The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has proposed a uniform 30-day lag for exchanges to share market data with trading academies and for academies to use such data in their teaching materials after receiving feedback from the industry. Two previous circulars had sparked confusion about whether these academies could use one-day-old or three-month-old market data.
In a consultation paper released on Tuesday, the regulator suggested that stock exchanges provide market data for educational purposes only after a 30-day delay, and that trading academies limit their training materials to 30-day-old data.
Mint explains why such time lags for sharing and using market data exist, why a delicate balance is needed, and why Sebi decided to change them now.
How are the new timelines different?
In May 2024, Sebi restricted exchanges from sharing live market data such as prices, volumes and so on for trading and related activities, while allowing a one-day lag in the dissemination of such data for education and awareness.
Then in January 2025, Sebi said educational institutions could only use three-month-old data in their teaching sessions. This caused confusion among trading academies on whether they could use data that was a day old or three months old. The new framework seeks to clarify this.
Why were the changes needed?
In its draft paper, the markets regulator said it had received feedback from the industry that the one-day lag for sharing data was too short and the three-month lag for using data was too long. The one-day lag could open up opportunities for misuse in the form of unauthorized stock recommendations or market manipulation, while the three-month lag could make educational data redundant, they said. Sebi concluded after internal deliberations that the three-month lag on using market data for education could be too long and there was scope for a reduction.
The ambiguity around timelines became an issue during the recent matter involving Avadhut Sathe Trading Academy (ASTA). In December 2025, Sebi issued an ex-parte interim order against Avadhut Sathe and his trading academy for recommending stocks despite not being registered with Sebi. The regulator pored over months-long training sessions and found Sathe had been providing stock tips using market price data.
However, the trading academy challenged the order in the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT). One of its many points of contention was that a “regulatory vacuum” made it difficult to understand whether market price data could be used with a lag of one day or three months. ASTA was allowed to access the funds needed to continue its operations, effectively overturning a part of the Sebi order.
Why is a lag necessary in the first place?
A lag in sharing and using this information is vital because live and near-live market data has been misused repeatedly in the past.
In 2022, Sebi imposed penalties totaling ₹11 crore on senior academic Ajay Shah and others for misusing confidential exchange data for commercial gains. Data originally shared for a liquidity index research project was allegedly exploited to develop and sell algorithmic trading software, giving certain market participants unfair access.
Live data can also be misused to make speculative bets on price movements. "Sebi has brought in the timeline to help curb speculation, especially in shadow markets, where live data was being used to predict the market," said Abhiraj Arora, partner at Saraf and Partners, a law firm.
This speculative risk is most visible in dabba trading—an illegal, parallel market where operators use live exchange prices as a benchmark to settle off-market bets without actually executing any trades on the exchange. Akshaya Bhansali, managing partner at Mindspright Legal, said, “Dabba traders have their own stock-market-like software and trading happens live, based on data from the real market. If live data is not available there is no use of this software.”
What is Sebi’s point of view?
Sebi initially said the two earlier circulars were not contradictory and could co-exist. While the one-day lag was meant to prevent exchanges from sharing live data, educational institutions could only use three-month-old price data, it said. This meant the one-day lag was a technical minimum for exchanges and intermediaries, and the three-month lag was a threshold for to ensure that educational data could not be misused.
Shortly after the SAT passed its interim order, Sebi chief Tuhin Kanta Pandey rejected ASTA’s claims of a “regulatory vacuum” but acknowledged that the 2024 and 2025 circulars needed to be aligned.
Is 30 days an appropriate window?
The market regulator believes a 30-day lag strikes a balance, keeping educational material reasonably relevant while reducing the risk of misuse.
Some securities lawyers, however, disagreed with this, saying the focus should not be on time lines but on preventing the misuse of market data. “Sebi wanted to create a common time lag for sharing and using data and therefore 30 days came into existence. But it cannot be said that this is an appropriate timeline. The focus should not be on the timeline, it is the misuse of data which is important. Sebi needs to enhance its technology to curb this misuse. It has always been a proactive regulator when it comes to technology,” said Bhansali.