The Nifty 50 has finished below its own opening price in 10 of the last 11 Muhurat sessions. Over the same years it closed above the previous day's close 8 times. Both can be true at once because the sessions usually opened above the previous close and then slipped during the hour, which is exactly what happened on Sunday, 8 November 2026, when the index opened at 25,070.45 and closed 84.05 points lower at 24,986.40.
This guide explains what the session is, sets the 2026 timetable next to a normal day, and works through Sunday's hour from the half-hour candles.
Ten of eleven sessions ended below the open
Kotak Neo published the Nifty's opening and closing values for each Muhurat session from 2016 to 2025. I subtracted each open from its close and added 2026 from Zerodha Kite market data.
| Year | Date | Nifty open | Nifty close | Close minus open | Change on previous day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 30 Oct | 8,672.35 | 8,625.70 | −46.65 | −0.14% |
| 2017 | 19 Oct | 10,210.35 | 10,146.55 | −63.80 | −0.63% |
| 2018 | 7 Nov | 10,614.45 | 10,598.40 | −16.05 | +0.65% |
| 2019 | 27 Oct | 11,662.25 | 11,627.15 | −35.10 | +0.37% |
| 2020 | 14 Nov | 12,823.35 | 12,780.25 | −43.10 | +0.47% |
| 2021 | 4 Nov | 17,935.05 | 17,916.80 | −18.25 | +0.49% |
| 2022 | 24 Oct | 17,736.35 | 17,730.75 | −5.60 | +0.88% |
| 2023 | 12 Nov | 19,547.25 | 19,525.55 | −21.70 | +0.52% |
| 2024 | 1 Nov | 24,302.75 | 24,304.35 | +1.60 | +0.41% |
| 2025 | 21 Oct | 25,901.20 | 25,868.60 | −32.60 | +0.10% |
| 2026 | 8 Nov | 25,070.45 | 24,986.40 | −84.05 | −0.18% |
The single exception is 2024, when the close was just 1.60 points above the open. Across 2016 to 2025 the close sat an average of about 28 points under the open.
The 84.05-point slide in 2026 is the largest in points, but the index has more than doubled since 2017. As a share of the opening price, 2017's fall was 0.62% and 2016's 0.54%, against 0.34% this year. The 2026 session is also only the third of the eleven to close below the previous day, after 2016 and 2017.
How can a session close below its open and still be "up on the day"? The change column compares the close with the previous trading day's close. In 2025, for example, the Nifty closed 32.60 points below its Muhurat open and still finished 0.10% higher than the day before, so the open must have been more than 32.60 points above that earlier close. In other words, most of the session's gain was already in the opening price.
A token session with real settlement
Muhurat trading marks the start of Samvat, the Hindu calendar year that many Indian traders and businesses use for their books; 8 November 2026 opened Samvat 2083. The exchanges hold a short session on Diwali for it, and for many investors a purchase in that hour is a ceremonial first trade of the new year.
The trades themselves are not ceremonial. Orders placed and executed in the session create settlement obligations like any other day's, as Kotak Neo's holiday note points out. The one practical difference is the calendar around it: in 2026 the session fell on a Sunday and the market was shut again on Tuesday, 10 November, for Diwali Balipratipada, so Monday's session was squeezed between two days off.
The 2026 timetable next to a normal day
The structure of the hour copies the normal day in miniature, starting with the same call-auction pre-open that sets the 9:15 AM price (how the pre-open auction works).
| Stage | Normal day | Muhurat, 8 November 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-open order entry | 9:00 to 9:08 AM | 2:05 to 2:15 PM (limit orders only from 2:10) |
| Order matching | 9:08 to 9:12 AM | 2:15 to 2:17 PM |
| Buffer | 9:12 to 9:15 AM | 2:17 to 2:20 PM |
| Continuous trading | 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM | 2:20 to 3:30 PM |
| Minutes of continuous trading | 375 | 70 |
The Muhurat timings are from Kotak Neo's note on the 2026 session; the normal-day times are NSE's standard hours. MCX ran its commodity session over the same window.
Seventy minutes is less than a fifth of a normal session. That matters for anyone who records intraday data: a "day" candle built from the Muhurat session is not comparable with an ordinary day's, and any study of daily ranges, gaps or the timing of highs and lows should either drop it or flag it. A study like the time-of-day count of Nifty highs and lows only makes sense over full 375-minute sessions.
Sunday's hour, half-hour by half-hour
Here is the 2026 session from Kite's 30-minute candles.
| Candle | Open | High | Low | Close |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2:20 PM | 25,070.45 | 25,131.85 | 24,985.30 | 25,069.05 |
| 2:50 PM | 25,069.25 | 25,089.40 | 24,991.45 | 25,023.70 |
| 3:20 PM | 25,023.70 | 25,023.70 | 24,986.40 | 24,986.40 |
The opening price, 25,070.45, was 40.10 points above Friday's close of 25,030.35. The high came in the first half-hour, 101.50 points (0.41%) above Friday. From there each half-hour closed lower than the last, and the index finished at 24,986.40, down 43.95 points (0.18%) on Friday. The Sensex closed at 80,999.40, down 28.62 points.
The broader market told a different story. Kotak Neo counted 3,136 shares advancing and 913 declining at the close, so the Nifty's fall was not shared by most of the market. India VIX ended the session at 18.43.
On Monday, 9 November, the Nifty opened at 25,076.40, fell to 24,838.75 in the morning and closed at 25,044.65, up 58.25 points on the Muhurat close and 14.30 points on Friday's. The post-market report for 9 November covers that session.
Why the open sits above the close, and what I can't tell you
The table shows how often the session closed below its open. It does not show why, and I have not measured anything that would answer that. Two things are mechanical and worth knowing. First, the opening price comes from a call auction, so it reflects only the orders that were waiting before the session began, including every ceremonial first purchase placed in advance. Second, with only 70 minutes of trading there is little time for the price to move back once that opening demand is filled.
Neither point says what the next session will do, and nothing in this table is about that. Ten years plus one is a short record, the 2016 to 2025 figures come from a single published table rather than exchange files I could check myself, and the "previous day" column mixes different weekdays and pre-holiday sessions.
If you trade through a bot or an API
Three practical notes from building around the exchange calendar:
- Holiday lists are not enough. The Muhurat session is a trading session on a day that is otherwise a holiday, and it usually lands on a weekend or a festival date. Any scheduler that decides "is the market open?" from weekdays and a holiday list will get it wrong unless the special session is added by hand. The guards every trading bot needs covers why I prefer the bot to refuse to trade when it is unsure.
- Key jobs to the session, not the clock. In 2026 the pre-open began at 2:05 PM. A job that logs in, subscribes to prices or places orders on a 9:15 AM timer would have missed the whole hour, and a paper engine that assumes a normal day would mis-time its fills (paper trading vs live trading covers where simulated and real fills part ways).
- Tag the session in your data. A 70-minute session will distort any average that treats it as a full day.
Sources
- Nifty and Sensex Muhurat values, 2016 to 2025: Kotak Neo, Muhurat trading in the last 10 years
- 2026 timetable, settlement note and the 10 November holiday: Kotak Neo, BSE and NSE holiday 2026
- 2026 session breadth and Sensex close: Kotak Neo, Muhurat trading 2026 highlights
- 2026 open, high, low, close, half-hour candles and Monday's session: Zerodha Kite market data (NSE)
- Normal session timings: NSE market timings
This guide explains how a market session works, for information only. It is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security, and I don't publish levels, targets or trade ideas. I am not registered with SEBI as an investment adviser or research analyst.