The National Stock Exchange is giving traders a little more time on the clock. Starting August 3 2026 the equity derivatives segment which is commonly known as futures and options will stay open for an extra 10 minutes. This moves the final closing bell from the usual 3:30 PM to 3:40 PM.
While the market will close 10 minutes later, the opening time remains exactly the same at 9:15 AM. The exchange has confirmed that this extra time applies to both index contracts like Nifty and individual stock contracts.
Why is this change happening?
This extra 10 minutes is being added to coordinate the futures and options market with a new system in the regular stock market called the Closing Auction Session.
The Closing Auction Session is a new method designed to calculate a stock final closing price more accurately and with fewer sudden price swings. Because the regular stock market will be busy calculating these final prices between 3:15 PM and 3:35 PM, the futures and options market needs to stay open until 3:40 PM. This gives traders enough time to safely manage or close out their positions based on those final prices.
Important rules and details to know
Initially this new setup will only apply to stocks that already have active futures and options trading available.
To keep things stable and ensure both markets align, the exchange will reset the allowed price limits for stock futures right before the Closing Auction starts. This temporary price limit will be locked at polus or minus 3 percent of a newly calculated reference price. Any pending orders sitting outside this 3 percent limit will be automatically cancelled to prevent bad trades.
Because the closing time has shifted, the window used to calculate the daily average trading price will also change. It will now look at trades made between 3:10 PM and 3:40 PM instead of the old window. If you need to modify or fix a trade code, the deadline remains exactly the same at 4:15 PM.
What stays the same and next steps
The regular stock market will enter its auction phase at 3:15 PM and wrap up at 3:35 PM. There are no changes to how option contracts work, no changes to the margin money you need to maintain, and no changes to the morning pre open session which still runs from 9:00 AM to 9:08 AM.
The exchange will also run practice trading sessions before August 3rd so brokers can test their software and make sure everything runs smoothly before the live launch.
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