NSE Aggressive To Regain Lost Market Share From BSE, Says Goldman Sachs

The National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. has become aggressive in winning back lost market share from smaller rival BSE Ltd., Goldman Sachs said in a client note on Tuesday.

Analysts at the multinational investment firm marginally reduced the share price target for the BSE to Rs 2,220 from Rs 2,250. The new target indicates 6% potential upside over the previous close.

They cited two recent moves by the NSE to determine its competitive play.

The bourse requested and obtained a move to switch F&O expiry days to Tuesdays, placing NSE ahead of BSE within the week. As a result, in the first month following the change in September, NSE gained two percentage points of market share within index options.

NSE also announced last week a reduction in lot size for most of its contracts from 75 to 65. This around 13% reduction brings the contract sizes of BSE's Sensex and NSE's Nifty 50 closer, thereby narrowing the former's advantage of lower traded premium per contract on index options.

These lot size changes are effective from January 2026 for weekly contracts and earlier for monthly and quarterly contracts.

Since BSE has not announced any change in lot size, its relative advantage of a lower contract size would be somewhat lost, analysts said.

Goldman Sachs extended the market share gain trajectory for BSE to reach the 40% level from July 2026 to March 2027.

"That said, we continue to believe BSE will gain share from the current 27% as of September 2025 to 40% over the medium term, as it continues to add more clients and narrow the gap in client base relative to NSE," the note said.

Based on these changes, analysts have made a 7% downward revision in the fiscal 2026 average daily premium forecast and a 3% downward revision in earnings.