New Delhi, May 4 -- Heightened market volatility in the March quarter brought promoter behaviour back into focus, with fresh signs of stress emerging in some pockets. A Mint analysis of 4,914 BSE-listed companies from Ace Equity shows that while overall promoter pledging levels remained lower than last year, sharp increases in select small-cap companies pointed to rising financial pressure amid turbulent market conditions.

There was a churn in pledged holdings in the March quarter, which is often seen as a proxy for promoter leverage. However, a key positive was that the number of companies with promoter pledging above 90% - a threshold widely viewed as a sign of financial distress - stood at 35 in Q4FY26-only marginally higher than 32 i...