After deciding to snap trading arrangements with overseas exchanges, which  trade on Indian securities indices after trading hours, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) is planning to extend its trading hours to mid-night, about seven more hours than now.

The leading exchange has already sounded out it clients and reportedly asked them be prepared for late-evening derivatives trading from October. Since the plan needs regulatory approval, the current plan is to start extended trading from October. In an email, the exchange shared a “skeletal framework” for trading till 11.55 pm.

According to the framework, there shall be two trading sessions with a break of about 60-90 minutes. The first session would be between 9:15 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

In this session, the exchange would allow trading to continue from the previous day’s second (evening) session. That’s because it doesn’t want its members to settle trades in the night. Moreover, there would be thin trading on most days in the night, said a Bloomb­erQuint report quoting a senior NSE official.

Trade modification will be allowed till 4:00 pm and all orders outstanding after 3:30 pm would be cancelled, as is the case now. More details would follow in a separate circular, the exchange said.

The second session would extend from 5:00 p.m. to 11:55 pm. The exchange would issue a separate circular to confirm the timings after getting approval from the regulator. The second session will start with fresh orders.

On the last day of the derivatives contract, or the last Thursday of every month, the next month’s contracts would be eligible for trading. Trade modifications will be permitted till 11:55 pm.All outstanding orders after that would be cancelled. All trade records can be continued in next morning’s session.

Extended trading will be accompanied by the NSE’s entry into products currently available in commodity derivative exchanges as the regulator has allowed unified exchanges starting October.