mumbai, April 22 -- The Securities and Exchange Board of India's (SEBI's) measures to cool the retail frenzy in options trading appear to have begun yielding results, with small-trader participation declining almost 25% in FY26 from the previous year. Equity options, which comprise index and stock options, are the most widely traded derivative products within the futures and options (F&O) segment. The fall in participation is thus a clear outcome of SEBI's measures, experts said. According to National Stock Exchange (NSE) data, the number of investors trading less than Rs.10,000 each on NSE fell by two-fifths to 450,000 in FY26, from 780,000 in FY25. The number of investors trading Rs.10,000 to Rs.1 lakh fell 25%, while those trading Rs.1 lakh to Rs.10 lakh dropped 13%. Together, these declines drove the total count down by 780,000 or 19% year-on-year to 3.37 million in FY26. Meanwhile, the aggregate count of investors trading Rs.10 lakh to upwards of Rs.10 crore was steady at 950,000. Interestingly, although the aggregate count of investors trading up to Rs.10 lakh accounted for 72% of all equity option traders on NSE in FY26, they contributed a mere 2.1% (Rs.24,944 crore) to the total turnover of Rs.11.87 lakh crore, data from the exchange shows. "It's clear from the data that Sebi's objective of tempering options frenzy among small investors is making an impact, given the decline in their participation numbers," said Amit Chandra , senior vice president (research) at HDFC Securities. "The bulk of the turnover comes from high-networth individuals, foreign participants and proprietary traders who use machine trading strategies," he added. This is evidenced by the data, which shows that traders with a turnover exceeding Rs.10 crore each accounting for 70% of the total premium turnover. The remaining share is divided among groups trading between Rs.10 lakh-Rs.1 crore and Rs.1 crore-Rs.10 crore each. Alarmed by the Rs.1.8 lakh crore net loss suffered by individual derivative traders between FY22 and FY24, SEBI introduced several phased measures in H2FY25 to curb excessive speculation....