Stock market trading on Saturdays? Nah, it's a stupid idea!

Ahhh, Saturdays. For most of us, Saturdays are semi-holidays (and for a lucky few, full holidays). Even if we’re working, we work fewer hours and have a more relaxed attitude. It’s a day when work doesn’t quite feel like work.

For the investing community, however, that may soon change if the stock exchanges have their way. According to one media report, the stock exchanges are considering introducing a regular trading session (but with fewer hours) on Saturdays.

The chances are extremely high that this idea will be thrown into the bin, but Firstpost decided to go ahead and ask a few stock brokers/market experts what they thought of the Saturday trading idea - and give you four reasons on why we think it’s such a bad idea.

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[caption id=“attachment_182067” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Cranky investors do NOT make smart investors. Reuters”]  [/caption]

One, we’d all have to kiss our lazy Saturdays goodbye. And that applies not just for brokers, but everyone connected with them (including the journalists tracking them). It would be like any other working day - Heaven help! We’d sorely miss that relaxed Saturday morning feeling.

“I’d miss out on my sleep, family time and overall peace of mind if the markets worked on Saturdays,” quipped Jagannadham Thunuguntla, strategist and head of research at SMC Global Securities, to Firstpost.

He’s probably the most honest - none of the other brokers we spoke to admitted to those reasons, but we’re pretty sure they’ll miss their weekend sleep and family sessions too if they had to rush into office at 9 am on Saturday.

For sure, it will make us all a cranky bunch. And cranky investors do NOT make smart investors.

Two, we’ll have less time for reflection and analysis. Most market participants already work on Saturdays - but more to catch up on the past week’s events and plan ahead.

“There will be less time to reflect,” noted SP Tulsian of sptulsian.com, a frequent guest speaker on CNBC -TV18. “Even events like investor education camps, which happen on Saturdays now, will not be held if everyone has to focus on the markets at the weekend.”

If you want to study recent events or analyse, you’ll have to do them on Sunday. Now isn’t that an appealing idea?

Three, Saturday sessions will get no participation from foreign investors - the biggest force in Indian equity markets - so, why the hell are the rest of us wasting our time working?

Foreigners like their five-day weeks; even major stock markets around the globe operate five days a week. In fact, Indian stock markets will set a precedent if they operate six days a week.

The only ones who’ll benefit are day traders and speculators, and really, do we really want to give up a good portion of our weekends to help them? Doesn’t seem fair somehow. And as Deven Choksey, CEO of KR Choksey, an investment firm, points out, Saturday sessions only make sense if there was a new financial product to trade on those days.

Four, we’re just going to be more tired and stressed out than we already are if we work on Saturdays like other working days. As Shrikant Chouhan, senior VP - equity technical research, Kotak Securities, noted, apart from the occasional benefit of being able to react quickly to late-night (in India) developments in the US markets, there is really no great benefit of markets staying open on Saturdays. “We’ll most likely end up feeling more tired,” he added.

Already, India has the dubious distinction of being the fifth most vacation-deprived nation in the world. The average Indian does not use one-fifth of his/her allocated days off in a year.

For goodness’ sake, can’t we all just relax a little more?