Athira Sethu
Kochi, 5 July 2025
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has prohibited a world trading firm named Jane Street Group from trading in the Indian stock markets. It did so after SEBI conducted an inquiry into the activities of the company during January 2023 and March 2025.
Jane Street is an American trading firm, founded in 2000. Jane Street makes trades with its own capital, equity, and not investor money. The firm carries out trades with the help of computer-based systems and algorithms. Jane Street has global offices in the US, Europe, and Asia and employs more than 2,600 people. In India, it functioned through four companies, e.g., JSI Investments Pvt Ltd and Jane Street Singapore Pte Ltd.
SEBI discovered that Jane Street earned a profit of over ₹36,500 crore by option trading on indices, particularly in one product known as Bank Nifty options. SEBI suspects that the company has benefited from unethical trading practices to earn this money.
One of the methods Jane Street followed was purchasing a huge quantity of Bank Nifty stocks in the morning. This put the index up. The firm simultaneously initiated trades that would gain if the index dipped during later times. Then, in the latter part of the day, the firm sold these stocks, and this brought down the index. This helped Jane Street generate profits from its previous trades.
One of the strategies employed by Jane Street was executing large trades towards the close of the trading day, particularly on expiry days—the contract’s last day. These impacted the ultimate price of options and assisted Jane Street in making additional profits.
SEBI stated that such conduct misled other market participants, particularly small or retail traders who rely on index movements to execute their trades. SEBI further stated that Jane Street persisted with such conduct even after receiving warning letters from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in February 2025.
SEBI has now prohibited Jane Street and associated companies from participating in Indian securities markets. This implies that they cannot trade in Indian stock markets anymore.
SEBI did this to ensure Indian markets are transparent and fair, and all investors’ interests are safeguarded.
