Petition to SEBI: Phase Out Single-Stock Futures and Build a Fairer Indian Equity Market

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The Issue

Petition to SEBI:

Phase Out Single-Stock Futures and Build a Fairer Indian Equity Market
To: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Government of India
Objective: Phase out single-stock futures, deepen equity market liquidity, build a robust stock-options ecosystem, and establish an efficient securities lending framework.

 
1. Executive Summary

Our India is a great nation of over 140 crore (1.4 billion) people, with one of the world's fastest-growing capital markets. The capital markets of our nation should be driven by, and represent the voice of, our own domestic investors. However, a fundamental structural flaw threatens the fairness, depth, and sovereignty of our equity markets: the existence of a massive, leveraged single-stock futures market alongside the underlying cash equity market.

By allowing leveraged economic exposure to individual companies through futures, we have effectively split our markets in two. Even though domestic retail clients and DIIs persist with heavy purchases almost every time, the directional positioning and intentions of foreign participants prevail. Despite holding only a 16% share of total ownership, foreign participants command a 43% share in free float and nearly a 45% share in stock futures turnover. Single-Stock Futures (SSFs) serve as the primary market structure used to drive profits. Even though the Indian cost of trading is very high, this system forces domestic retail/client investors to pay the price, while physical equity holdings are used as a tool. This mechanism snatches control away from genuine Indian participants and hands it to highly capitalized players. This structure fragments liquidity, increases transaction costs, and enables a few participants to exert disproportionate influence on individual stock prices.

We petition SEBI to systematically phase out single-stock futures (SSFs) and restore control of India's capital market to its own investors, redirecting activity toward the primary equity market, a liquid stock-options market, and a robust Securities Lending and Borrowing (SLB) mechanism.

 
2. The Core Problem: Why Single-Stock Futures Harm the Market

A. Fragmentation of Liquidity and Reduced Market Depth
Trading activity and economic exposure are divided between underlying shares and a parallel, leveraged futures market. This leaves the underlying equity market far less liquid than it should be. The market for actual company ownership is weakened by a parallel derivatives market, leading to:

  1. Lower order-book depth in the cash market
  2. Wider bid-ask spreads and higher transaction costs for long-term investors
  3. Greater price impact when buying or selling actual shares.

B. The Tail Wagging the Dog: Futures as the Primary Profit Engine
In a healthy financial system, the equity market should drive price discovery, while derivatives serve to hedge and complement it. Currently, this hierarchy is reversed:

Leveraged Exposure: Large leveraged futures positions allow participants to establish massive economic exposure with minimal upfront capital.
Cash Market as a Tool: Transactions in the underlying cash market are frequently used merely to establish, influence, or hedge these massive futures positions.
Reversed Hierarchy: The primary profit objective becomes the derivatives position, while the underlying equity market is relegated to a supporting tool.
Expiry Targeting and Overriding Fundamentals: Large institutions use Single-Stock Futures to perform expiry targeting of individual stocks. Equipped with massive derivative positions, they use their directional intent to prevail over genuine fundamental triggers—even when those fundamental triggers run contrary to their directional positioning. They leverage physical equity in the cash market purely as a tool to drive the stock to target prices, securing derivative profits at the expense of fair value.
C. Structural Disadvantage and Asymmetry
Ordinary retail investors and long-term owners operate primarily in the cash equity market. In contrast, highly capitalized institutional participants can combine Futures Power (high leverage), Equity Power (large physical holdings), and Financial Power (high-speed technology and deep capital reserves).

This combination allows sophisticated players to influence cash market price discovery to benefit their larger derivatives positions—a structural advantage that ordinary investors cannot match. The objective of removing SSF is to build a fairer market where no participant is disadvantaged simply because of their financial status.

 
3. Data Analysis: Evidence of Derivatives Dominance

An analysis of 208 F&O securities conducted on August 13, 2026 (a normal trading day) demonstrates the scale of this structural imbalance:

A. Aggregate Equity vs. Single-Stock Futures
Securities Analysed: 208
Securities where Futures Volume > Equity Volume: 116 (55.8%)
Securities where Futures Volume < Equity Volume: 92 (44.2%)
Total Equity Value: ₹56,724.60 Cr
Total Futures Value: ₹58,377.73 Cr
Futures-to-Equity Ratio (Aggregate): 1.03×
While the aggregate numbers look comparable, the disparity is stark when looking at the 116 securities where futures dominate:

Equity Value in these 116 securities: ₹23,090.59 Cr
Futures Value in these 116 securities: ₹34,414.95 Cr
Excess Futures Value: +₹11,324.36 Cr
B. Concentration of Futures Activity
The dominance of futures is highly concentrated in specific stocks, creating severe price-discovery risks:

1.00× to 1.25× Ratio: 33 securities (+₹975.50 Cr excess futures)
1.25× to 1.50× Ratio: 18 securities (+₹885.83 Cr excess futures)
1.50× to 2.00× Ratio: 40 securities (+₹5,297.12 Cr excess futures)
2.00× to 3.00× Ratio: 19 securities (+₹1,991.51 Cr excess futures)
Above 3.00× Ratio: 6 securities (+₹2,174.40 Cr excess futures)
C. Examples of Extreme Disparities
In several liquid and mid-cap stocks, the futures market is more than triple the size of the actual equity market:

PATANJALI:            Equity ₹53.59 Cr    | Futures ₹230.96 Cr | Ratio: 4.31×
ALKEM:                    Equity ₹17.94 Cr     | Futures ₹65.81 Cr | Ratio: 3.67×
DALBHARAT:       Equity ₹9.73 Cr       | Futures ₹35.57 Cr | Ratio: 3.66×
IREDA:                      Equity ₹28.41 Cr     | Futures ₹91.39 Cr | Ratio: 3.22×
PAGEIND:               Equity ₹451.05 Cr  | Futures ₹1,414.07 Cr | Ratio: 3.14×
JUBLFOOD:          Equity ₹432.94 Cr   | Futures ₹1,330.26 Cr | Ratio: 3.07×
This massive concentration of futures activity in relatively thin cash markets makes underlying stock prices highly vulnerable to price pressure originating from derivatives positioning.

D. Institutional Imbalances: FIIs, DIIs, and the Nifty 50 Float

While domestic retail and institutional flows have strengthened, a structural imbalance persists:

DII Purchases Exceed FII Selling: Over the last two years, Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) have registered net purchases that exceed the net sales of Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), showing strong domestic support for Indian companies.
FII Micro-Control via Futures: Despite massive domestic buying, FIIs are often able to micro-control individual stock and market trends. They do this by combining their large equity holdings in high-float stocks with heavy single-stock futures turnover.
Equity as a Tool for Futures Profits: When foreign institutions sell stocks, they frequently use single-stock futures as their primary profiting avenue. They use physical equity transactions in the cash market as a tool to press prices and trigger movements that maximize profits on their leveraged derivatives.
The Nifty 50 Float Vulnerability: Because the free float in Nifty 50 companies remains high (averaging around 43%), and because FIIs are armed with large equity blocks alongside leveraged stock futures, domestic retail clients and DIIs are often ineffective in setting fair stock or market trends. The high float is leveraged by FIIs as a tool to drive prices in the direction of their derivatives positioning.
FII Cash vs. Stock Futures Activity: During the analyzed period, FII cash-market activity was ₹29,495.61 Cr, while their Stock Futures activity reached ₹27,901.29 Cr (equivalent to 94.6% of their reported cash-market volume). This massive derivative-to-cash volume ratio highlights the heavy reliance on leveraged instruments to drive pricing.


4. International Context: Banned in Major Markets

We must look at global precedents to understand how mature financial systems protect their equity markets:

Banned in the US and Japan: Developed markets like the United States and Japan have historically banned or heavily restricted single-stock futures to protect cash market integrity, limit speculative leverage, and prevent price manipulation.
Exchange Competition vs. Market Fairness: While exchanges like the CME Group have recently launched single-stock futures, their turnover is extremely low compared to the main equity and options exchanges. These are commercial exchange products designed to win market share and compete globally, rather than choices driven by market fairness, structural stability, or the protection of retail investors. Regulators must distinguish between commercial exchange incentives and public market integrity.

 
5. The Retail Impact: Enormous F&O Losses

According to SEBI's own studies, 93% of individual traders incurred losses in equity F&O between FY2022 and FY2024, resulting in aggregate retail losses exceeding Rs. 1.8 lakh crore.

Single-stock futures are the sole cause, and this massive transfer of wealth highlights the unequal playing field. Rather than framing this purely as a failure of retail financial literacy, regulators must ask: Does our current market structure give highly capitalized participants a systemic, structural advantage to capture these retail losses?

Phasing out single-stock futures will reduce speculative leverage on individual companies and protect retail capital from complex, high-risk instruments.

 
6. Our Proposal: A Healthier, Modern Capital Market

Phasing out single-stock futures does not mean simplifying or weakening India's capital markets. We propose replacing them with a modern, stable structure used by other global financial hubs:

[ Individual Stocks ]  -->  Trade via Cash Equity + Deep Options + Securities Lending (SLB)
[ Broad Market Index ] -->  Trade via Index Futures + Index Options (Retained for Hedging)
[ Phased Out ]         -->  Single-Stock Futures (SSFs)

A. Redirect Liquidity to Cash Equities
Without a parallel futures market, institutional and retail flow will consolidate in the underlying shares, deepening the order book, narrowing spreads, and ensuring that price discovery represents genuine long-term demand and supply.

B. Build a Deep, Liquid Stock-Options Market
Currently, stock option liquidity in India is very low on many stocks, characterized by wide bid-ask spreads and extremely low trading volume, making option trading inefficient and costly for most individual stocks. To address this, SEBI and exchanges should support:

Highly Liquid Options for 1000+ Stocks: Ensure options contracts are liquid and actively traded for more than 500 stocks (expanding significantly beyond the current limited set).
Deep Liquidity Across Strikes: Guarantee tight spreads and depth across multiple strike prices and expiries.
Restore Cash Settlement (Bid Farewell to Physical Delivery): Banish the mandatory physical delivery settlement system, which has caused enormous pain to stock options participants. The high delivery margins required for physical settlement have severely damaged the execution of multi-leg options strategies. In the final week of expiry, option pricing and volumes are severely impacted for retail investors who are forced to close positions early due to prohibitive settlement margins. Meanwhile, large institutional investors easily leverage their massive collateral pools to hold whatever positions they want, creating a severe playing-field imbalance. Restoring cash-settlement will democratize access and revive late-cycle option liquidity.
Native Strategy Instruments: Introduce standardized, exchange-traded multi-leg strategy instruments (e.g., vertical spreads, calendar spreads, collars, and straddles) to allow defined-risk hedging without the need for futures.
C. Strengthen Securities Lending and Borrowing (SLB)
Short selling is essential for fair price discovery. Instead of using futures for short exposure, India should establish an efficient, accessible SLB framework:

Seamless integration of short selling at the trader's terminal.
Broker-managed borrowed stock with automated margin funding.
Directly linking short positions to actual borrowed shares in the cash market, eliminating artificial derivatives-based selling pressure.
D. Maintain Highly Liquid Index Derivatives
We support retaining Index Futures and Index Options (such as NIFTY and SENSEX contracts). These allow institutional and retail participants to manage systemic, sector-wide, and macro portfolio risks without distorting individual stock prices.

 
7. Our Actionable Requests to SEBI
We respectfully request SEBI and the Government of India to take the following steps:

Systematically Phase Out Single-Stock Futures: Transition all single-stock futures (large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap) out of the Indian securities market.
Review Liquidity and Price Discovery: Conduct a comprehensive study on how SSF activity impacts cash market depth and price discovery.
Restore Cash-Settled Stock Options: Abolish the mandatory physical delivery settlement system for stock options and restore cash settlement to relieve retail investors of physical delivery margin pressures during expiry week.
Enhance Securities Lending (SLB): Redesign the SLB framework to make share borrowing highly efficient, retail-accessible, and integrated directly into broker terminals.
Develop the Stock-Options Market: Work with exchanges to enhance options liquidity across strikes/expiries for more than 500 stocks and launch native exchange-traded option spreads.
Publish Granular Market Data: Release security-level derivatives data to allow independent researchers to study the relationship between futures open interest, MWPL, and underlying cash price movements.
 
Put the Indian Equity Market First.
India's capital markets belong to its 140 crore citizens. Let company ownership happen in the equity market, price discovery be anchored in the cash market, short selling be backed by real stock borrowing, and individual-stock hedging be managed through options. We must dismantle mechanisms like single-stock futures that snatch control away from Indian participants.

Sign this petition to demand a fairer, deeper, and more resilient financial market for India!

avatar of the starter
Raghunath KPetition Starter

The Decision Makers

Honourble Shri Narendra Modi
Honourble Shri Narendra Modi
Nirmal Sitharaman
Nirmal Sitharaman
Minister of Finance, Government of India
Chairman
Chairman
SEBI

Petition Updates