There was much alarm, surprise, and consternation last week when the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) released a study showing that 90 per cent of the active traders dabbling in derivatives such as futures and options (F&O) lost money in FY22. Even as more and more people tried their hand in F&O, in the post-Covid period, more lost money; in FY19, 87 per cent of the derivatives traders were losers, and this went up to 90 per cent in FY22. The number of individual traders who traded through Sebi’s study sample (of the top 10 brokers in the equity F&O segment) was 4.52 million in FY22, up from just 710,000 during FY19 — a stunning rise of over 500 per cent. Of these, 88 per cent were active traders.