US fund Jane St banned from D-St over ‘mkt manipulation’MUMBAI: Markets regulator Sebi late on Thursday banned US-based foreign fund Jane Street from the Indian market for manipulating stocks and derivatives segments over several years to make huge illegal gains. Jane St, known for their quant-based trading strategies, has also been asked to disgorge nearly Rs 4,850 crore – illegal gains accrued to them by trading on the NSE between Jan 2023 and March 2025, a Sebi order said. This is the highest-ever disgorgement amount ordered by Sebi for any kind of illegal activity in the market.
In an interim order, Sebi banned JSI Investments, JSI2 Investments, Jane Street Singapore and Jane Street Asia Trading, from trading in the Indian market until further notice. The markets regulator’s investigation will continue.Multiple Strategies: So far, Sebi has identified two types of manipulative strategies. One was to buy heavily in Bank Nifty’s 12 constituent stocks and futures in the morning session, then buying put options on the index, selling the stocks aggressively in the afternoon to pull down Bank Nifty that in turn pushed up index options prices to eventually make huge profits. The other strategy was to push for concentrated selling or buying in the last two hours of the expiry day to swing index levels and make profits.The investigation report noted that although Jane St incurred some losses in some parts of the trades, profits from the rest more than made up for the losses.Rs 36,502 cr profits: Sebi’s interim investigation showed that between Jan 2023 and March 2025, Jane St had made a total profit of Rs 36,502 crore. During that period, on Jan 17, 2024, the trading firm had made a profit of Rs 735 crore, the highest single-day gain for the now-banned foreign fund.NSE caution letter: While Sebi was investigating Jane St’s trading activities, on Feb 6, 2025, NSE had issued a caution letter to Jane Street Singapore and its related entity, asking them to refrain from taking large positions in the Indian market and to refrain from undertaking certain trading patterns. However, in disregard of NSE’s caution letter, and the group’s commitments to the exchange, “Jane St was observed to continue to run very large (trading) positions in index options”, Sebi’s report noted.Sources said there is a strong case that the period of investigation as well as exchanges on which Jane St had traded could be expanded to unearth the full scale of manipulation in the Indian market by the US-based global quant trading giant.“The interim order has only looked at 18 major days of prima facie Bank Nifty index manipulation on expiry day between Jan 2023 and March 2025), and three days of nifty index manipulation on expiry day during May 2025,” sources said. “Investigations into other expiry days, other indices (including across exchanges), and other potential patterns besides the two highlighted in the order will need to continue.”“There should not be any major market impact from this enforcement action,” sources said. “In the long run, the growth in market confidence, and a free and fair market, should aid responsible investing and capital formation.”