The big news today—SEBI has banned US trading giant Jane Street from accessing the Indian markets for alleged manipulation. The market regulator has issued an interim order to impound Rs 4,843 crore worth of unlawful gains. The regulator has directed the group to deposit the entire sum into an escrow account with a scheduled commercial bank in India. While SEBI has given Jane Street 3 months to close existing positions, the big question is how does it impact Indian investors?
Most market observers have hailed the SEBI decision and believe this kind of strict regulatory action can go a long way in strengthening the health of capital markets. James Kunnel, Derivatives Analyst-Institutional Equities, Asit C Mehta Investment highlighted that “the recent move by SEBI is a positive for the prop trading community as it reduces artificial market manipulation. We may not witness a significant change in activity by Indian props, as traders following genuine strategies have nothing to worry about. While others who are engaged in this price manipulation likely take a back seat and reduce their positions. Volume is not a barometer of the maturity of a market. Today the proportion of derivative volumes to cash volumes is disproportionate.”
ALSO READSEBI probe to focus on Jane Street’s index options strategies Experts say, ‘continue to trade, don’t over-trade’
As per the SEBI order, Jane Street used two key strategies to earn profits. These two strategies are—
“Intra-day Index Manipulation” strategy: It earned profit of Rs 3,914 crore across all the 15 days that this strategy was employed between January 2024 – March 2025.
“Extended Marking The Close” strategy: It earned a profit of Rs 560 crore from Bank Nifty, using this strategy on 3 days between October 4, 2023 – July , 2024.
The US trading biggies earned a total profit of Rs 36,502.2 crore in this entire period from all their trading activities. Of this, the market regulator has identified Rs 4,843 crore as unlawful gains.
According to the SEBI order, these orders are SEBI views these as “patterns that were prima facie fraudulent and manipulative,” and in a bid to desist Jane Street from such manipulative action, it instructed, “NSE as a first-line regulator issued a caution letter to Jane Street Singapore and its related entity,
» Read More
