The massive daily turnovers of the two national bourses hide some shocking facts, as the finance ministry’s startling revelations in Parliament reveal.
Narrow, shallow, illiquid and concentrated in the hands of a few individuals located in a few centres — that describes the state of the Indian Capital Market, nearly 20 years after India embarked on financial liberalisation and ostensibly unleashed a boom in stock investing and spreading the equity cult. In fact, the boom is eyewash and this information is provided by none other than the minister of state for finance, Namo Narain Meena, in response to a question in Parliament (Unstarred question 1669) on 10 August 2010 by Rajya Sabha MP Sardar Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa.
Mr Dhindsa asked for the number of client identities and PAN identities who actively traded in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and contribute to 50%, 60%, 70% and 80% and 90% of total trading turnover on an average, on a daily basis in the cash equity market and in the equity futures & options segment. He asked for these numbers to be provided for the three-month period from April 2010 to June 2010. The numbers are absolutely startling.
According to Mr Meena, only 30.90 lakh investors traded on the NSE’s cash market in the April-June quarter. Of these 52% were retail, High Networth Individuals (HNIs) and corporate customers. Institutional investors and proprietary traders accounted for 48% of all trading (24% each).
Slice the data further and these figures should be extremely worrisome for policymakers. First, 90% of trading in the April-June 2010 period came from just 192,200 investors, says the Minister. Break it down further and the Minister says 80% of turnover came from just 41,654 investors. In other words, 1,50,546 investors (78%) accounted for just 10% of trading turnover.
Cut it further and it gets worse. Just 8,727 investors accounted for 70% of turnover among which 413 were proprietary traders, mainly brokerage houses. The Minister goes on to say that 60% of trading came from a mere 1,563 traders and half the trading turnover (50%) came from a shockingly low 451 of which 156 were proprietary traders! Mind you, this is data for a three-month period and not one single day.
The National Stock Exchange (NSE) records an average daily turnover of over Rs12,000 crore in the cash segment (up from over Rs4,500 crore in 2005-06) and over Rs83,000 crore in the futures and options (derivatives) segment while the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) records a daily turnover of over Rs3,000 crore in the cash segment. While these numbers are much higher than what they were a decade ago, but they are misleading.
The derivatives segment of NSE is seven times larger than the cash segment and the main source of NSE’s profits and therefore massive salaries of its top management. So, shouldn’t it have more participants and a less skewed participation? Instead, the numbers here are downright scary and indicate that this market is just a casino frequented by a small closed club. According to Mr Meena, only 5.75 lakh clients traded in derivatives in the three-month period. Of these, 90% of trading came from just 18,035 (including 520 proprietary traders). This means that 5.57 lakh clients (97%) accounted for only 10% of total trading while only 3% of clients accounted for 90% of the trading!
Split it further and the number drops dramatically. Only 2,188 investors accounted for 80% of derivatives turnover in the three-month period. Just 537 investors account for 70% of trading, 223 investors accounted for 60% of trading, of which over half were proprietary brokerage firms. And a massive 50% of trading NSE's derivatives trading turnover, the main pillar of the Indian stock market system, comes from just 106 investors of which 58 are proprietary traders! How skewed can a stock market be, which is supposed to include a wide swathe of population?
Further, the Minister says that the top 25 brokerage firms on the NSE accounted for 42% and 43% of the cash equity and equity stock futures and options turnover in the April-June 2010 period. Can you imagine the phenomenal influence on stock prices that these 25 firms (out of 1,055 in the derivatives segment) have on stock prices? Hopefully, some Member of Parliament will ask the finance ministry for the names of these firms. Since the NSE has been fighting against disclosures under the Right to Information Act and the data is not in its annual report, the only way that the India public can get information about the big national hoax of an expanding capital market is through questions asked in Parliament. It will also be interesting to ask if the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has any special monitoring mechanism for the 106 investors who account for half the derivatives market turnover.
But to really put the information in perspective, you have to look at the massive trading numbers that hide these pathetic participation figures. In the April-June 2010 period, the NSE’s trading turnover in the derivatives segment was Rs58,31,715 crore and in the cash segment it was Rs8,47,300 crore. In comparison, the BSE’s derivatives turnover was a pathetic Rs7 crore while its cash turnover was Rs2,73,101 crore.
In effect, the NSE, with a 96% market share (cash and derivatives put together) is a virtual monopoly. Yet, misleadingly, we tend to talk about the NSE and BSE almost as though they are equally large exchanges. This is probably because the BSE enjoyed a virtual monopoly for all but the past 15 years of its 130-odd years of existence.
Our perception about investor participation is also grossly misleading. According to the D Swarup Committee report, India has 80 lakh investors (who invest in debt and equity markets, either directly or through mutual funds and market-linked insurance plans). This official figure also represents a sharp decline from the two crore (20 million) investor population, claimed in investor surveys commissioned by SEBI in the 1990s. — Sucheta Dalal & Debashis Basu
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