Mumbai, June 26 (IANS) Indian stock exchanges — the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the BSE — remained closed on Friday on account of Muharram, with trading suspended across all equity market segments, including equity derivatives, currency derivatives, securities lending and borrowing (SLB).

Meanwhile, in the commodity segment, the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) remained closed during the morning session from 9 am to 5 pm.

Trading on the commodity exchange will resume in the evening session from 5 pm.

In addition, the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) — which primarily deals in agricultural commodities — remained closed for the entire day.

Following Friday’s Muharram holiday, the stock market will remain open for nearly three months before the next scheduled holiday on September 14 for Ganesh Chaturthi.

Thereafter, the bourses will remain closed on October 2 (Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti), October 20 (Dussehra), November 10 (Diwali-Balipratipada), November 24 (Prakash Gurpurb Sri Guru Nanak Dev) and December 25 (Christmas).

In the last session, the equity benchmarks ended their two-session winning streak on a positive note despite paring most of their intraday gains due to profit booking in IT and metal stocks.

Sensex settled over 100 points or 0.14 per cent higher at 77,100.47 after touching an intraday high of 77,803.18.

Similarly, Nifty ended higher, with an increase of 34.35 points or 0.14 per cent at 24,056.

Among Nifty constituents, Hindalco Industries, Power Grid, Bharti Airtel, ONGC, Infosys, NTPC, BEL, HCL Tech, HDFC Life, Asian Paints, Trent, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Tata Steel and Titan were top losers.

Moreover, the broader markets underperformed, with Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices declining 0.5 per cent each.

As the holiday falls on a Friday, market participants will enjoy a three-day weekend, with trading set to resume on Monday, June 29.

–IANS

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