How to track bulk and block deals (2026)

To learn how to track bulk and block deals, you follow the same-day disclosures the NSE and BSE publish. Read on 20 September 2026, and re-checked against SEBI's circular list on 7 October 2026, the rules in force are these: a bulk deal is any trade where one client's total buying or selling in a stock passes 0.5 percent of that company's listed equity shares in the normal market, and the broker must report it to the exchange immediately on execution; a block deal is a single order of at least 25 crore rupees in one of two dedicated windows. Both reach the public the same trading day, after market hours, which is what makes NSE block deals and bulk deals the most current large-trade record in the public file. For scale: read at 06:35 IST on 7 October 2026, before the open, NSE's bulk-deal file held the previous session, 6 October 2026, with 207 disclosed legs across 43 symbols. The 25 most recent circulars on SEBI's circulars listing (sebi.gov.in, Legal, Circulars) that morning, 19 June to 1 October 2026, include none on bulk or block deals, so the rule has not moved since the September reading.

How to track bulk and block deals: where do NSE block deals appear?

Both exchanges publish these on their own websites on the trading day itself. The timing rule is worth getting exactly right, because it decides when a daily check is worth running.

A bulk deal is disclosed twice over. The broker reports it to the exchange "immediately upon execution of the trade", and the exchange then disseminates it "on the same day after market hours to the general public". So the exchange knows within minutes; you find out after the close. Source: SEBI Master Circular for Stock Exchanges and Clearing Corporations (SEBI/HO/MRD-PoD2/CIR/P/2024/00181, 30 December 2024), Chapter 1 paragraphs 1.1.3 and 1.1.4.

A block deal executes inside one of two windows, a morning window from 08:45 to 09:00 and an afternoon window from 14:05 to 14:20, and the exchange publishes it after market hours as well. There is no live block-deal ticker in the public record. If you want the mechanics behind the two, read bulk deals vs block deals; for BSE's own tape and why it differs from NSE's on the same day, read BSE bulk deals.

What does the file hold when you check it "today"?

One session, not a history. NSE serves the bulk tape as a single CSV at nsearchives.nseindia.com/content/equities/bulk.csv and the block tape at the matching block.csv, and each holds the most recent session's disclosures rather than an archive. Read at 06:35 IST on 7 October 2026, before the open, the bulk file carried the 6 October 2026 session: 207 rows, 43 distinct symbols, 107 buy legs and 100 sell legs. The block file for the same read returned the header and "NO RECORDS". That reading is a property of the file, not a statement that the session had no block deals: the same "NO RECORDS" came back at 10:31 IST on 22 September 2026, mid-session, so the empty block file is not evidence of a zero day. Because neither file keeps yesterday once a new tape lands, Flock's bulk deals feed keeps each session's NSE and BSE bulk and block deals after the exchange file rolls over, with the client named, the deal date kept and a link to the exchange file on every row.

Two consequences for anyone searching for today's deals. First, a mid-morning check shows yesterday's tape, so the date column inside the file is the only reliable answer to "which session is this". Second, a row is one client's disclosed side of the day's trading in that stock, not one deal. The disclosure is per client, per scrip, per day, and both sides are disclosed when both crossed the threshold, so one transaction can appear twice, once as a buy and once as a sell. So a row count is not a trade count in either direction: it can run ahead of the number of transactions, because both sides of one can be listed separately, and behind the number of individual executions, because each row aggregates a client's whole day in that stock. The 6 October file's 207 rows split 107 buy and 100 sell, which shows the two sides are listed separately; it does not by itself say how many are paired, because a disclosed leg can face a counterparty that never crossed the threshold. Counting rows as deals is the most common error in second-hand summaries of this data.

A workflow to track them daily

1. Check after market close. Bulk deal data lands after hours, so an end-of-day pass captures the full day.
2. Read the fields. A disclosure names the client, the stock, buy or sell, the quantity, and the average price.
3. Note the date on every entry. These are single-day records, so the date is the anchor.
4. Watch for repeats. The same client accumulating a name across several days is a pattern you can verify from the public record, unlike a one-off trade.

What the data can and cannot tell you

• The trade is a fact; the motive is not. A large sale can be portfolio rebalancing, a fund redemption, or a promoter raising cash. The disclosure does not say which.
• Thresholds and windows change, so date the rule as well as the trade. SEBI's circular of 8 October 2025 (SEBI/HO/MRD/POD-III/CIR/P/2025/134) replaced the block deal framework that sat in the master circular: the minimum order size went from 10 crore rupees to 25 crore rupees, and the permitted band around the window's reference price widened from the master circular's 1 percent to the "+3%" the new circular prints. It applies from the 60th day after issue, which falls on 7 December 2025. A block deal you read from before that date was executed under the older, tighter rule, so do not judge it by today's numbers.
• Cross-reference other filings. A bulk buyer who also appears in a company's shareholding pattern or across independent investors' holdings is more informative than a single day's trade in isolation.

That is how to track bulk and block deals: read the exchange disclosures daily, note the date, and treat each as one day's record. Flock surfaces the day's deals from the NSE and BSE, each stamped with its date and linked back to the exchange. What it means for you is your call to make.