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Nithin Kamath, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of online trading platform Zerodha, on Thursday, January 15, questioned the decision to shut Indian stock exchanges for local civic elections, calling it an example of "poor planning."
In a post on X, Kamath said halting trading for Mumbai's municipal polls undermines the stature of Indian markets, given their global integration.
He argued that closing exchanges for a local election points to a failure to recognise the downstream impact such decisions can have on India's credibility with international investors.
Citing the late Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's long time business partner, Kamath suggested that the persistence of such holidays stems from a lack of incentives to challenge the status quo.
He added that this mindset partly explains why global investors may still hesitate to take Indian markets as seriously as their peers elsewhere.
Responding to Kamath's remarks, Helios Capital founder and fund manager Samir Arora pushed back, questioning who exactly is affected if such closures truly do not matter.
Arora said the same logic should apply when markets are opened on non working days, such as Sundays during the Union Budget. He also raised concerns about fairness to foreign investors when Indian exchanges operate on days that are holidays elsewhere, citing January 1 as an example.
The key question now revolves around market operations. The NSE has indicated that it is evaluating the possibility of keeping equity markets open on Sunday, February 1, 2026, if the Union Budget is presented on that day.
The exchange has clarified that no final decision has been taken so far.
Both the BSE and the NSE remained shut on January 15 due to municipal corporation elections in Maharashtra.
Trading across equities, equity derivatives, securities lending and borrowing, currency derivatives and interest rate derivatives was suspended for the day. The commodity derivatives segment was closed in the morning session but scheduled to reopen for evening trade.
Normal trading on the NSE and BSE is set to resume on Friday, January 16.
Meanwhile, Indian equities ended lower on January 14 after a choppy, rangebound session. Losses in auto, IT and realty stocks outweighed gains in metals, PSU banks and oil and gas shares, as investors largely stayed on the sidelines ahead of the US Supreme Court's ruling on the legality of President Donald Trump's tariff measures.
In a post on X, Kamath said halting trading for Mumbai's municipal polls undermines the stature of Indian markets, given their global integration.
Indian
stock exchanges are closed today for Mumbai's municipal elections.
The fact that our exchanges, which have international linkages, are shut down for a local municipal election shows poor planning and a serious lack of appreciation for second-order effects.
As Munger…
— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) January 15, 2026
He argued that closing exchanges for a local election points to a failure to recognise the downstream impact such decisions can have on India's credibility with international investors.
Citing the late Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's long time business partner, Kamath suggested that the persistence of such holidays stems from a lack of incentives to challenge the status quo.
He added that this mindset partly explains why global investors may still hesitate to take Indian markets as seriously as their peers elsewhere.
Responding to Kamath's remarks, Helios Capital founder and fund manager Samir Arora pushed back, questioning who exactly is affected if such closures truly do not matter.
Arora said the same logic should apply when markets are opened on non working days, such as Sundays during the Union Budget. He also raised concerns about fairness to foreign investors when Indian exchanges operate on days that are holidays elsewhere, citing January 1 as an example.
The key question now revolves around market operations. The NSE has indicated that it is evaluating the possibility of keeping equity markets open on Sunday, February 1, 2026, if the Union Budget is presented on that day.
The exchange has clarified that no final decision has been taken so far.
Both the BSE and the NSE remained shut on January 15 due to municipal corporation elections in Maharashtra.
Trading across equities, equity derivatives, securities lending and borrowing, currency derivatives and interest rate derivatives was suspended for the day. The commodity derivatives segment was closed in the morning session but scheduled to reopen for evening trade.
Normal trading on the NSE and BSE is set to resume on Friday, January 16.
Meanwhile, Indian equities ended lower on January 14 after a choppy, rangebound session. Losses in auto, IT and realty stocks outweighed gains in metals, PSU banks and oil and gas shares, as investors largely stayed on the sidelines ahead of the US Supreme Court's ruling on the legality of President Donald Trump's tariff measures.
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