SEBI Study: F&O curbs brings a decline in traders and the losses they made

A study released by market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India on Monday, July 7, showed that the losses made by individual traders within the Equity Derivatives space, in financial year 2025 widened compared to financial year 2024.However, the introduction of curbs by the regulator towards the end of calendar year 2024 brought about a decline, not only in the number of unique traders within the derivatives market, but also in the losses individual traders made.
Starting November 20, 2024 until April 1, 2025, SEBI introduced a set of seven measures for the futures and options market. They included:

Measures	Effective From
Rationalisation of Weekly Index Derivative Products	November 20, 2024
Increase in tail risk coverage on options expiry day	November 20, 2024
Increased Contract Size For Index Derivatives	January 2, 2025
Rationalisation of Monthly Index Derivative Products	January 2025
Upfront Collection of Option Premium from Buyers	February 10, 2025
Removal Of Calendar Spread Treatment On Expiry	February 10, 2025
Intraday Monitoring Of Position Limits	April 1, 2025

As a result, between the third and fourth quarter of financial year 2025, the number of traders within the Equity Derivatives Space fell to 42.7 lakh from 53.5 lakh.
The net loss made by traders during this period also narrowed to ₹24,745 crore from ₹33,661 crore.At the end of the fourth quarter, the percentage of loss-making traders stood at 86.4% from 88.5% earlier, while the average loss per trader also declined to ₹57,920 from ₹62,975 in the third quarter, according to the SEBI study.

Quarter	% Loss Making	Average Loss Per Trader (₹)
Q1 FY25	84.5	34,606
Q2 fy25	86.3	43,847
Q3 FY25	88.5	62,975
Q4 FY25	86.4	57,920

Post the introduction of these measures, the number of unique traders across categories has also see a decline. Between December 2024 to May 2025, the number of traders with a traded value of less than ₹10,000, fell by 30% when compared to December 2023 to May 2024. Other segments also witnessed losses.

Traded Value	Change (YoY)
< ₹10,000	-30%
₹10,000 – ₹1 Lakh	-22%
₹ 1 lakh – ₹ 10 lakh	-24%
₹10 Lakh – ₹1 Crore	-14%
₹1 Crore – ₹10 Crore	-4%
> ₹10 Crore	-11%

Despite this decline, the SEBI study maintains that India continues to see relatively very high activity within the equity derivatives market, in comparison to other countries.

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