MCX trading hours are longer than most traders expect when they come from index options. The equity market’s continuous session runs from 09:15 to 15:30; the Multi Commodity Exchange of India opens at 09:00 and, for the energy and metal contracts most traders follow, keeps going until 23:30, or until 23:55 for part of the year. That is more than fourteen hours of trading a day, and the second half of it is when the biggest news for crude oil, gold, silver and natural gas usually arrives. This guide sets out the hours, explains why the close moves twice a year, covers the holidays when MCX opens only in the evening, and shows what the long session means when you read commodity options and open interest.
MCX trading hours at a glance
- Regular session: Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 23:30 IST for the internationally linked contracts: crude oil, natural gas, gold, silver, copper and the other base metals, and their mini contracts.
- Winter session: the close moves to 23:55 IST from early November, when US clocks go back an hour, until mid-March, when they go forward again.
- Agricultural contracts: close much earlier in the day. This guide is about the energy and metal contracts.
- Weekends: MCX is closed on Saturday and Sunday.
- Holidays: on several equity-market holidays MCX still opens for the evening session only, from 17:00; on a few it stays shut all day. Diwali has a short Muhurat session of its own.
The exchange confirms its timings by circular, so the Holidays page lists, for every holiday of the year, which exchanges close and which open and when.
Why the close moves with US daylight saving
MCX’s energy and metal prices follow international benchmarks that trade through US hours: crude oil and natural gas against their American contracts, gold and silver against the international price in dollars. When the US moves its clocks back in November, those markets open and close an hour later in Indian time, and MCX extends its own close from 23:30 to 23:55 to keep the overlap. In March, when US clocks go forward again (how US daylight saving time works), the close comes back to 23:30. India never changes its clocks, so this is the one part of MCX trading hours that moves with somebody else’s calendar.
The switch follows the US change: the first Sunday of November and the second Sunday of March in the US, so the Monday after in India. The 2025–26 winter session ran from 3 November to 6 March; for 2026 that points to a 23:55 close from Monday 2 November, with the dates confirmed by the exchange each year.
Evening-only sessions on equity holidays
NSE and BSE holidays are not always MCX holidays. On many of them MCX skips the morning and opens only for the evening session, from 17:00 to its normal close, because the international markets its contracts follow are open. On 20 October 2026, Dussehra, the equity market was shut all day and MCX traded from 17:00 to 23:30. On other holidays MCX closes for the whole day, and on Diwali it holds a short Muhurat session.
For anyone who reads open interest, an evening-only day is a short session with a full night’s news inside it. The previous close is the last full session’s, the change in open interest is measured from there, and everything that would normally build from the morning has to happen in six and a half hours.
What a fourteen-hour session means for commodity options
The long day is not evenly busy. The morning before the equity market opens is usually quiet, Indian equity hours bring their own flows, but the scheduled news that moves commodities lands in the Indian evening:
- US inflation and jobs figures come out at 08:30 in New York: 18:00 IST in the US summer and 19:00 in winter.
- The weekly US crude oil inventory report arrives on Wednesday evenings India time, and the natural gas storage report on Thursday evenings (the weekly petroleum status report).
- The US Federal Reserve’s rate decisions come at 14:00 in Washington: 23:30 IST in the US summer and 00:30 in winter. That is at or after MCX’s close, so the reaction often shows in the next morning’s open.
That is the practical meaning of MCX trading hours for an options reader: the evening is where implied volatility gets repriced and where open interest often moves the most. A commodity chain read at 15:00 has not yet seen most of the day’s news.
Reading MCX open interest through the whole session
Two things change when you read a commodity chain instead of an index chain. The change in open interest is measured from the previous session’s close, which on MCX came at 23:30 or 23:55 the night before; nothing trades between that close and 09:00, so the morning’s changes are the morning’s own. And MCX reports open interest in lots rather than units (lot size and open interest in lots).
The long MCX trading hours are why OIData records every commodity minute by minute from 09:00 to the close, through your own broker connection, so the evening is on the record like the morning. The Session Chart draws the whole day on one screen: minute candles of the future the options are written on, per-strike call and put open interest beside the price, the put-call ratio, ATM implied volatility and max pain, and marks where volume suddenly burst.
The chart above is silver on 27 October 2026, the day its front-month options expired. It opened at 1,93,789, slid to 1,91,516 around noon, recovered through the afternoon and climbed more than 3,000 points after 18:00 to a high of 1,97,388. Read at 15:30, when the equity market closed, the day looked like a slow recovery; the evening is where it moved.
Trending OI counts its intervals from MCX’s 09:00 open rather than NSE’s 09:15, so its rows line up with the commodity session, and the option chain’s Replay rewinds any recorded MCX day minute by minute, evening included (intraday open interest on the Session Chart).
MCX trading hours FAQ
What are MCX trading hours today? For crude oil, natural gas, gold, silver, copper and their minis: 09:00 to 23:30 IST on a regular weekday, or 09:00 to 23:55 between early November and mid-March. Agricultural contracts close earlier.
Why does MCX close at 11:55 PM in winter? Its energy and metal contracts follow markets that trade in US hours. When US clocks go back in November those markets close an hour later in Indian time, and MCX extends its close by 25 minutes until US clocks go forward again in March.
Is MCX open when NSE is closed? Often, for the evening session only, from 17:00 to the normal close. On some holidays MCX is shut all day. The Holidays page shows each one.
Does MCX trade on Saturday? No. MCX is closed on Saturdays and Sundays.
When does MCX open interest change? Through the whole session. Changes are measured against the previous session’s close, so the evening’s positions count in the same day’s numbers.
Takeaways
- MCX trading hours for energy and metals run 09:00 to 23:30 IST, and to 23:55 while US clocks are on winter time.
- The close moves because the contracts follow markets that trade in US hours; India’s clocks never change.
- An equity holiday often means an evening-only MCX session from 17:00.
- The news that moves commodity options lands in the Indian evening, so a chain read at 15:00 has not seen most of it.
- Read open interest across the whole session: the evening is where it often moves most.