Sebi bans Jane Street, impounds $566.3 million for manipulating Nifty index on expiry days

The capital markets watchdog Securities Exchange Board (Sebi) has debarred the US proprietary trading firm Jane Street Capital from accessing the securities markets, and has impounded as much as $566 million for its illegal gain from manipulating the Nifty index.

- 

According to Sebi calculation, the company and its associated entities made a whopping Rs 36,671 crore in profits between January 2023 and May 2025, Sebi said in the 105-page interim order passed by the whole-time member Anantha Narayna G late last night. Of the total gain, Sebi considers as much as $566.3 million are illegal.

The group’s total illegal profits identified across 15 days in May 2025 was Rs 4,843 crore. Between January 2023 and March 2025, JS made Rs 44,358 crore in options, lost just Rs 7,208 crore in stock futures, lost Rs 191 crore in index futures and Rs 288 crore in cash. Overall its net profit stood at Rs 36,671 crore.

What JS Group used to do was on the expiry days, it aggressively bought large amounts in BankNifty underlying stocks/futures (to the tune of Rs 4,370 crore on Jan 17, 2024 and sold this index options Rs 32,115 crore. By afternoon it aggressively sold large underlying stocks/futures worth Rs 5,372 crore. Peak short position in the index options segment was Rs 46,620 crores. Thus it made a clean profit of Rs 735 crore from index options, while its intraday loss from cash/futures was only Rs 61.6 crore.

In a 105-page order issued late Thursday night and issued by whole-time member Anantha Narayan G, stated that the US trading firm’s “four entities are restrained from accessing the securities market and are further prohibited from buying, selling or otherwise dealing in securities, directly or indirectly.”