According to Bloomberg data, the average daily notional turnover in index and stock derivatives on the NSE stood at ₹192 lakh crore in August, the lowest since February 2025, when the figure was ₹185.2 lakh crore. This compares with an average daily turnover of ₹263 lakh crore in the first seven months of 2026.
Average daily turnover fell 10% month-on-month in August, taking NSE’s derivatives activity to less than half the record levels seen in February 2024. The NSE is the world’s largest derivatives exchange by number of contracts and commands a dominant share of India’s equity-derivatives market.
NSE’s total derivatives turnover crossed a record ₹408 lakh crore in February 2024, as a surge in retail participation fuelled derivatives activity. Since then, the regulator has introduced a slew of measures to curb speculative trading, including increasing contract sizes and limiting index expiries to a single benchmark index expiry per exchange per week.
According to Jefferies, the new closing-auction mechanism has negative implications for exchanges and brokers such as Groww as options turnover declines.
“Average daily turnover for index options premium fell to ₹539 billion in August, the lowest since February 2025,” Jefferies wrote in an investor note.
SEBI began tightening regulations around derivatives trading in late 2024 as it sought to curb excessive speculative activity. The measures included removing the popular weekly expiry for the Nifty Bank index and increasing the minimum contract size.The regulator also tightened rules around short-term speculative trading by limiting the number of weekly index-option expiries to two, down from as many as eight earlier. The changes have reduced opportunities for quick-turnaround trades, particularly those involving aggressive position-building on expiry days to profit from sharp price swings.
