Interestingly, according to top NSE sources, subsequent contact by NSE officials with the top brass of some of the brokerage houses revealed that while the senior officials were in fact keen to have Saturday trading, response had been sent back to the exchange as negative by the dealers at the brokerages.

The exchange has therefore decided to conduct yet another exercise to ascertain response of members to the proposal. The move to have trading on Saturday is prompted by the fact that two days of break from trading puts the market to grave risk of extreme volatility on Monday.

"There is no way for the market to absorb news, good or bad, right from Friday evening to Monday morning. All suchnews are aborbed on the kerb which is an unregulated market and thus not healthy", said a top NSE source.

In fact, NSE has also been keen to have a session of trading in the evening as well to keep pace with the global markets. There are several international markets which open only after the Indian markets are closed and thus the trends there are not replicated immediately in the Indian market.

"These are good options to be considered but cannot be implemented unless the members do not approve of them. At the end of the day they are the ones who have to do the trading. We will not impose any decision to this effect on them", said the source.

"The response has been fairly lukewarm on Saturday trading. But it was heartening to realise that the top brass of brokerages were very keen on the facility and have asked us to send them a fresh suggestion form. We will evaluate the demand for Saturday trading once again", the source added.

In the meantime, the exchange has decided to have a two-and-a-half hourtrading session on Saturday to test its back-up hub at Pune. The hub has performed satisfactorily in the mock trading sessions but it is pertinent to put it through live trading as well, to be sure that it performs as an effective hub.

"We are doing it on a Saturday so that in case of a breakdown, our members do not suffer, considering that other exchanges would be open on weekdays", said an NSE official, allaying rumours that the trading was a percusor to the exchange moving to Saturday trading.