Stories
SEBI Flooded with 20,000 Comments on Market Timings, Closing Auction Paper
- •SEBI received approximately 20,000 comments on its consultation paper regarding the Closing Auction Session (CAS), market timings, and settlement methodologies for derivative contracts, significantly exceeding earlier media reports.
- •The deadline for submitting feedback was October 3, 2026, with the regulator posting updates on X.
- •This volume of feedback is more than three times the 6,000 comments SEBI received in 2024 on its paper addressing excessive activity in the F&O market.
- •The consultation paper, issued on September 12, seeks feedback on seven proposals, including two alternative market-timing structures and two options for expiry-day settlement of derivatives.
- •SEBI has developed a software tool to analyze feedback, including identifying repetitive responses, as it prepares to review the submissions and finalize proposed changes.
Key Questions Answered
SEBI received approximately 20,000 comments by the October 3, 2026 deadline for its consultation paper on the Closing Auction Session, market timings, and derivatives settlement methodologies. This figure significantly exceeded initial media reports of about 3,500 submissions.
SEBI proposed two options for expiry-day settlement. The first is a blended volume-weighted average price (VWAP) using trades from the last 30 minutes of the Continuous Trading Session (CTS) and the 10-minute CAS period. The second option is to maintain a CTS-only VWAP initially, with a possible shift to the blended method after a year-long review.
The Closing Auction Session framework was introduced for futures and options (F&O) stocks starting from August 3, 2026. SEBI issued its latest consultation paper following the initial operational experience with this framework.
