The two Indian stock exchanges, National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), have announced their decision to conduct extended trading sessions for Gold Exchange Traded Funds on account of Dhanteras. The live trading session will be extended until 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 21. Furthermore, there will be no transaction charges for trades done in gold ETFs on the day.

The usual market hours for trading gold ETFs are from 9 a.m. to 3:40 p.m. In separate circulars issued by BSE and NSE, the trading session will resume at 4:30 p.m. in the evening and continue until 7 p.m. This is on account of Dhanteras, considered by Indians to be the most auspicious day for purchasing gold.

According to the circular, the exchanges will automatically cancel all unmatched pending orders of gold ETF securities at 3:30 p.m. No order will be carried forward to the extended trading session. It also requests members to remain logged into the trading system at the end of the post closing session at 4 p.m. The members need not have to login again for the extended trading session. The trades done during the normal and extended sessions will be merged and settled as per existing settlement schedule on Oct. 27.

Gold ETFs are financial instruments that track the price of gold. Gold ETF s are the same as mutual fund units where each unit is equivalent to one gram gold, while some funds provide option to invest in lower denominations of 0.5 grams as well. Most gold ETFs give the option of taking physical delivery of gold.