Headlines continue to highlight the devastating financial ruin of investors who trade in the Futures and Options (F&O) segment, as many of them get caught in a spiral of debt. Mounting financial pressure from these trading losses has recently led to multiple cases of suicide.

At their core, F&O contracts are derivatives. They allow investors to buy, sell, or lock in the price of an underlying asset such as a stock, index, or commodity at a future date without actually owning it. While institutions use these instruments to hedge existing portfolios against market downturns, many retail participants are drawn to them solely to speculate, lured by the promise of quick money.

Also Read | India’s options boom, a 25-year-old caution

According to SEBI reports, the average investor driving this frenzy is overwhelmingly male (86.3%), hails from small tier-2 and tier-3 cities (over 72%) and earns less than ₹5 lakh per annum (75%). A July 2025 SEBI study revealed that over 90% of individual traders incurred heavy losses over the four-year period from FY22; aggregate retail losses surpassed ₹2.8 lakh crore, with the average net loss per participant pegged above ₹4 lakh. Only 1% of retail traders managed a profit exceeding ₹1 lakh.

Rigged playing field

Over the last eight years, India has evolved from a marginal player into one of the world’s largest F&O markets. This hyper-growth began during the FY16 to FY19 period, when exchanges introduced weekly-expiring contracts in addition to the traditional month-end expiries. Fuelled by a booming bull market, smooth mobile trading apps, instant UPI fund transfers, aggressive ‘how-to-trade’ content via social media, and cheap discount brokerages, entering the market became effortless. However, the psychological thrill of fast cash has blinded users to reality: over 75% of loss-making retail traders continue to trade year after year, even after sustaining heavy losses.

Also Read | SEBI must name ‘big players’ profiteering at expense of small traders in F&O trading: Rahul

Retail traders lose because they are bringing knives to a gunfight. SEBI’s research reveals that 97% of institutional profits and 96% of proprietary trading profits in the Indian F&O market are generated by algorithmic trading. These institutional desks utilise lightning-fast code co-located directly inside exchange servers. Retail investors are competing against highly sophisticated, millisecond-fast automated strategies they cannot access. A July 2025 SEBI interim order banned Jane Street, an American quantitative trading firm, for index manipulation, highlighting how high-frequency traders exploit retail participants in the F&O market. Furthermore, individual traders focus purely on whether an option premium moves up or down, completely ignoring the massive layer of statutory taxes, platform fees, and transaction charges applied to every click. Over 70% of these transaction costs stem from brokerage and exchange fees. In FY24, retail traders incurred a total net loss of ₹74,800 crore. Of this, ₹22,450 crore went entirely toward transaction costs. When you strip away these costs, individual traders suffered a gross trading loss of ₹52,400 crore. Crucially, this wealth was transferred directly to the other side of the aisle: proprietary traders booked ₹33,000 crore in gross profits, while Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) took home ₹28,000 crore.

Both SEBI and the Union Government have tried to cool this market. Regulators have hiked minimum contract sizes, limited weekly expiries, mandated upfront premiums, enforced a 50% cash collateral rule, introduced stringent intra-day position monitoring and forced brokers to display prominent risk disclosures.

Additionally, the government has repeatedly increased the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on options premium/ intrinsic value to 0.15% and on futures to 0.05%, to deter ultra-short-term speculation. Ironically, because retail behaviour hasn’t changed, this higher STT has largely acted as an additional tax penalty, worsening the net losses of uninformed investors.

While these initiatives caused a brief contraction in overall F&O volumes, retail investors are stubbornly staying put. In fact, NSE volumes from May 2026 show that the proportion of individual investors in the Equity Derivatives pool actually rose by 4% year-on-year to hit 31%. As FPIs and proprietary traders reduce their exposure, retail traders are choosing to make up a larger slice of a highly volatile, shrinking pie.

The way forward

Indian regulators must now look toward global safeguards. Mature derivatives markets do not rely on warnings; they enforce strict entry barriers and suitability systems to limit speculative risks.

For example, in Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore requires brokers to conduct a formal Customer Knowledge Assessment for exchange-traded derivatives. Similarly, in the U.S., under the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Know Your Customer and Suitability Rules, broker-dealers act as legally liable gatekeepers. Brokers must bucket retail clients into strict options approval tiers based on their self-certified financial health; or face severe fines and civil liabilities if they approve unseasoned traders for complex strategies.

Therefore, to protect vulnerable citizens, SEBI must move beyond passive warnings. This regulatory courage is especially critical as the National Stock Exchange (NSE) prepares for its long-awaited public debut. With a massive portion of the NSE’s IPO valuation anchored directly to the explosive transaction volumes of retail F&O trading, the exchange’s commercial incentives are fundamentally at odds with investor protection. SEBI must see past the market euphoria.

The regulator should explore implementing a baseline liquid capital threshold for F&O access, establish mandatory entry exams, and place the legal responsibility of verifying investor suitability squarely on the shoulders of the discount brokerages profiting from the volume, ensuring that a public listing for the NSE does not come at the cost of financial stability.

Swetha Sekar is VP-Equity and Credit Research, Aionion Investment Managers LLP Chennai. Anand Srinivasan is deep value investor in stocks and commodities

Published – July 20, 2026 12:30 am IST

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23 proposed to increase the rate of securities transaction tax (STT) on futures and options (F&O) trade to discourage retail investors’ participation in the risky instrument.

“It is proposed to increase the rates of STT on the sale of an option in securities from 0.0625% to 0.1% of the option premium, and on sale of a futures in securities from 0.0125% to 0.02% of the price at which such futures are traded,” she said in the Union Budget speech.

This came after the Economic Survey flagged concerns over rising retail investors’ interest in derivative trading. The survey stated that speculative trade has no place in a developing country.

It also pointed out that the sharp increase in retail investor participation in F&O trading is likely driven by humans’ gambling instincts.

“Derivatives trading holds the potential for outsized gains. Thus, it caters to humans’ gambling instincts and can augment income if profitable. These considerations are likely driving active retail participation in derivatives trading,” according to the Economic Survey 2023-24.

Recently, Sebi chief Madhabi Puri Buch also cautioned investors against heavy bets on F&O. Before that, Ms. Sitharaman and Chief Economic Adviser V, Anantha Nageswaran flagged the growing risk of F&O trading for retail investors.

F&O trading continues to grow in popularity, and market experts believe that this is driven by the potential for profit and the rising trading volumes. Experts said investors who lack understanding or risk appetite should avoid derivatives trading.

The segment’s popularity is evident from its massive growth, with the monthly turnover in the F&O segment reaching ₹8,740 lakh crore in March 2024, compared to ₹217 lakh crore in March 2019.

At the same time, the average daily turnover in the equity cash segment was ₹1 lakh crore, while the F&O segment saw an average daily turnover of about ₹330 lakh crore.

Futures and Options trading involves contracts that derive their value from an underlying asset, such as stocks or commodities. Futures contracts obligate the buyer and seller to transact at a predetermined future date and price, while options give the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell the asset at a set price within a specific period.

These financial instruments are used for hedging risks, speculating on price movements, and arbitraging price differences. However, they come with significant risks, including leverage risk and market volatility, which can lead to substantial losses.

Futures and Options trading is largely being utilised as a speculative tool for quick profits in the stock market. However, the reality is that most retail investors are losing money.

A study by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) revealed that 89 per cent of individual traders in the equity F&O segment suffered losses, with average losses of Rs 1.1 lakh in FY22.

Additionally, there was an exponential increase in the F&O segment participation during the pandemic, with the total number of unique individual traders increasing by over 500% from 7.1 lakh in FY19 to 45.24 lakh in FY21, the study noted.

Earlier, Buch stated that the capital markets regulator is “compelled” to warn against speculative bets in the F&O segment because it has become a “macro issue”, affecting the broader economy now.

Household financial savings are going into the speculative bets, belying the expectations of being used for capital formation, and the youth is losing tonnes of money in such trades, she stated.

Last month, the Sebi board approved stricter norms for the entry of individual stocks in the derivatives segment. The proposal is aimed at weeding out stocks with consistently low turnover from the F&O segment of the bourses.

New Delhi:

The rapid rise in Futures and Options (F&O) trade volumes in recent years could pose several challenges as retail investors not following proper risk management could be impacted by sudden movements in markets, said a Reserve Bank report.

The equity derivatives segment has been witnessing growing participation from retail investors in recent years. It has gone up by 42.8 per cent from 65 lakh during 2022-23 to 95.7 lakh during 2023-24.

While trading volumes in derivatives segment has seen exponential growth over the years in notional terms, the trading volumes when measured by the premium turnover has witnessed a linear growth pattern, said the RBI’s bi-annual Financial Stability Report (FSR).

The ratio of premium turnover to cash market has remained steady over the last three years.

FSR said equity derivatives market can improve price discovery and enhance market liquidity in underlying cash markets. It, however, is also associated with higher risks.

“Since derivatives are more complex than the underlying, investor protection is a key regulatory imperative,” the report said.

A SEBI research published in January 2023 showed that 89 per cent of individual participants in F&O lost money in the segment during fiscal year 2018-19 and fiscal year 2021-22.

“…the rapid rise in F&O volumes in recent years could pose several challenges: retail investors could be impacted by sudden movements in markets without proper risk management and this could have knock-on effects on cash market; rise in popularity of shorter-duration options in indices with few stocks and high volatility could amplify leverage…,” the report said.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has instituted an expert working group, under the Secondary Markets Advisory Committee, to review F&O markets from the perspective of investor protection as well as overall systemic risk management.

SEBI is also in the process of reviewing the corpus of the Settlement Guarantee Fund (SGF), stress testing methodologies and scenarios for computation of core SGF to build a more resilient settlement system to meet contingencies arising due to failure to honour obligations by any member of a stock exchange.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

V. Anantha Nageswaran, Chief Economic Advisor. File.
| Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

Chief Economic Advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran on March 14 said he is “worried” over retail investors’ play in risky Futures and Options (F&O) segment in search of instant profits.

Speaking at a conference organised by capital markets regulator Sebi and NISM, Nageswaran said the biggest threat to sustainable capital formation and also sustainable economic growth is the “short-termism” in attitudes that the country is afflicted with.

Bemoaning the “furore” caused every time, there is a discussion on allowing corporate groups to promote banks despite the need for capital in a growing economy, Mr. Nageswaran said India Inc needs to reflect on the state of corporate governance practices and analyse its own conduct.

“The biggest risk for sustained capital formation and sustained economic growth is… in our short-termism,” he said.

He added that it is “puzzling” to see that a country otherwise blessed with a “deep spiritual heritage and wisdom” is actually interpreting mindfulness and living in the present in the wrong ways.

Mr. Nageswaran rued that even now, people are mentioning handsome growth in F&O volumes, despite SEBI’s own studies suggesting that 90% of trades in the riskier segment leading to losses for investors.

“Our actions make me worry that we may be interpreting mindfulness and living in the present as being myopic,” he said, making it clear that those two concepts stress on performing one’s duty and obligations without thinking about the fruits of the actions.

He said there is a need to change the outlook from a behaviourial perspective to achieve goals like long-term capital formation and growth.

Mr. Nageswaran rued that there is an “adversarial” attitude among many stakeholders when it comes to regulators, wherein people overlook the fact a regulator’s job is to have a long-term view of things and “providing counterbalance for instant gratification or myopia”.

“The underline focus that the regulators have is to ensure that we stay stronger for longer rather than get caught up in the immediate euphoria of our growth rates, market valuations,” he said.

Amid concerns that the activity in the F&O segment is fuelled by those seeking quick profits, he said the rising exposure of small investors in the segment “is a worry because we don’t want to go through boom and bust cycles again and again”.

Mr. Nageswaran said the economy is likely to grow 7% in FY25 as well, which will make it the third year in a row when the GDP has grown at over 7%.

Stating that capital formation and economic growth are interdependent, wherein one feeds into another, he said the only mantra for policymakers in such times is not to be conventional and described India’s prudent response to the Covid crisis as a case in point.

However, sustaining high growth performance has been “elusive” for India, which has had short periods of high growth that are typically followed by a long period of balancesheet repair, dud loan cleaning for lenders, etc, he said, reminding that “we need to keep in mind that China grew around double digits for three decades”.

“There is a need to ensure that we don’t indulge in excess lending or excess borrowing in the current cycle as well”, he said, adding that we need to make detailed plans with projections on growth, capital required, how it will come, how much as debt and how much as equity.

Banks also need to be adequately capitalised to fund the growth needs of the economy, and corporate ownership of banks will have to be allowed if the banks are to get the capital, he said.

“Why is it a taboo to even discuss corporate ownership of banks? The fact that a mere discussion of the idea of licensing of banks to corporate houses creates such a backlash or a furore is indeed a cause for reflection on the part of the corporates too,” he said.

“It is also unfortunately a reflection on the overall state of corporate governance in the country,” Mr. Nageswaran said.