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- National Stock Exchange of India runs the world's busiest equity derivatives market, holding an estimated 51% share of global equity derivatives contracts traded and earning around 60% of its operating revenue from options in the 12 months through March 2026.
- SEBI found that 91% of participants in India's equity derivatives market lose money, with 9.6 million individuals collectively losing a trillion rupees ($11 billion) in the financial year ending March 2025 and $30 billion over four years.
- Avadhut Sathe, a trader-turned-influencer, recruited more than 400,000 students to his training academy over the decade through October 2025, collecting $63 million in fees — while SEBI's analysis showed two-thirds of his course participants lost money in the six months after completion.
- SEBI ruled in December that Sathe breached regulations by offering stock-specific tips without registration, banning him from selling courses and ordering him to disgorge accumulated fees; the regulator is also deploying an AI tool called Sudarshan to police investment advice on social media.
- Retail trading accounts at NSE ballooned from 39.9 million to 129.1 million over five years, with options trading growing 47.5% annually, even as the government and SEBI hiked securities transaction taxes, raised minimum contract sizes, and cut weekly contract offerings.
- NSE begins marketing next week ahead of its own exchange listing — a public offering whose valuation case rests on a market segment that Indian regulators are actively trying to shrink.
Why it matters: NSE goes public with 60% of revenue tied to a product class where 91% of users lose money and that SEBI is actively trying to shrink through contract-size hikes, tax increases, and influencer crackdowns — making the IPO's valuation a direct bet on whether retail trading volumes survive the regulatory squeeze.
