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The trading session of Thursday, 24 September 2026 is going to be a historic day in the history of the Indian capital market, when the country’s premier and largest stock exchange National Stock Exchange (NSE) is going to make its formal debut on Dalal Street. There is tremendous curiosity among stock market participants and analysts about this biggest public offering of the year 2026, even though there is no extraordinary enthusiasm for this issue in the informal gray market. Global financial institutions are looking very positive regarding the long-term fundamental outlook, and in this sequence, just before the listing, global brokerage firm Macquarie has released its coverage report on NSE, calling it ‘The Dominator’ and giving it an outperform rating, suggesting a strong financial strategy.
Global brokerage firm Macquarie, in its detailed coverage report, has rated the National Stock Exchange as “The Dominator”, considering it the most undisputed and dominant leader in its sector. The brokerage believes that NSE’s huge market share in the equity cash, futures and options (F&O) and debt segments makes it a monopolistic mechanism, which will directly benefit the exchange from the Indian economy and financialization of household savings. Macquarie has set an Outperform rating on the stock and a target price of ₹1,965, which represents a solid upside of about 10.1 per cent over the IPO’s upper price band of ₹1,785. The brokerage underlined that NSE’s strong technology stack, unmatched trading liquidity, industry-leading operating margins and strong cash flows make it a must-have for long-term portfolios.
Primary market data shows that while institutional investors are expressing confidence in the long-term strength of the exchange, the gray market premium (GMP) did not see a very aggressive move on the morning of the listing day. According to latest data from InvestorGain, a premium of around ₹40 per share was seen on NSE unlisted shares on Thursday morning, which means the stock could list around ₹1,825, which is the lower range of its recent GMP levels. According to the latest estimates of IPO Watch, the stock may debut around ₹ 1,830 with a nominal listing gain of 2.5 percent. Market experts say the giant size of over Rs 22,500 crore and 100 per cent offer for sale may limit excessive speculation on the listing day, but it provides an attractive base for long-term investors.
This public issue of the National Stock Exchange was worth a total of ₹ 22,561.57 crore, making it the largest IPO of the year 2026 so far. The entire issue was based on Offer for Sale (OFS) structure, under which the exchange had offered a total of 12.64 crore equity shares and the entire sale proceeds would go directly to the selling shareholders. The price band for the issue was fixed at ₹1,700 to ₹1,785 per share and the lot size for retail investors was kept at 8 shares. This IPO, which opened for bidding on September 17, received a total of 5.71 times subscription from investors from India and abroad till the close on September 21, in which valid bids were received for a total of 50.58 crore shares against the total of 8.86 crore shares and the total bid value crossed ₹ 90,000 crore.
The strongest axis of demand in this huge issue was qualified institutional buyers (QIBs), whose reserved quota was subscribed 12.68 times, while the non-institutional investors (NII/HNI) category was subscribed 6.55 times and the retail individual investors’ portion was subscribed 1.39 times. Just before the opening of the public issue, NSE had put the seal of institutional trust on its infrastructure by raising a huge capital of ₹ 6,746 crore from leading global and domestic anchor investors. Financial analysts believe that despite short-term volatility post listing, growth in Indian derivatives and cash volumes will directly boost NSE’s operating profit, making the stock a wealth creator for long-term investors.