It’s a stock market holiday today. NSE and BSE are shut on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, for Dussehra, so there’s no cash market, no F&O and no currency derivatives session. Dussehra appears in the NSE trading holiday list for every segment, and normal trading resumes on Wednesday, October 21.
If you had an order idea lined up after Monday’s session, it waits a day. Our Sensex and Nifty recap for October 19 has where the indices left off.
In this article
What the stock market holiday today covers
According to CNBC-TV18, both exchanges have suspended trading and settlement across equity, equity derivatives and securities lending and borrowing (SLB) for the day. NSE’s own calendar lists October 20 as a holiday for the currency derivatives segment too.
Commodities are a split case. MCX keeps its morning session shut and opens only for the evening session, which runs from 5 pm. NCDEX is closed for both sessions, as ET Markets also reported. So a gold or crude trader on MCX gets a session this evening. An equity trader doesn’t.
Why your ledger may look short today
This is the bit people tend to miss. A trading holiday is also a settlement holiday, so money from Monday’s trades doesn’t land on Tuesday. In a client bulletin, Zerodha said balances on October 20 won’t include Monday’s intraday and F&O profits, realised and mark-to-market profits from commodity positions, or credits from exiting option positions. It added that withdrawal requests placed today will be processed on October 21, with funds reaching clients by 2 pm that day.
Other brokers run their own timelines, but the basic point applies everywhere. If your available margin on the app looks lower than you expected this morning, it’s most likely the holiday, not a missing credit.
No trading today also means no settlement today, so Monday’s profits show up a day later.
Results don’t stop for the holiday
Boards can still meet and file results when the market is shut, but Tuesday is quiet anyway. The Financial Express lists only four companies for October 20: Aptus Pharma, Pioneer Agro Extracts, Shardul Securities and Shree Ram Twistex.
The rest of the week is much busier. FE’s count is 40 companies on Wednesday, including Eternal, Adani Green Energy and KEI Industries. On Thursday it’s 55, including Swiggy and HPCL. Friday is the heaviest day with 61 companies, Infosys, Coforge and Dr. Reddy’s among them. On Saturday, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IDFC First Bank and AU Small Finance Bank report. In all, FE counts 214 companies for the week. Because Wednesday’s open has to absorb Monday evening’s results and a full holiday’s worth of global news, the first few minutes could be choppy. Our week-ahead preview has the wider calendar.
Holidays left in 2026
NSE’s calendar has 16 weekday trading holidays this year. Before today, twelve had already passed. October 20 is the second closure this month, after Gandhi Jayanti on October 2. Three remain:
- Tuesday, November 10: Diwali-Balipratipada
- Tuesday, November 24: Prakash Gurpurb Sri Guru Nanak Dev
- Friday, December 25: Christmas, which makes it a long weekend
Diwali Laxmi Pujan falls on Sunday, November 8, so it doesn’t cost a trading day. The exchanges will hold the usual one-hour Muhurat Trading session that Sunday; see our Muhurat Trading 2026 post for details. On regular days, the equity market runs from 9:15 am to 3:30 pm.
Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Holiday dates are from NSE’s trading holiday calendar, and other details are from the CNBC-TV18, ET Markets, Financial Express and Zerodha pages linked above. Please consult a SEBI-registered investment adviser before making any investment decision.
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