Opening bell at the country's two premium stock exchanges BSE and NSE will ring an hour early at 9 am effective Friday, with both the bourses on Wednesday advancing trading hours to align the timings with that in major Asian markets. Rising competition from BSE, which advanced timings by 10 minutes, forced the National Stock Exchange to advance its trading hours by 55 minutes to 9 am. Not to lag behind, Asia's oldest bourse, the BSE within minutes announced its changed timings, matching NSE's. After advancing the timings to 9.45 am on Tuesday, the BSE followed it on Wednesday afternoon by saying that it will start trading on the block deals counter at 9.45, again effective from Friday. Picking cues from BSE, NSE by evening announced extending the trading hours. In effect, trading hours would be extended on both the bourses by almost an hour. At present, traing starts at 9.55 am and closes at 3.30 pm. It is decided to advance the timing to 9 am from Friday The BSE on Tuesday had said extending timing would enhance its trading volumes and business by aligning
with the Asian markets. NSE is advancing the trading time to 9 am effective from Friday. With the change in other exchange's (BSE) timing, our market participants were concerned... There was a small sense of inevitability