NSE glitch highlights: Trading hours extended till 5 pm; market experts criticize communication

Rajesh Baheti, MD, Crosseas Capital Services on extension timing announcement 
“At 3:25 pm you could see the tweets put out by Zerodha which is the largest brokerage in the country that they will wait till 3:00 pm and then they will start squaring up everybody’s position in the BSE which is precisely what must have played out. Big online brokerages didn’t have any communication from the exchange and then they went and simply offloaded everything at one go on the other exchange with little equity. So, I think there is a massive communication failure from the side of the NSE. They should have spelt out the policy that no matter what time the markets open, we will have them open for an hour-hour and a half even if it is beyond trading hours and decisions like this need not have waited till 3:30 pm. You don’t know when the line would start, but the fact that you want to start the exchange once the line starts should have been communicated well in advance.”

Hemang Jani of Motilal Oswal Financial Services on the glitch
“Technical glitches are a normal part of any business or anything that you do. But what is important is that we have some sort of an update in terms of the timing or what exactly the participants can do at a particular point in time; that would definitely help. But I believe that exchanges and regulators would have their own reasons as to why there has been some sort of a delay in giving an update because there are a lot of these intraday positions and square off related issues that brokerages would be facing. So, if there is a timely update let us say at about 3 o’clock then it would help them advise their clients properly and the settlement process can be smoothened rather than having to wait till the last moment and then guiding clients into what needs to be done. Each broker will be dealing with this situation in their own way.
I think the update process should have been a little bit better. But I don’t think we should read too much into this. There are complex issues when you manage technology-related things at an exchange level and I am sure they must be doing their best.”

Stock market glitches & outages are infrequent but not uncommon

Prakash Diwan, Market Expert on NSE glitch
It is definitely going to raise more questions than what we can seek answers to. And it is time for our markets to also have a BSE kind of an institution that does something on the future side as much because that is where most of the business is. BSE would definitely be a gainer as an institution, as stock but unfortunately, that is also listed on NSE. So you cannot make most of it today. My sense is that if there is an extension and we have had extensions even during the budget day once when the expiry was extended, the series was extended, similarly, if we were to have this kind of a couple of hours extension beyond 3.30 pm today that would probably solve a majority of the problems, especially for the intraday trades. If we were to bifurcate tomorrow into two halves, have a penultimate and the last day of the expiry that could also kind of create some sort of a thing - I have no solutions. It is unfortunate. I am happy that I am not a day trader and I can imagine the kind of situation that a lot of option writers would be into at this point in time today.

Trading Hours exteded

JUST IN: No fresh update from NSE on resumption of trade

Technical issue hits NSE cash, F&O markets, experts discuss

Mohandas Pai, Former Board Member, NSE

I agree that it’s a cause of worry. The hot standby should come up in 45 minutes and if that doesn’t come by the second standby should come up because there is standby to a standby; the entire architecture is extremely robust, the best minds in the world and the best minds in India have worked on that. So let us wait to see what happens. Yes, I understand the anxiety of all the traders; they are anxious about money, settlement etc. I am sure SEBI will come with a protocol and will make sure that there is a soft-landing. We must understand that NSE and BSE are the best in class institutions globally. We must give them the benefit of doubt and not condemn them.”

ICICI Direct to Clients | NSE has intimated that all pending orders will be automatically cancelled when market re-opens. Your pending order will be expired. You have to re-create your order. To square off your SLTP product open position, you have to run “my EOS” for stop-loss products once market opens. You can place equity orders on BSE.

Angel Broking to clients | All your pending orders have been cancelled by the exchange. You are requested to place your orders again once the market reopens.

JN Gupta, MD, Stakeholders Empowerment Services, Former ED, SEBI

The trading will resume, but when we do not know. But if the trading resumes quite late and there is very little time, then logically the trading time should be extended. But then it will be a difficult thing because the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) will also have to extend the trading time.