By Yogita Khatri, ET Bureau|Jul 17, 2017, 06.30 AM IST

The Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India (MSEI) is keen to extend trading hours to 5 pm. This might force top exchanges NSE and BSE to follow suit.

However, will the move benefit small investors? ET Wealth reached out to market participants to know their views.

Rahul Jain, Head of Retail Advisory, Edelweiss Wealth Management, says Yes
Extension of trading hours will help drive volumes, which helps market liquidity, increasing confidence of smaller participants.

For secular retail participation in the capital markets, two things are important. One, education about the asset class and two, the confidence in the markets. While institutions are investing in educating the clients, confidence of small investors in markets will be boosted by growth in volume and more broad-based participation.

Longer trading hours will benefit traders and expert participants in multiple ways. Benefits will accrue to smaller participants as well. Here’s how:
A. It will increase time overlap with global markets, thereby reducing, to some extent, open gap shocks. Minimising such shocks is good for retail and small investors as it helps reduce the volatility of returns. In a country like ours where retail investors have traditionally invested in FDs or physical assets like gold and real estate, low equity market volatility will be a confidence booster.

B. Extension of trading hours will also help drive volumes which is good for the overall market liquidity, thereby increasing the confidence of smaller participants in the equity markets. As it is evident that more overlap with global markets and increased volume is good for all market participants, extending trading hours is an idea worth exploring.

Sudip Bandyopadhyay Group Chairman, Inditrade (JRG) Group of Companies, says Yes
If India is to become a global financial powerhouse and if exchanges are to become truly international, we need to have extended trading hours.

The Indian capital market is significantly influenced by the global markets and global investors. No market participant can deny this influence and co-relation. The most influential global market is the US market. It starts trading long after the Indian markets close.

This creates a peculiar situation which leads to “gap-up” or “gap-down” of opening of Indian markets post any major global event. For the health of any market and its investors and in particular the retail investors, this is definitely detrimental. Extending Indian market hours to align with at least the opening of the US market, will prevent some uncertainties.

Further, Indian financial markets, systems and processes are now robust enough to support long market hours. Both back office processes and banking activities even in normal course, continue far beyond the present market closing hours. Thus, adopting extended trading hours should not pose any operational or banking issues.

If India has to become a global financial powerhouse and if Indian exchanges aspire to become truly international, we need to have extended trading hours. However this can be done over a period of time in phases. At this stage, extending trading hours up to New York opening time, should at least be considered.

Deepak Jasani, Head, Retail Research, HDFC Securities says No
Impact of moves in global stock exchanges do impact the opening levels of Indian markets but in most cases, that effect is overcome in a couple of hours.

For small investors, extended trading hours will not help in any way. The six hours available now for trading are sufficient for price discovery and execution. With mobile trading on the rise, even investors who are occupied at work till evening can track the markets and trade within the trading timings.

Though currency and commodity markets are open till late, this is mainly to allow hedgers/traders to track forex markets or commodity prices abroad. As far as equity markets are concerned, Indian stocks prices do not track any other prices on a minute-by-minute basis. Impact of moves in global stock exchanges do impact the opening levels of Indian stock markets but in most cases, that effect is overcome in a couple of hours.

Exchanges would like to extend time to offer differentiation, gain market share and boost income. Compulsive traders would like extended hours to get more opportunities to trade. Brokers would welcome extended hours provided the incremental revenues are more than the cost in terms of manpower and other running costs.

However, they currently feel that extending trading hours would bring more pressure on them and may not result in much higher volumes and revenues. Markets are trending for 25-35% time and are range-bound/trendless for the balance period. In the latter period, extending the trading hours could prove to be discomforting for all participants.

Sandip Raichura, Head, Retail, Prabhudas Lilladher, says No
A small trader has a defined risk appetite and that doesn’t change because more time is available. He will be looking at price levels, not the time.

Proponents of the benefit of longer trading hours have often justified this by giving examples of the commodity exchanges etc., which work for longer hours. While it may benefit certain segments of investors and traders, I don’t see any direct benefit to smaller investors, at least not immediately.

The small trader has a defined risk appetite and that doesn’t change just because more time is available. The small investor will typically be looking at price levels, and not necessarily the time of day to take decisions. Self-driven clients trading online may possibly do more trades, but that is a conjecture at this stage.

It might negatively affect relationships between small traders and sub-broker or RMs who typically meet in the evenings. This can affect fund flows with cheques not collected in time or that client feeling a deficiency in services if not met regularly.

In fact, brokers might desist from offering sit in or walk in services at low brokerage rates due to the enhanced costs of an extended day and attempt to pass on these costs. What’s most likely is that the same trades are likely to now get staggered over a longer period.

The benefits of an internationally aligned market are more likely to accrue to bigger investors. While European and Asian markets get factored into our markets adequately, the US markets open much later than 5 pm and therefore, it is unlikely that volatility would reduce due to the additional hours.

Source: https://goo.gl/t7cv6Y