Weekend trouble! Third working Saturday for stock market traders in 2024 this week

Stock on Saturday

The special session, which will involve an intra-day switchover from the primary site to the disaster recovery site in equity and equity derivatives segments will be divided into two sessions. In the first session from the primary site, timings would be from 09:15 am till 10 am.

The second session from the disaster recovery site will open at 11:45 am and end at 12:40 pm.

On regular days, the market is open 5 days a week from Monday to Friday and from 9:15 am till 3:30 pm.

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Tryst with Saturdays

While holding a session on Saturday is not unprecedented but only rare, weekend sessions are becoming the talking point for traders as three of them have come up in about 5 months.

All these 3 sessions are somehow linked to 's framework for (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Site (DRS) for stock Exchanges.

The first Saturday session of 2024 was held on January 20. It was planned to test preparedness for handling unexpected disasters but since January 22 (Monday) was declared a holiday due to 's inauguration, the Saturday session was converted into a full-fledged one.

The second Saturday session was on March 2 with the same objective of ensuring that trading activities continue without interruptions and that all data remains secure just in case the main trading center in Mumbai is affected by an adverse event.

Earlier, similar sessions from the disaster recovery site have been conducted in 2016 and 2017 as well. Besides, a was also seen during the 2020 Budget when the and NSE were open for trading as February 1 fell on a Saturday.

This Saturday's session, albeit a short one, will partly compensate for the holiday on Monday, May 20 on account of voting for in Mumbai.