Jane Street earns $2.3 billion riding India options trading wave

Equity options trading in India has cooled this year after exponential growth since the pandemic

Jane Street Group LLC generated more than $2.3 billion in net revenue from equity derivatives last year in India, where its lucrative trading strategies have sparked a probe by regulators.

The trading haul was a sharp surge from 2023, underscoring the country’s growing importance to the firm’s global expansion, according to people familiar with the matter. India accounted for more than a 10th of the New York-based giant’s record $20.5 billion in net trading revenue last year, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is investigating the company’s derivatives trades after some market participants alleged manipulation by the firm, Bloomberg reported last week. A separate probe by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) was closed last month after a reply from the company’s India trading partner.

Jane Street declined to comment on its performance and revenue generated from India. The firm also declined to comment on the SEBI probe. 

The world’s largest derivatives market by contracts traded has seen global high-frequency trading and market-making firms from Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities LLC to Optiver expand in recent years. A retail investor-led boom has seen options premiums surge 11-fold in the five years to March 2025.

The options frenzy has helped foreign funds and local proprietary firms that use algorithms, as they pocketed $7 billion in gross profits in the 12 months ended in March 2024, according to a SEBI study. Jane Street’s lawyers inadvertently revealed in a court battle with Millennium Management last year that it earned $1 billion in 2023 from trading options in India with the help of a ‘secret’ strategy. 

Competitive edge

Jane Street’s algorithmic and technology-driven approach — combined with its ability to deploy its own capital independently of banking regulations — likely gave it a competitive edge in India, where it mostly makes directional trades, the people said. India is one of the 18 countries in which Jane Street holds more than a 2 per cent market share in derivatives volume, they said.

Equity options trading in India has cooled this year after exponential growth since the pandemic. Fees from options traded on the NSE grew just 2 per cent this year through April, sharply lower than the 92 per cent growth in the same period last year, according to exchange data. 

The slowdown was triggered by SEBI, which imposed several restrictions on trading options including higher minimum investment limits and an increase in lot sizes since November to protect retail traders — 90 per cent of whom lost money trading options.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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Published on May 23, 2025