Trading hours to be extended in case of technical outage; SEBI to issue circular soon

In order to ensure that investors do not bear the brunt of technical outages or errors during exchange trading hours, markets regulator Sebi has proposed that in such cases trading duration will be extended to offset the outage. This will be done to ensure that investors get enough time to complete transactions in case there is a technical glitch in exchanges during the trading hours. Regulator's step will ensure that investors do not bear the brunt of the exchange's technical flaws. 

As per an exclusive report by Brajesh Kumar a circular will soon be issued by Sebi in this regard. 

Trading time will be extended if there is a technical fault in the exchange: Salient Points

- Sources say that Sebi committee has approved a proposal in this regard, and a circular will be issued soon.

- Investors and traders will get the time to complete their deals and transactions, sources say. 

- Trading duration will be extended if trading is not operational 1.15 hours before normal closing.

- So, sources say that if the system is not operational by 2:15 PM, then the market will remain open till 5PM.

- By 2:15 pm, the exchange will publicly announce that trading window has been increased by 1:30 hours. 

- Exchanges will have to make the announcement regarding extenson of trading hours from their public platforms.

 
The proposal was expedited after the outage at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on February 24, last year.  After the nearly four-hour outage at the NSE, an RBI article had suggested that trading of benchmarks Nifty and Sensex be allowed on all stock exchanges. At that time, brokers had said that timely communication and clarification would have averted the panic sell-off by online traders on the BSE and prevented huge losses to investors.