MUMBAI: Benchmark indices opened higher during Saturday’s regular trading session, tracking last night’s strength in the US equities. However, it was a day of flat trading in the early hours with the BSE Sensex at 71,840 showing a gain of 157 points at 10.40 am and the NSE Nifty50 rising to 21,676.
The BSE trading session is open on Saturday after the Maharashtra government announced a holiday for Monday owing to the Pran Pratishtha ceremony in Ayodhya.
“This is in partial modification to Exchange notice numbers 20231226-43 and 20231226-44 regarding Trading Holidays for calendar year 2024, trading members are hereby informed that Exchange shall observe Trading Holiday on January 22, 2024 in Currency Derivatives (including cross currency and interest rate derivatives),Debt, NDS-RST and Tri Party Repo on account of public holiday declared under Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 vide RBI press release 2023-2024/1716 dated January 19, 2024 as attached”, the BSE said in a statement.
“This is in partial modification to exchange Notice no 20231212-40 and attached notification of Maharashtra General Administration Department dated January 19, 2024 regarding declaration of public holiday on January 22, 2024 and attached RBI press release regarding public holiday on January 22, 2024 under Negotiable Instruments Act, 1981. In view of the above, Trading Members are hereby informed that the Exchange shall observe Trading Holiday on January 22, 2024 in Equity, Equity Derivatives, SLB Segment”, the BSE said in another statement.
Market expert Sunil Shah said that it is after a long time that the markets are open on Saturday. “Though today is Saturday, the markets are on. It has happened very rarely. I cannot recollect the last time it happened. Whenever the exchanges used to do testing, that was the time when we used to have trading on Saturdays. It has been a long time”, Shah said.
“Initially, the markets were open for two-and-half to three hours. Because Monday is a holiday, markets will be closed and banks are closed as well”, he added.
Speaking on the performance of trades this week, Shah said, “Today we have seen markets up in the morning, we saw 250 points up in Sensex. This week has been mixed. There were two sharp cuts but yesterday we saw a huge jump in Sensex. Hopefully today the momentum will continue”. (ANI)