Sixty-seven years ago, the BSE started a tradition that still runs today — a one-hour trading window on Diwali evening, opened specifically so traders could make a symbolic first purchase in the new Samvat year. The session began in 1957, well before electronic trading, well before SEBI, and well before most of the people reading this were born. And yet here we are in 2026, still talking about it. The question is whether it deserves the noise it gets every October.
The Numbers Behind the Ritual
Start with volume, because that's where the story gets honest. During a normal NSE trading session, total cash market turnover runs roughly ₹50,000–70,000 crore on an average day. During Muhurat trading, that number collapses to around 0.4% of a normal day's volume. We're talking somewhere around ₹200–300 crore changing hands in the entire one-hour window. For context, that's less than what trades in the first five minutes on a busy Monday morning.
The Sensex has closed positive in 22 of the last 30 Muhurat sessions. That's a 73% hit rate, which sounds impressive until you look at the magnitude — the average gain across those positive sessions is just 0.3%. On the sessions that closed negative, the average fall was also mild, around 0.2–0.4%. Nothing dramatic happens in either direction. The session is, statistically speaking, a non-event dressed in festive lighting.
Who Actually Trades During Muhurat
Walk into any old-school broker's office in South Mumbai, Rajkot, or Surat on Diwali evening, and you'll see a specific kind of buyer. They're not staring at order flow or watching F&O positions. They're buying 1 share of Infosys, or 5 shares of Tata Motors, or adding a small SIP top-up to their demat account. The intent is auspicious, not analytical.
This is retail token-buying at its purest. The idea is to open the new Samvat with a fresh purchase — to "start the books" in the older Marwari trading community's language, where accounts were traditionally settled and reopened on the Hindu New Year. Most of the volume comes from exactly this behavior: small ticket sizes, sentimental picks, and zero institutional firepower.
Institutions — your FIIs, domestic mutual funds, insurance companies — largely sit out. A fund manager running a ₹15,000 crore portfolio has no operational reason to deploy capital in a 60-minute window with thin liquidity and no price discovery worth acting on. The bid-ask spreads widen, impact costs go up, and any meaningful order would move prices disproportionately. So they skip it. Muhurat is retail's hour, and retail is there for the ceremony.
The 1992 Crash That Everyone Forgets
Here's the exception that proves the rule. During the Muhurat session of Samvat 2049 — which fell in October 1992 — the market didn't do what it was supposed to. The Harshad Mehta scam had detonated earlier that year. By April 1992, the Sensex had already crashed from its peak of 4,467 down toward the 2,000s. The mood in October was fragile, and even the festive session couldn't escape it. The Muhurat close that year came in negative, one of the relatively rare instances where even symbolic buying couldn't hold the index up.
It's a useful reminder. Muhurat isn't a market-immune bubble. If macro conditions are bad enough — and 1992 was catastrophic by any measure — even the ritual session reflects reality. The 73% positive rate means roughly 1 in 4 Muhurat sessions ends in the red. Sentiment has limits.
What the Samvat Cycle Actually Tells You
Traders who follow Muhurat closely sometimes extend the analysis beyond the single session and look at full Samvat year returns. This is where the data gets marginally more interesting. Samvat years that opened on a strongly positive Muhurat session — say, gains above 0.8–1% — have historically correlated with decent annual returns more often than not. But "correlated" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and the sample size is small enough that you shouldn't build a strategy around it.
What the Samvat framework does offer is a narrative anchor. Indian market participants, particularly in the cash segment, respond to stories and cycles. The beginning of a new Samvat creates a psychological reset — fresh portfolios, new watchlists, renewed conviction. Whether that translates to actual price action or just renewed confidence is hard to disentangle. But confidence is not nothing in markets.
Should You Actually Trade During Muhurat
Let's get practical. If you're a short-term trader looking for a meaningful setup, Muhurat is not your session. The volume isn't there, the price moves are shallow, and any position you take will be based on almost no real information. Trying to scalp or swing trade in 60 minutes with 0.4% of normal volume is a bad bet on pure structural grounds.
If you're a long-term investor, the picture is different — but not in the way Diwali marketing campaigns suggest. Buying during Muhurat doesn't give you a better entry price than buying the day before or the day after. Prices don't magically reset at the bell. What it does give you is a moment of intentionality. You're deciding, in a specific context, to add to your portfolio. If that ritual helps you invest more consistently over years, it has real value — just not financial-alpha value.
There's also a practical consideration. Several brokers — Zerodha, Groww, Angel One — run special Muhurat promotions with zero brokerage or cashback offers during the session. If you were planning to invest anyway and can pick up a small cost saving, that's a legitimate, if minor, reason to time a purchase to the session window.
The Real Reason It Has Lasted Since 1957
Muhurat trading has survived for nearly seven decades not because it generates returns, but because it does something markets rarely do — it connects financial activity to cultural identity. For a large chunk of India's investing population, particularly families that have been in equity markets for generations, Diwali and the market are intertwined. The new account books, the puja before trading, the first symbolic purchase — these aren't superstition. They're structure. They create a rhythm for investing that transcends quarterly results and daily noise.
For younger investors coming in through apps and discount brokers, Muhurat is a history lesson more than a trading opportunity. It's a reminder that Indian equity markets have their own texture — rooted in Marwari trading communities, Dalal Street culture, and calendars that don't align with Greenwich Mean Time.
So participate if it means something to you, skip it if you're purely return-focused, and don't let anyone sell you the idea that buying on Diwali evening will bless your portfolio with above-average returns. The Sensex doesn't know what day it is. But you now know what Muhurat actually is — and that's worth more than the 0.3% average gain that comes with it.