SEBI must reveal ‘big players’ making profits at expense of small investors: Rahul Gandhi on ‘uncontrolled’ F&O trading | Stock Market News

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday, September 24, that capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) must reveal the names of the ‘big players’ who have been making profits at the expense of small retail investors. Amid the Congress vs SEBI row where the opposition has repeatedly attacked SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch over corruption charges, Gandhi took to microblogging platform ‘X’ and claimed that small investors have lost as much as ₹1.8 lakh crore in three years.

“Uncontrolled F&O trading has grown 45x in 5 years. 90 per cent of small investors have lost ₹1.8 lakh crore in 3 years. SEBI must reveal the names of the so called “Big Players“ making a killing at their expense,” said Gandhi in a post on ‘X’.

According to a study conducted by SEBI, more than 91 per cent, or 73 lakh, individual traders lost money in the F&O segment in FY24 with an average net loss of ₹1.2 lakh per person. Further, 93 per cent of over one crore individual F&O traders incurred average losses of about ₹2 lakh per trader (inclusive of transaction costs) during the three years from FY22 to FY24. The aggregate losses of such traders exceeded ₹1.8 lakh crore during the period.