Trading hours for stock market should be extended and brought at par with the time slot for trading of commodities, said Ashish Chauhan, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
At present, the trading in equity market is restricted till 3:30 pm daily, whereas, the commodity market trades for nearly 15 hours up to 11:55 pm.
"I have been told that foreigners are interested in keeping it that way and so do the television news channels as they will have to work longer. But effectively, the rest of the world (markets) trades for almost 16 hours a day," The Hindu Businessline quoted Chauhan as saying at a recent virtual conference on capital market reforms.
Also Read | 5 reasons why extended trading hours is a bad idea
Chauhan also reportedly said that India has been losing out volumes of trade to the exchanges based in Singapore, Dubai and the United States primarily due to the shorter trading hours.
The BSE chief underlined that "our systems are ready" for extension of working hours once the decision is finalised by the stakeholders.
Technology is adequately available, he said, adding that trading hours for cash equities and derivatives can be extended wherever required.
"T+1 trade settlement is possible but I was told foreigners don’t like it... so even that may not happen in a hurry. But our systems are ready for it," the newspaper further quoted him as saying.
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