Brokers interviewed by The Economic Times estimate that daily client spending on unlisted shares at several Indian platforms has nearly halved since the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) listed.
NSE said its shares listed Sept. 24 and its public issue totaled ₹22,562 crore. The brokers’ estimate measures the value of average daily client purchases across several platforms, rather than the number of transactions across India’s unlisted market. The listing also removed NSE shares from that market.
Before the debut, Umesh Paliwal, co-founder of Unlisted Zone, estimated that NSE shares accounted for 50% to 60% of unlisted-market trading volume, The Economic Times reported. His estimate suggests that activity had been concentrated in one company.
Paliwal said investors already understood NSE’s business and dominant position. Brokers seeking buyers for other unlisted companies, he said, must explain those businesses to investors. That leaves them with more to do when presenting alternatives to a familiar share.
Brokers told The Economic Times that client demand among shares still unlisted was strongest for Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India Limited (MSEI). They said purchases of MSEI and other shares discussed alongside it had not matched NSE’s former volume. Hitesh Dharawat, founder of Dharawat Securities, separately cited interest in API Holdings.
Wealth Wisdom India Private Limited (WWIPL), a dealer in unlisted shares, reported a 25.95% rise in MSEI’s indicative price to ₹6.95 during September. The Sept. 1-30 period includes days before and after NSE’s listing. A price change over that span does not measure client purchases after Sept. 24.
WWIPL also recorded unchanged prices for 715 shares it tracked in September and said most had seen no trades. Buyers and sellers negotiate prices for unlisted shares rather than trading them at continuously quoted prices on a recognized exchange. WWIPL warns that such holdings can be difficult to sell; an unchanged price alone therefore says little about trading activity.
