Retail scramble on NSE drives delivery volumes to a record

Cash delivery volumes on India's largest stock exchange surged more than 50% to a record in the current fiscal year, driven by unprecedented retail flows.

- Ram Sahgal

Market experts predict the trend will only accelerate as more household savings flood into Indian equities.

The average delivery to traded volumes on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) rose to 31% in the April to October period of fiscal year 2026 (FY26), according to its data. That surpassed the yearly average of 20% in the past five fiscals from FY21 to FY25. NSE had a 92.2% share in the equities cash market as of the end of October, with rival BSE accounting for the remainder.

Simply put, if 100 shares have been traded so far this fiscal year, 31 have changed hands, while participants have squared off the rest. Between FY21 and FY25, 20 shares changed hands on average, while 80 were squared off within the market hours, from 9:15am to 3:30pm, Monday through Friday.