MUMBAI: Large institutions and proprietary traders continued to make a killing in the derivatives segment of the market during FY26. At the same time, it was retail traders who lost heavily during the fiscal, a Sebi study of F&O trading showed.“Proprietary (prop) traders (including global participants who operate in trading member-proprietary capacity in India and are owned by foreign entities) continued to record the highest gross trading profit at about Rs 44,000 crore (in FY26),” the Sebi study showed.This group of traders were followed by foreign funds with a profit of Rs 14,000 crore, corporates at Rs 8,000 crore, mutual funds at Rs 3,000 crore and partnership firms/LLPs at Rs 3,000 crore, the study showed.While large institutions and prop traders made huge profits, gross trading loss of individual traders during FY26 was about Rs 72,000 crore. The study also noted that 99% of profits for foreign funds and prop traders were made through algo entities.Gross trading profits and losses are before accounting for transaction costs.The Sebi study said that in FY26 active individual traders in the F&O segment declined by about 20%, from 98.1 lakh in FY25 to 78.6 lakh, while new entrants declined by about 40%, indicating moderation in retail participation. “Aggregate net losses of individual traders declined to about Rs 91,685 crore in FY26, compared with about Rs 1.12 lakh crore in FY25,” Sebi said.“Despite lower aggregate losses, (almost 88%) of individual traders continued to incur losses during FY26.”