Sebi plans to extend trading hours

The Securities and Exchange Board of India on Wednesday proposed to extend trading hours in exchanges to align the domestic bourses with international markets and asked various stakeholders for their opinion.

"With the increased integration of the global markets, information originating from different countries has a bearing on Indian securities market," Sebi, the market regulator, said in a statement.

While trading on the Asian bourses commences little ahead of the Indian markets, the European and American markets open much later, Sebi said asking various stakeholders for their views on determining optimum market timing, before April 10.

"Some of the exchanges in these countries have adopted longer trading hours, sometimes even extending up to 23 hours. This has facilitated market participants in these countries to hedge their risk that might arise due to global information flow," Sebi said.

Among the advantages noted by the regulator are incorporating information flowing from different time zones, markets becoming efficient with quick assimilation of data, attracting global trading interest and enabling participants to take longer positions.