Special Live Trading Session On BSE, NSE: Stock Market Open On Saturday; Will It Be Closed On Monday?

This week, investors can trade for an extra few hours in a special live trading session that will be held on Saturday, March 2, 2024. Does that mean, the market will be closed on Monday? No, the trading on this Saturday is not a normal routine instead operations are to be carried out on the Disaster Recovery (DR) Site instead of the primary site. Trading will continue as normal from Monday, March 4th onward.

NSE said this is about NCL Circular No. NCL/CMPT/44701 dated June 19, 2020, regarding Unannounced operations from the Disaster Recovery (DR) Site and circular no: NSE/MSD/60677 dated February 14, 2024, regarding the live trading sessions on March 02, 2024 (Saturday) with intra-day switch over to DR site."

Thereby, NSE further said, that members are requested to note that NCL shall shift its operation from the primary site to the DR site on March 02, 2024, at 11:15 hrs. It shall be a graceful shutdown from the primary site.

The special live trading session is being conducted based on specific discussions with SEBI and their Technical Advisory Committee. And hence, NCL systems would not be available between 10:00 hrs on March 02, 2024, to 11:15 hrs on March 02, 2024.

Earlier, on January 20, 2024, BSE and NSE were supposed to hold a special live trading session for DR. However, due to the inauguration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22, the stock market was open as normal routine on that Saturday. There was a market holiday during the Ayodhya ceremony.

However, this will not be the case this time, the market will have a certain time frame allowed for trading on Saturday with an intra-day switch over to the DR site. While the market will resume its normal routine of trading from March 4, 2024.

On Friday, the Indian stock market surged to fresh all-time heights, with the Nifty ending above 22,300 fuelled by Q3 GDP data. The Sensex, buoyed by strong gains in Reliance, ICICI, and HDFC Bank, soared 1,245 points to close at 73,745, while the Nifty climbed 356 points to settle at 22,339.

Stock Market Outlook For March Month:

As per Sumit Jain, Deputy Chief Investment Officer at ASK Investment Managers Ltd, global markets have faced a variety of challenges, including concerns over short-term inflationary pressures and their implications for central bank policies, and despite expectations of Federal Reserve rate adjustments, market sentiment remains cautious, influenced by unsettling inflation data from the US and the European Central Bank's cautious stance on policy easing.

He added, that in Asia, divergent economic conditions, with Japan slipping into a technical recession and China grappling with deflationary trends, have impacted global equity markets. While the MSCI World index saw a modest uptick in February, the MSCI Emerging Markets index outperformed, driven by notable gains in China and Hong Kong. However, India's performance, though showing a slight increase in USD terms, has relatively underperformed compared to its EM peers.

Coming to India, Sumit explained that shifting focus to India Inc.'s performance in the last quarter, overall performance has been largely in line with expectations. Specifically, there has been a convergence of EBITDA with the top line, while PAT has held up relatively well.

Looking ahead, he said, "the earnings outlook for India Inc. remains satisfactory despite the headwinds of global growth and moderate rural demand. However, there may be a short-term impact on earnings due to the slowdown associated with elections. However, markets have responded positively to the robust earnings growth observed recently. As margins-led tailwinds diminish, earnings will need to be driven by improvements in revenue growth, sustained higher and secular growth will be the differentiating factor in the future."