Markets at 9

One nice aspct of ‘breaking news’ is the relief it provides to TV channels and the viewers of such channels. The channels can start talking about such ‘news’ and viewers have something different to watch.

So also with ‘Markets at Nine’. I had gone to the airport, returned back around 9:30 PM and opened my email. There was an email from NSE saying market hours will change to 9 AM. I called up my colleague in Chandigarh. Is this correct? Yes, he said, that’s what is going on in CNBC for the last three hours.

What is done is done. This decision is unlikely to be rolled back, so we have to accept it. The NSE can add value to extended market timings by adding new instruments for trading – The Dollar Index, Nikkei, Singapore STI, FTSE, DAX, CAC, Kospi ….. etc. It is fairly easy to do this: ask a company to create an ETF for say middle east indices. Then ask SEBI permission to offer futures on this ETF, and, we can begin derivatives trading.

Traders should guard against ‘fatigue’. Too much of a good thing can hurt. So also of too much market interaction. Day traders should consider time based strategies – Trade in the open hours only, OR, trade only before the close, and so on.