Today, Monday, May 20, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) will remain closed, following the BSE’s holiday calendar, due to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in Mumbai. This closure includes all sections, namely SLB, derivative, and equity.
During this period, the Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX) will operate from 17:00 to 23:30/23:55 in the evening, with closure scheduled from 9:00 to 17:00 IST.
Additionally, owing to the Lok Sabha elections, banks in Belapur and Mumbai will also observe closure today, alongside certain schools and colleges.
Normal trading will resume on Tuesday, May 21 at 9:15 IST, preceded by a fifteen-minute pre-opening session starting at 9:00 IST, as detailed on the BSE and NSE websites.
Phase 5 of the general elections for 2024 is set for today, May 20, with voting scheduled across 49 Lok Sabha seats spanning six states and two Union territories, namely Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Maharashtra.
Furthermore, in 2024, market closures are planned for various holidays, including Bakri Id on June 17, Muharram on July 17, Independence Day on August 15, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday on October 2, Diwali on November 1, Gurunanak Jayanti on November 15, and Christmas on December 25, alongside the Mumbai Elections on May 20. Any alterations to these holidays will be communicated via prior circulars.
The stock exchanges underwent assessments regarding their system responses to unforeseen events, conducting two live trading sessions on Saturday, May 18, to evaluate preparedness, from 9:15 IST to 10 IST at the primary site, and from 11:30 IST to 12:30 IST at the disaster recovery site. This evaluation follows a significant trading outage on February 24, 2021, prompting close scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
The domestic equity benchmarks, Sensex and Nifty 50, concluded Saturday’s trading with gains, extending a three-day upward trend, attributed to fresh foreign fund inflows and favorable global indicators. Sectoral indices closed positively, with small and mid-cap indices surpassing benchmark indices.
In the second special trading session, the 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 74,005.94, up 88.91 points, or 0.12%, while the NSE Nifty 50 reached 22,502.00, marking a gain of 35.90 points, or 0.16%.
Arvinder Singh Nanda, Senior Vice President of Master Capital Services Ltd., emphasized that forthcoming key domestic and global economic data, including Manufacturing and Services PMI for India, UK CPI Inflation Data, US Initial Jobless Claims data, S&P Global Manufacturing PMI, and Q4 corporate results, will shape the market’s trajectory.
