Bulk Deals vs Block Deals

When a large trade happens on the NSE, you usually hear about it the same evening: "Fund X buys 1.2% of Company Y in a bulk deal." Two kinds of disclosure produce these headlines, bulk deals and block deals. They sound alike, but the rules are different, and so is what they tell you.

This guide explains both, then looks at what nearly 90,000 of them, every one the NSE published from January 2023 to September 2026, actually contain. The biggest surprise: most bulk deals are not anyone taking a position.

What is a bulk deal?

A bulk deal is any trade, or set of trades, in which a single client buys or sells more than 0.5% of a company's listed shares in one day. It happens in the normal market, alongside everyone else's orders.

The broker who carries out the trade must report it to the exchange, and the exchange publishes the list after the market closes. The rule dates from a SEBI circular of January 2004.

Two things follow from the definition:

• There is no rupee minimum. In a small company, 0.5% of the shares can be worth a few lakh rupees. In a large one it can be hundreds of crores.
• A bulk deal can be reversed the same day. Nothing stops a client from buying 0.6% of a company in the morning and selling it by the afternoon. Both legs are disclosed.

What is a block deal?

A block deal is a single large trade done in a separate trading window, away from the normal market. Since 7 December 2025, under SEBI's revised framework, the rules are:

• Minimum size ₹25 crore. It was ₹10 crore before.
• Two windows. 8:45 am to 9:00 am, priced within 3% of the previous day's close; and 2:05 pm to 2:20 pm, priced within 3% of the volume-weighted price between 1:45 pm and 2:00 pm.
• Delivery is compulsory. A block trade cannot be squared off or reversed. The shares really change hands.

The exchange publishes block deals after the close, just like bulk deals.

Bulk deal vs block deal at a glance

What 90,000 NSE deals since 2023 show

We looked at every bulk and block deal the NSE disclosed from 3 January 2023 to 18 September 2026: 84,740 bulk deals and 5,898 block deals across 2,851 companies. Rupee values below count only the buying side of each trade, because every trade is disclosed once for the buyer and once for the seller, and adding both would count it twice.

Five things stand out.

1. Most bulk deals are same-day round trips

In 72% of bulk deals, the same client bought and sold the same stock on the same day. Those round trips make up about two-thirds of all bulk buying by value, and the share barely moves from year to year: 71% of deals in 2023, 72% in 2024, 69% in 2025 and 77% so far in 2026.

The clients behind them are mostly trading firms. The four with the most round trips are Graviton Research Capital, HRTI, QE Securities and NK Securities Research. They typically trade in and out through the day, and each crossing of 0.5% gets disclosed, even though they end the day owning little or nothing.

So a headline that says a firm "bought 0.8% of a company" may describe half of a trade that was reversed by the close. Before reading anything into a bulk deal, check whether the same client appears on the other side that day.

2. Bulk deals cluster in small companies

Because the rule is a share of the company rather than a rupee amount, small companies cross it far more easily. The stocks with the most bulk deals since 2023 are small and recently listed ones: tickers ATALREAL (1,100 deals), MOBIKWIK (1,006), QUADFUTURE (629), MTNL (622) and RATNAVEER (569). The median bulk deal is about ₹6 crore.

3. Block deals are where large stakes change hands

Block deals are fewer, much larger and cannot be reversed, so they are where real ownership moves. The median block deal is about ₹29 crore, and the largest single trades since 2023 run to thousands of crores:

• Bharti Airtel, 18 February 2025: ₹8,485 crore, sold by Indian Continent Investment.
• Asian Paints, 12 June 2025: ₹7,704 crore, bought by SBI Mutual Fund from Siddhant Commercials.
• Adani Ports, 2 March 2023: ₹5,282 crore, sold by the S.B. Adani Family Trust.
• Wipro, 9 June 2025: ₹5,058 crore, sold by the Azim Premji Trust.

The stocks with the most block deals are large, widely held ones: Lenskart, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, PB Fintech (PolicyBazaar) and Shriram Finance.

4. June is block-deal season

Almost a quarter of all block-deal value since 2023, 23%, was traded in June. August (14%), September (12%) and December (11%) follow. January and April each carried about 2%. One caution: October to December have three years of data in this period, not four, so those months are slightly under-counted.

5. Mutual funds are the steady buyers

Mutual funds, taking every client whose name contains "Mutual Fund", were net buyers through bulk and block deals in every year, and by a growing amount:

When a promoter or a foreign fund sells a large block, a domestic fund is often on the other side, as with SBI Mutual Fund in Asian Paints.

How to read a deal disclosure

A bulk or block deal is a fact about a trade that already happened. To get something useful out of one:

1. Check both sides. If the same client bought and sold that day, it is most likely trading, not a change in ownership.
2. Check the type. A block deal ends in delivery; a bulk deal may not.
3. Compare it with the company's size. 0.5% of a small company can be a tiny rupee amount.
4. Look at who is on the other side. A promoter selling to a mutual fund is a different story from two trading firms swapping shares.
5. Keep it in proportion. One deal is one data point about the past.

About the data

The figures come from the NSE's bulk and block deal disclosures, 3 January 2023 to 18 September 2026, as republished by Ansaar. A round trip means the same client name, in the same stock, on the same day, appears both as a buyer and as a seller in the bulk-deal list. Rupee totals are the buying side only. Mutual funds are identified by the words "Mutual Fund" in the client's name, so funds disclosed under other names are not counted. This is exchange data, not a model estimate.

Key takeaways

• A bulk deal is more than 0.5% of a company's listed shares in a day, in the normal market; a block deal is one trade of at least ₹25 crore in a separate window.
• Block deals must end in delivery; bulk deals can be reversed the same day.
• 72% of NSE bulk deals since 2023 were same-day round trips, mostly by trading firms.
• Bulk deals cluster in small companies; large stakes change hands through block deals.
• A deal tells you what happened, not why, and nothing about the next price.

Quick quiz

Check what you learned about bulk and block deals

1. What turns a trade into a bulk deal?

A trade worth more than ₹25 croreA client trading more than 0.5% of the company's listed shares in a dayAny trade by a foreign fundA trade done in the special morning window

2. Which of these can be reversed on the same day?

A block dealA bulk dealBothNeither

3. In NSE bulk-deal disclosures since 2023, what share of bulk deals were same-day round trips by the same client?

About 10%About 30%About 50%About 72%

Try it

See the latest session's deals, with the client, the direction, quantity and price: NSE bulk deals and NSE block deals. For the bigger picture of foreign and domestic money, read How to Read FII/DII Data.