Uttar Pradesh now has more stock market investors than Gujarat, shows NSE data

A retail trading boom is on in India. The frenzy is visible in the data put out by the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. — the world’s largest derivatives bourse by the number of contracts traded.

The number of investors in India went past the 8 crore mark this year, registering a 22.4% jump from December 31, 2022.
2023 was the year when the bourses were on a roll. The benchmark NSE Nifty 50 touched the milestones of 20,000 on September 11 and the 21,000-mark on December 8.

The frenzy also spilled over to the SME segment this year with the market capitalisation of companies listed on the NSE Emerge platform crossing the Rs 1 lakh crore mark.

Uttar Pradesh added the most number of new stock market investors for NSE in 2023, followed by Maharashtra and Gujarat. In percentage terms, Mizoram, at 55% showed the biggest jump but on a low base of 9,564 investors.

Maharashtra has almost 1.5 crore investors, UP pipped Gujarat (77) with 90 lakh investors.  Retail participation also saw spike in West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Rajasthan.

India’s market capitalisation crossed the $4 trillion mark and is now ranked fourth in the world in terms of market capitalisation, following the United States, China and Japan.  NSE’s market capitalization increased 29% to Rs 361 lakh crore (US$4.34 trillion) in CY23. The Nifty 50 index delivered nearly 20% returns. Broader markets outperformed this year with Nifty Smallcap 100 index surging 54%, and the Nifty Midcap 100 jumping by over 44%.

India continues to dominate the global derivatives market, with 74% share in equity derivatives and a 61% share across various asset classes.

Retail investors currently make up for more than 25% of the average daily turnover in derivatives. More than 8 million individual investors traded in this segment in 2023, an increase of about 30% from 2022, according to NSE data.