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On 20 August 2026, SEBI published two studies covering FY25 and FY26. One measured whether individual traders in the equity derivatives segment made or lost money. The other looked at how they actually traded — their frequency, their strategies, their costs, and who they were.
Both drew on client-level data from the top 15 brokers, covering about 90% of all individual participants in the segment, or roughly 78 lakh traders. This is not a survey or a sample of opinions. It is the regulator looking at what happened in real trading accounts.
The answer is no
In FY26, 87.7% of individual traders lost money. Their combined net losses were around ₹91,685 crore.
But the sharper finding is what happened to people who kept at it. SEBI tracked traders by how many consecutive years they had been trading. If trading were a skill that improves with practice, the loss rate should fall with experience. It rises.
| Consecutive years traded | Traders (lakh) | Loss-makers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 74.90 | 91.0% |
| 2 years | 42.46 | 94.4% |
| 3 years | 24.01 | 96.0% |
| 4 years | 13.19 | 96.5% |
| 5 years | 13.10 | 95.3% |
Source: SEBI, Trading Behaviour of Individual Traders in the Equity Derivatives Segment (FY25–FY26)
A first-year trader had a 91% chance of losing. Someone four years in had a 96.5% chance. Experience did not help.
The same pattern shows up in trading intensity. SEBI measured how much people traded relative to the equity portfolio they actually owned, and the more they traded, the worse they did.
| Turnover size | Turnover vs portfolio | Loss-makers |
|---|---|---|
| Small (under ₹1 lakh a year) | 0.1x | 86.4% |
| Medium (₹1 lakh–₹1 crore) | 5.7x | 87.8% |
| Large (above ₹1 crore) | 67.7x | 89.7% |
More trading, more losses. Not less.
The single worst number in the study
Among traders who stayed active across all five years, from FY22 to FY26, 65.6% lost money in every single year. Only 0.5% made a profit in every year — roughly 1 in 200.
This is not a story about a few bad years balancing out. For most people who kept trading, every year was a bad year.
Losses are falling. That is not the good news it sounds like
Year-on-year, the picture looks like it’s improving.
| FY25 | FY26 | |
|---|---|---|
| Individual traders who lost money | ~91% | 87.7% |
| Aggregate net losses | ~₹1.12 lakh crore | ₹91,685 crore |
| Active individual traders | 98.1 lakh | 78.6 lakh |
Fewer people lost money, and the total amount lost went down. But look at the third row. The number of people trading derivatives at all fell by roughly 20 lakh. New entrants were down by around 40%.
The losses did not shrink because trading got safer. They shrank because fewer people were doing it. This is what a market looks like after enough people learn the hard way and step back — not a market that got kinder.
What this means if you are trading, or thinking about it
The data does not say derivatives trading is impossible to profit from. It says that for the overwhelming majority of individuals who tried, over sustained periods, it did not work — and trying harder (more years, more turnover) made the odds worse, not better.
If you are trading F&O and losing, the data suggests this is closer to the norm than the exception. If you are considering starting, it is worth knowing that roughly 9 in 10 people before you did not come out ahead — and the ones who stayed longest fared no better than the ones who quit early.
Source: SEBI, “Trading Behaviour of Individual Traders in the Equity Derivatives Segment,” FY25–FY26 study, published 20 August 2026.
