to generate great returns. So, when you decide to invest in the stock market, you must know the basics of it. Which stocks to buy, how much to buy, market trends, price fluctuations, etc are some of the things you must be aware of. Knowing how to trade is an important thing, but knowing when to trade is equally essential. So now that you know all about trading sessions, you are good to go.