Retail catches a falling knife as NSE shares dive

Retail exposure may be overstated, shows NSE data, amid talks to replace weekly contracts with fortnightly or monthly tenures. reuters

- Ram Sahgal

Late entrants into the National Stock Exchange’s (NSE) unlisted shares have been singed by a steep correction in its stock price over the past two weeks, compounding losses since July’s record highs.

The fall has hurt retail shareholdersthe most, whose numbers quadrupled in the three months through June.

The selloffhas been driven by two concerns: marketregu-lator Sebi weighing the future of weekly index options contracts—Nifty and Sensex options—in light of the huge losses faced by individual investors, and diminished visi bility on NSE’s listing this fis cal year.

The prices of NSE’s unlisted shares have fallen 7.3% over the past two weeks to around ₹1,900-1,940 from ₹2,050 on 11 September, when Mint reported that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) could soon issue a consultation paper on extending the tenure of index options contracts from weekly to pos sibly fortnightly.

Sebi’s concern stems from its latest study showing that the average loss of 8.7 million individual traders rose to ₹1.1 lakh in FY25 from 86,728 each in FY24, largely due to weekly options trading.