Muhurat Trading: Does That One Hour Actually Predict Anything? I Checked 20 Years of Nifty Data

Every Diwali the same headline shows up: "Sensex, Nifty end Muhurat session in green, Samvat begins on a positive note." Someone in the family WhatsApp group forwards it, and someone else says this means a good year is coming. I've believed a version of that myself. So this year, before the session on Sunday, 8 November 2026, I pulled every Muhurat close since 2006 and checked one simple thing: does a green Muhurat hour tell you anything about the year that follows?

Short answer: no. The longer answer is more interesting, because the one year that seems to prove the pattern is exactly the year that breaks it.

First, what Muhurat trading actually is

Muhurat trading is a special one-hour session that NSE and BSE hold on Diwali (Lakshmi Puja), even though the day is otherwise a market holiday. It marks the start of the new Hindu accounting year, Samvat. Many traditional business families place a token buy order for good luck, and plenty of long-term investors use it to start a new SIP or buy a stock they were planning to buy anyway.

In 2026 the session falls on Sunday, 8 November, which begins Samvat 2083. The exchanges announce the exact timing in a circular closer to the date, so check NSE's website before you plan anything around it.

How I tested it

I kept the test as plain as possible, so anyone can repeat it:

• Session result: the Nifty 50's percentage change on Muhurat day (green or red).
• Samvat-year return: Nifty's change from one Muhurat close to the next Muhurat close. That's exactly one Samvat year, Diwali to Diwali.
• Period: 2006 to 2025, which gives 20 sessions and 19 complete Samvat years.

If the Muhurat hour carried real information, green sessions should be followed by clearly better years than red ones. Here's the full record.

The full record: 2006 to 2025

Muhurat session change is versus the previous trading day's close, as reported by Dhan's historical Muhurat data (2006–2024) and news reports for 2025. Samvat-year return is my calculation from one Muhurat close to the next. *Samvat 2082 is still running: Nifty closed at 22,776 on 6 October 2026.

At first glance, it looks like it works

Split the 19 complete years into two groups and take the average:

• After a green Muhurat session (14 years): Nifty averaged +19.4% over the Samvat year.
• After a red Muhurat session (5 years): Nifty averaged just +0.7%.

That's a big gap. If I stopped here, I could write a viral headline: "Green Muhurat = 19% year!" Plenty of people would share it. It would also be wrong.

Then you look at 2007 and 2008

Look at those two rows again. Diwali 2007 was the peak of the pre-crisis bull market. The Muhurat session was red, and over the next year Nifty more than halved as the global financial crisis hit. Diwali 2008 came close to the bottom. The session jumped 6.35%, a huge move for one hour, and the following year Nifty nearly doubled.

Neither of those was the Muhurat hour predicting anything. In 2008 the market had been falling for months, and a sharp relief bounce happened to land on Diwali. The recovery that followed came from global stimulus and a market that had simply fallen too far, not from a good omen.

Those two years are extreme enough to drag the averages around on their own. So let's see what's left without them.

Remove the two crisis years and the "pattern" doesn't shrink. It disappears, and if anything it slightly reverses.

The honest numbers

The median is the middle value, so one freak year can't distort it. On the median, years that started with a red session actually did a little better. Remove 2007 and 2008 and the averages are almost identical: about 14% either way.

I also ran a simple correlation between the session's move and the year's return. With all years included it looks strong (0.69). Remove 2008 alone and it drops to 0.31. Remove 2007 as well and it's −0.07, which is statistically nothing. One hour of trading on Diwali night has no measurable link to the next twelve months.

Samvat 2082: the year that should end the WhatsApp forwards

Last Diwali, on 21 October 2025, the Muhurat session closed green again, up 0.10% at 25,868.60. That made it eight green sessions in a row since 2018. The festive optimism headlines were everywhere.

Then came 2026. Nifty fell more than 11% in March alone and lost another 6% in September. By 6 October 2026 it was at 22,776, about 12% below that "auspicious" Muhurat close, with a month of the Samvat year still to go.

The green streak tells you something real, just not what people think. Muhurat sessions are thin, short and full of small symbolic buy orders, so they lean green. That says a lot about Diwali mood and nothing about earnings, interest rates or global flows, which are what actually move the market over a year.

So what should you do this Muhurat?

1. Enjoy the tradition, but don't trade the omen. If you want to buy something symbolic, buy something you'd happily hold for years. Don't build a trade around how the hour closes.
2. Be careful with intraday trading in the session. Liquidity is thin, spreads can be wide and prices can jump on small orders. Use limit orders, not market orders.
3. Use it as a reminder, not a signal. Diwali is a good yearly prompt to review your portfolio, raise your SIP amount or rebalance. Those habits actually compound.
4. Look at the long run. From the 2006 Muhurat close to the 2025 one, Nifty compounded at about 10.8% a year, through red sessions, green sessions and two crashes. That was the real "Diwali effect": staying invested.

The verdict

Muhurat trading is a lovely tradition, and I'll probably place a small buy order myself this year. But the data is clear: whether the session closes green or red tells you nothing useful about the next Samvat year. The apparent pattern comes from a single crisis-and-recovery cycle in 2007–08, and it vanishes as soon as you use a median or leave those two years out.

If you want a good Samvat 2083, the answer is the same boring one as every year: invest regularly, size your positions sensibly and stop reading tea leaves in one hour of thin trading.

Frequently asked questions

When is Muhurat trading in 2026?

NSE's 2026 holiday list says Muhurat trading will be held on Sunday, 8 November 2026, on Diwali Lakshmi Puja. The exact one-hour timing is announced in an exchange circular closer to the date.

Is it good to buy stocks on Muhurat trading day?

It's fine as a tradition, as long as the stock is one you'd buy on any normal day. The day itself doesn't improve your odds. History shows the following year has been good or bad regardless of how the session went.

Why do Muhurat sessions usually close green?

The session is short, volumes are low and many participants place small symbolic buy orders. That creates a mild upward bias on the day. It's a sentiment effect, not a forecast.

Are trades in the Muhurat session settled normally?

Yes. Trades made during Muhurat trading are regular trades and settle like any other session. Intraday positions are squared off at the end of the session, so check your broker's rules before trading.

Disclaimer: WelthWest is an analytics and education platform, not a SEBI-registered investment adviser or broker. Historical data is sourced from publicly reported Muhurat session results and may differ slightly between sources. Past performance does not indicate future returns. This article is for educational purposes only and is not investment advice.