Motilal Oswal initiated coverage on the National Stock Exchange with a 'Buy' rating, setting a 12-month base price target of ₹2,300 per share. That implies a 19% upside from current market prices. But the brokerage laid out a far more aggressive bull-case scenario—one that points to a 54% rally as derivative volumes swell and operating leverage kicks in.
NSE holds an iron grip on Indian financial trading. In FY26, the bourse commanded 93% of the cash market turnover, 99.8% of equity futures, and 74.7% of equity options premium turnover. Average daily traded turnover crossed ₹1.1 lakh crore in cash trade and ₹1.6 lakh crore in equity futures, while options premium turnover stood at ₹57,700 crore. Transactions from equity options now drive roughly 75% of NSE's transaction fee pool, while cash and futures account for 12% and 11% respectively.
The exchange's scale stretches well past Mumbai. Globally, NSE executes 12% of all cash market trades, ranking third worldwide behind China's Shenzhen and Shanghai bourses. In the first quarter of FY27, it ranked fifth worldwide in options contracts traded.
Motilal Oswal expects revenue to climb from ₹16,600 crore in FY26 to ₹23,400 crore by FY29, tracking a 12% compound annual growth rate. Operating profit will outstrip that pace. Because the exchange runs on a fixed-cost tech architecture, incremental volume translates directly into cash flow.
| Operating & Financial Metric | FY26 Level | FY29 Forecast | Growth / Margin Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Revenue | ₹16,600 crore | ₹23,400 crore | 12% CAGR |
| Net Profit | — | ₹15,000 crore | 13% CAGR |
| EBITDA Margin | >70% | ~77% | Expands 700 bps |
| Return on Equity (RoE) | 30% | 43% | Expands 1,300 bps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash Market Share | 93% | — | Dominant |
| Equity Futures Market Share | 99.8% | — | Near-Monopoly |
EBITDA margins, which already sit above 70%, are projected to touch 77% by FY29. Net profit is slated to reach ₹15,000 crore, delivering an RoE jump from 30% to 43%.
The infrastructure can absorb the traffic. On March 24, 2026, NSE processed a record 21.9 billion order messages and 201 million completed trades in a single session. The matching engines hold rated headroom of five million messages per second.
Penetration remains low. Active client tallies reached 46 million by September 2026—just 3% of India's population. Yet the demographic pipeline is widening fast. Investors under 30 accounted for 38.4% of NSE's individual retail base in FY26, up from 22.6% in FY19. Motilal Oswal expects ticket sizes to swell as this cohort enters peak earning years, cementing sustained transaction growth through FY29.