Hi Parag, NSE's near-monopoly in options trading enabled it to benefit from policy changes and other factors, and turn a bad year for India's stock market into a great one for itself. The story title is elaborated in the story details. The story predicts that risks lurk for options trading volumes and, by extension, for the NSE; the reasons are explained in the story. As to whether NSE's monopoly can and should be broken, this was written about in an earlier story in April 2021 'How India's National Stock Exchange turned from solution to problem'. The link to the April 2021 story has been put in the recent story which also says that "With plans to start new stock exchanges to increase competition going nowhere, the NSE domination continues. Except, the BSE is now putting on a brave face in the new battleground that is derivatives trading."

Anand Kalyanaraman

Hi Dhirendra, it is ~Rs 700 crore and not Rs 7,000 crore. Below is the break-up of the ~Rs 29,000 crore as per NSE. Total Contribution to exchequer/SEBI (FY23) : Rs 28,989 crore STT: Rs 21,965 crore Income Tax: Rs 2,687 crore Stamp duty: Rs 1,987 crore GST: Rs 1,655 crore Sebi fees: Rs 695 crore

Anand Kalyanaraman

Fair point. The NSE in its presentation claims these to be contributions to exchequer/Sebi. The bottomline is that besides NSE, the government and Sebi also get income from the rise in options trading.

Anand Kalyanaraman

Noted. We think the story line is clear. It is about the regulatory squeeze on PMS, motivations and implications. To elaborate, it's about the tighter new rules, reasons behind the regulatory squeeze (high growth despite underperformance, sneaky tactics of some players, etc), the angst among PMS players (due to rising costs and unrepresentative benchmarks prescribed by the industry body), the fears of entry barriers, of PMS attractiveness getting diluted, and of PMS with a small corpus becoming unviable.

Anand Kalyanaraman

Thank you, Dinesh. Pertinent points.

Anand Kalyanaraman

Thank you, Rajeev. Axis MF reportedly did see sizeable redemptions by investors after the front-running scandal came to light last year. The fund's relative underperformance over the past year would also have contributed to redemptions. Heads seem to be rolling too, though the company denies any link between the scandal and the management changes. So, it doesn't seem to be BaU.

Anand Kalyanaraman

This story was about the rise and fall of Viresh Joshi. There is a reference to questions being raised about the lack of internal controls at Axis MF, but that was not the focus of the story. But agree, it's another important aspect to look into.

Anand Kalyanaraman

Hi Muhammad, the focus of the story was the scandal's alleged mastermind Viresh Joshi - how he rose, what pulled him down, and the implications. The modus operandi of the front-running by Joshi has been detailed in the Sebi report, and in other news reports too. While we have referenced some key aspects of the modus operandi in the story and have given a link to the Sebi report, we didn't want to repeat the details in the story.

Anand Kalyanaraman

Thanks, Ateesh. True, cigarettes is a big revenue generator for the government and also a big employment generator - so, bans are unlikely. Also, tax rise has been modest in recent years - the government seems cognisant (or convinced) of the impact on tax and employment from legal cigarette volumes ceding ground to illegal cigarettes that are much cheaper due to tax evasion. But there is no certainty that this modest tax policy will continue; that's a key risk. Agree with you that ITC is much better run than many other businesses.

Anand Kalyanaraman

Hi Santosh, yes, that could be possible too.

Anand Kalyanaraman

Hey Shreedhar, could the counter-party also be an intra-day trader - with an opposite view? In this case, a buyer in the morning who squares off at the end of the day by selling (notionally). Non-delivery trades based by adjustment of difference from margin money?

Anand Kalyanaraman

Thank you, Ramesh.

Anand Kalyanaraman