Three Stocks to debut in F&O from January 1, 2021

Three stocks, namely Aarti Industries, Dr Lal Path Labs and HDFC Asset Management Company (AMC), will debut in Future and Options (F&O) segment from January 1, 2021, National Stocks Exchange (NSE) said.

NSE in a release on Thursday said, "Based on the stock selection criteria as prescribed by SEBI vide master circular no. SEBI/HO/MRD/DP/CIR/P/2016/135 dated December 16, 2016, SEBI circular no SEBI/HO/MRD/DP/CIR/P/2018/67 dated April 11, 2018, and approval received from SEBI, the futures and options contracts on following 3 additional securities Aarti Industries Limited, Dr. Lal Path Labs Ltd. and HDFC Asset Management Company Limited would be available for trading w.e.f. January 01, 2021."

It further said, the market lot, scheme of strikes and quantity freeze limit of the above-mentioned securities shall be informed to members on December 31, 2020, through a separate circular.

The NSE added five stocks to the derivates market in the first half of 2020. SBI Life Insurance Company was the last addition in April in the F&O segment, which activated for trading with new contracts with effect from May 2020.

For stocks to be included in F&O segment, SEBI had earlier said that the stock shall be chosen from among the top 500 stocks in terms of average daily market capitalisation and average daily traded value in the previous six months on a rolling basis. Additionally, the stock's median quarter-sigma order size over the last six months shall not be less than Rs 25 lakh. In addition to this, the stock's median quarter sigma order size over the last six months shall be not less than Rs 5 lakhs. The market-wide position limit (MWPL) in the stock shall not be less than Rs 100 crore.