SEBI chairman rules out aptitude test for retailers in F&O

Too much regulation

“Right now, we aren’t really considering any of those things.”

"Number one, we have to also see, will it be a regulatory overreach? Will you be able to effectively do it?

“I mean, we do have for specific players, those who are registered with the system, we do have this. Like for example, NISM certification is there for several. Like you are a registered advisor or an IA or RA.” But applying this to millions of retail traders would be a different challenge altogether.

"… Tomorrow, someone will say, if you want to do it for a mutual fund, then you will have to do an aptitude test. So, who will take it? How will it be taken? How will it be passed? So, we have to see the pragmatism of it also. I don’t think that, you know, anything of that kind is on our horizon at the moment

Give people choice

“We have to really give the choice of people’s own money to themselves. We also very much discourage the leverage for trading,”

“…every time, you do the F&O training, you will have a papa saying like a statutory warning, cigarette smoking is injurious to health. People do again smoke cigarettes still. So, I think … if it is an addiction and if you are mindful of risk very clearly, then it is a different thing,”

“To some extent, I think we have to really see, we have to also respect individual choice while you give so much of it. Because people do make experiment many a time and then they learn from mistakes and then they become in fact very much better players also,”

“We also very much discourage the leverage for trading. I mean, trying to borrow money and interest in that type of way…in fact in Indian jurisdiction, really leverage buyouts are not allowed. You don’t have leverages for this. Even in the AIF industry, we don’t allow leverage, the high-risk thing. So, there is normally a situation in that you can do as much. But you can’t really control people’s lives and resources.”

“In a democratic country, they have to have their own choice,”

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Free markets create efficient markets. More freedom brings more liquidity, and more liquidity means better price discovery and efficiency. Don’t choke the market with overregulation. Let people trade, learn, and grow.

There is no such thing as a free market.

When someone says “free market”
inevitably they have in mind a specific point on the regulation spectrum.

What few refer to as the “American free market model” as an successful operating point on the regulation spectrum, there are other equally (or maybe more, depending on whom you ask) successful operating point(s) on the regulation spectrum that has worked wonders for Asian economies with their own unique set of challenges (one of them being the very existence of the American economy, in an increasingly globally interconnected world).

Yes.

Do not let them be manipulated into losing in the market
what little upward momentum they have picked-up
due to the recent (generation’s) growth story in the economy.

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Sure, there’s no perfectly free market and that’s a philosophical ideal. But aiming for freer markets is still a worthy goal.
Excessive regulation in the name of “protection” often ends up being paternalistic and assumes retail traders can’t learn or evolve. The solution to manipulation isn’t to restrict access but to increase transparency and education. Let people participate, stumble, learn and that’s how economic resilience is built.

Yes, building resilience requires those who stumble and learn
to be able to continue to participate.
Otherwise its just a stream of goats being led to a slaughterhouse.

Add to it the fact that education doesn’t happen overnight,
it starts to make sense why there are hurdles against participation
hoping to slow it down and avoid uncontrolled chaos.

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