Here's how 'success kid' of a family lost Rs 70 lakh in F&O trading and is now struggling for livelihood

Here's how 'success kid' of a family lost Rs 70 lakh in F&O trading and is now struggling for livelihood

• X user shares cousin's Rs 1 crore loss in options trading, now Rs 70 lakh in debt
• Budget 2026 proposes STT hike on F&O to reduce speculation and protect savings
• Officials say STT hike aims to reduce retail investor losses and systemic risk

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At a time when the STT hike in F&O in Budget 2026 has turned into a point of debate, yet another tale of option trading ruining the life of a person is doing the rounds on social media.

Nihal Gupta, an X user, claimed on the social media platform that his "smartest cousin" lost everything in options trading and explained how "a genius fell into a Rs 70 lakh debt trap".

"He was the “success kid” of our family — Tier-1 http://B.Tech, Tier-1 MBA, 12L job in 2013, bought a house, moved his parents in. Everyone was proud. Then he discovered options trading. First few months: profits. Then: bigger trades. Then: bigger losses. Then: “Just need to recover once”," said Gupta in his X post.

It further went 'downhill' for this person, said the X user.

"He quit his job to trade full-time. It was all downhill from there. He took personal loans, increased his home loan, and kept trading for a “comeback moment” that never happened. Over 10 years, he lost Rs 1-plus crore in F&O — buying and selling. Today he’s 35, unmarried, working at a bank for Rs 17 lakh per annum, buried under Rs 70 lakh debt and scared of missing a single EMI. He may even have to sell his house to survive," Gupta added.

Gupta said that there is a moral in this cautionary tale, "In markets, intelligence is not an edge. Discipline is. Overconfidence destroyed what talent built."

X users commented on the post and gave advice for F&O tradin.

"The problem with FNO retailers is, they chase tops and bottoms and don't execute their strategy (backtested ones) with utmost decipline. Especially not booking profits and not taking stricter SLs," said one X user.

"I am also going through the same phase. To recover my initial losses, I increased my lot size, but because of that my losses became even bigger. Whenever I take a trade, most of the time I end up closing it in a loss or my stop loss gets hit," another X user shared his F&O woes.

Under the Union Budget 2026–27, the government proposed raising STT on futures contracts to 0.05% from 0.02%. STT on options premium and on the exercise of options has been proposed to be increased to 0.15% from the current 0.1% and 0.125%, respectively. Other STT rates across asset classes remain unchanged.

The government said the total volume of options and futures trading in India is more than 500 times the country’s GDP, justifying the need for a rate adjustment to curb purely speculative activity.

Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said the objective of the STT hike is not revenue generation but the protection of household savings. “The purpose is to ensure that hard-earned savings are deployed in ways that help households build wealth. SEBI has repeatedly highlighted how retail investors lose money in F&O,” he told journalists.

Revenue Secretary Arvind Shrivastava also said the volumes in the derivatives market indicate heavy speculation when compared to the size of the underlying securities market and the country’s GDP. “This results in large losses for retail investors. The government’s intention is to discourage speculation and address systemic risk in the derivatives market,” he said, adding that the revised STT rates remain modest relative to trading volumes.

A SEBI study showed that 9 out of 10 F&O traders in India end up making losses.