The best kept secret about the Indian capital market is that in 20 years of economic liberalisation and market development, we have reduced it to a mere casino.
How wide is the public participation in the shining new India's financially successful stock exchanges? Here are some startling facts disclosed by minister of state for finance, Namo Narian Meena, in response to a question (1692) asked by Mohammed Adeeb, a Member of the Rajya Sabha.
On 10th August, the Minister said that trading in the top 10 companies accounted for nearly a quarter (24%) of the cash equity market turnover on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in the April-June 2010 period. In the derivatives segment (equity futures and options) trading in top 10 companies rose to a massive 38% of all turnover. The NSE is a near-monopoly. It has a market share of 96% (cash and derivatives combined) and has absolutely no competition in the derivatives trading segment. Trading in derivatives is seven times that of the cash segment, accounts for the bulk of its profits and therefore fat salaries of the very few at the top.
The Minister also said in his response that 67% of all transactions in the derivatives markets are by day-traders who square off their transactions on an intraday basis. In the cash segment, only 36% of the transactions lead to delivery, the rest are squared off. The NSE has 1987 securities available for trading in the cash market and 203 stocks trading in the derivatives segment, including four indices.
The data shows that the market has neither depth nor diversity and only a small segment of Indians are involved in the market - that too in the form of speculation by day traders in a few select products including the main index, Nifty, one of the largest traded products. Currently, index futures account for 11% of daily turnover while index options account for a massive 55% of daily turnover. Interestingly, futures and options trading on the 200-odd stocks account for just 34% of its daily derivatives turnover.
Also, contrary to perception, institutional investors do not dominate the market. In fact, 52% of the turnover in the cash market as well as derivatives comes from retail investors, high net worth individuals and corporate investors. This is hardly a market that can hope to support a big disinvestment programme by the government or even the fund-raising plans of large Indian companies. No wonder, retail subscriptions to public issues have dwindled.
In its zeal to add more and more stocks to drum up more and more volume, NSE has added dozens of stocks that have no trading interest and therefore no liquidity in the derivatives segment. Just 106 contracts of India's largest paint company, Asian Paints, were traded on 17th August. Container Corporation, a giant public sector company, does not trade more than 10-12 contracts a day. Recently NSE added a scrip called Samruddhi Cement - the erstwhile cement business of Grasim. On 17th just three contracts of the scrip were traded. — Sucheta Dalal & Debashis Basu
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