A Comparative Study of BSE and NSE Trading Since 2000
Following the lines of its archrival NSE (National Stock Exchange) BSE in a recent development has also turned itself a corporate entity and ownership and management of the exchange and trading rights have been now completely separated. But what are actually worrying brokers and investors about BSE trading is its declining market share. BSE that was holding nearly 45% share of equity market in cash and derivative segment now holds less than 12% only and what has been a loss to BSE is a gain for NSE. For many companies NSE trading volume is more than 50% higher than the BSE and as a matter of fact NSE liquidity is much better now when BSE liquidity has reached a position where it seems to be beyond repair. But still there are many people who think that it might not be right to write off the BSE quickly, as there might be still some space for staging a recovery. Some of the changes that brokers demand should be included into BSE trading are that the exchange should be functioning as an offshore service provider that also handles foreign stock exchange operations and also do due diligence on behalf of those exchanges. One reason that makes brokers prefer NSE trading against BSE is the superior bid-ask spreads which is actually the difference between purchasing and selling rates on an exchange at any given point of time which is also the reason for higher trading volumes. As higher bid-ask spreads also means higher cost for executing large orders and spreads NSE is obviously the preferred choice for the investors as there is saying in this world that liquidity breeds liquidity. As there are more investors in the NSE it also means that compared to BSE trading NSE offers more options for investment like derivatives. Due to its regulations BSE was also forced to restrict its operations only in Mumbai while NSE reaches out across the country and thus to a much wider and also potentially hungry audience of investors. BSE certainly lost out a great opportunity at the time of launching index figures in the year 2000 but there is also no denying the fact that poor margin and not enough support from the brokers also didn’t help the cause at all. As it is pointed out by a former National Stock Exchange executive presently BSE trading is almost non-existing in the derivatives market with only less than 0.1% of the total market share. On the other hand more than 70% of NSEs total turnover is from derivatives. To some extent it is true that the launch of derivatives in 2000 almost completely choked the BSE but it can also not be denied that BSE also failed to exploit the goodwill of the Sensex in 2000 and that is also the factor that put NSE in a better position. The launching of derivatives almost completely changed the Indian stock market for ever and BSE has continued to lose its market to NSE trading since then.