All the three major commodity exchanges ― Multi Commidity Exchange (MCX), National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NDCEX) and Indian Commodity Exchange ― have slashed their trade timings to 5 pm from 11.30 pm now, due to the complete lockdown across the country announced by the government following the Covid-19 scare. The new timings will be in effect from March 30 to April 14.

The pre-open session for cancellation of orders will commence 15 minutes before start of the trading session and client code modification will be allowed between 5 pm and 5.15 pm.

There will be no evening sessions on April 2, 6 and 14, said MCX in a statement on Thursday.

Similarly NCDEX said pre-open session will start at 8:45 am and client code modification will be allowed from 9 am to 5.15 pm.

Narinder Wadhwa, President, Commodity Participants Association of India (CPAI), said the reduced trading hours will provide a great relief to all members but the association is receiving requests from several members to suspend commodity trading completely till the lockdown continues.

“We will take it up with SEBI and the exchanges soon,” he added.

Earlier, the CPAI had urged the Central government to convince all state governments to bring broking services under the Essential Services Act, so that investors in these states are not left in a disadvantageous position.

On Wednesday, CPAI said employees of commodity broking firms were facing difficulty in reaching their offices as the police were not allowing movement of people following the complete lockdown announced by the government.

Moreover, the workforce engaged in these services is travelling and coming in frequent contact with their clients and other people, posing a big risk of getting infected by Covid-19, said CPAI.

Market regulator SEBI issued a notification on Tuesday exempting about 16 ancillary services from the lockdown to ensure the market operates without any glitch.

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