National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) is one of the leading stock exchanges in India, based in Mumbai. It is the world's largest derivatives exchange by number of contracts traded and the fourth largest in cash equities by number of trades for the calendar year 2021. NSE is under the ownership of various financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies. NSE was established in 1992 as the first dematerialized electronic exchange in the country and the first exchange in the country to provide a screen-based electronic trading system to investors. Ashishkumar Chauhan is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NSE. National Stock Exchange has a total market capitalization of more than US$3.4 trillion, making it the world's 9th-largest stock exchange as of August 2021. NSE's flagship index, the NIFTY 50, a 50 stock index is used extensively by investors in India and around the world as a barometer of the Indian capital market. The NIFTY 50 index was launched in 1996 by NSE. Unlike countries like the United States where nearly 70% of the country's GDP is derived from large companies in the corporate sector, the corporate sector in India accounts for only 12–14% of the national GDP (as of October 2016). Only 7,400 companies are listed of which only 4,000 trade on the stock exchanges at BSE and NSE. According to an estimate by Vaidyanathan (2016), the stocks trading at the BSE and NSE account for only around 4% of the Indian economy, which derives most of its income-related activity from the so-called unorganized sector and household spending. Economic Times estimates that as of April 2018, 6 crore (60 million) retail investors had invested their savings in stocks in India, either through direct purchases of equities or through mutual funds. Earlier, the Bimal Jalan Committee report estimated that barely 1.3% of India's population invested in the stock market, as compared to 27% in the United States and 10% in China.
