Indian shares muted in special Saturday session

Indian shares were little changed in a special session conducted on Saturday for stock exchanges to test a failsafe system for equity trading.

Indian equities traded in two special sessions from 9:15 a.m. to 10 a.m. (0345-0430 GMT) from a primary site, and then from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (0600-0700 GMT) from a so-called disaster recovery site as exchanges tested how their systems would respond in the case of unexpected events.

India's markets regulator had scrutinised the stock exchanges - NSE and BSE, after a major trading outage in Feb. 24, 2021 due to a technical glitch, when the bourses failed to migrate to the disaster recovery site.

A similar special trading session was earlier held on March 2, 2024

The benchmark NSE Nifty 50 NIFTY settled 0.16% higher at 22,502, while the S&P BSE Sensex SENSEX added 0.12% to 74,005.94. Both the benchmarks traded in a narrow range.

"Markets are taking a cautious stance and the situation may remain challenging till national election results are out on June 4," said Ajit Mishra, vice president of research at Religare Broking.

Metals CCNXMETAL gained 0.53%, helped by top consumer China's steps to support its ailing property sector.

The broader, more domestically focused small- CNXSMALLCAP and mid-caps CNXMIDCAP rose 0.82% and 0.51% respectively, outperforming the blue chips.

Among individual stocks, Nestle India NESTLEIND added 2.23% and was the top Nifty 50 gainer. The consumer company's shareholders rejected a proposal to increase royalty payments to its Swiss parent Nestle NESN.

Drug maker Zydus Lifesciences ZYDUSLIFE climbed 5% after beating March quarter profit estimates on strong U.S. demand and powered the pharma index CNXPHARMA 0.67% higher.

JSW Steel JSWSTEEL shed 1.81% and was the top Nifty 50 loser after posting a drop in fourth-quarter profit.

Indian markets will be closed for a holiday on Monday. Trading will resume on Tuesday.