NSE discontinues weekly expiries for Bank Nifty

Trading in one of the country's most popular equity derivative contracts came to an end with the Nifty Bank's weekly futures and options expiring on Wednesday. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has required stock exchanges to offer weekly derivatives on only one index per exchange, leading the NSE to discontinue the Nifty Bank weekly contracts while retaining those for the Nifty index. The cut-off date set by the regulator to eliminate weekly derivative contracts is November 20.

"The transition of Nifty Bank derivatives to monthly contracts is a significant step towards mitigating risk for retail investors, as volatility is expected to decrease and better reflect the underlying fundamentals of the companies," said Vaibhav Sanghavi, chief executive officer at ASK Hedge Solutions. "While trading volume will shift to both Nifty and Sensex weekly contracts, the monthly Bank Nifty derivatives may also experience increased activity."

The Nifty Midcap Select contracts will be available until November 18, while Nifty Financial Services contracts will be discontinued starting November 19. On the BSE, the weekly index derivatives contracts on Sensex 50 will be discontinued effective November 14, and the weekly contracts for BSE's Bankex will cease on November 18. Both exchanges have decided to retain the weekly derivatives contracts for their benchmark indices, Nifty 50 and Sensex.

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