NEPSE floorsheet explained: what it shows and how to read it
Updated 25 October 2026 · Nepsense Markets
Every trade on the Nepal Stock Exchange leaves a record. That record carries something most exchanges in the world keep private: the number of the broker who bought, and the number of the broker who sold. It's called the floorsheet.
The floorsheet is the most useful free document in the Nepali market, and the most misread one. This guide covers what's in it, why broker numbers were pulled once and restricted again, how traders actually use it, and where it stops being informative.
It also matters more than it used to. As of 16 October 2026, the last session before the Dashain break, the NEPSE index closed at 2,634.17 — and it hasn't closed above its August 2021 peak of 3,198.19 since, according to Nepsense's records. In a market that has spent years going sideways at the index level, the information is in individual scrips. That's exactly where the floorsheet lives. You can see the aggregate on today's NEPSE index; the floorsheet shows what's underneath it.
What the NEPSE floorsheet is
The floorsheet is NEPSE's public list of every trade executed in a session. Each row is one transaction: the scrip, the quantity, the price, and two broker numbers — one for the buying side, one for the selling side.
Because every trade is on it, the floorsheet is the only public source that shows who was trading, not just what the price did. A chart tells you a stock closed up 4%. The floorsheet tells you which broker houses were on the buy side of that move.
NEPSE publishes it itself, so the raw data costs nothing. What costs money, and what separates a trader who reads it well from one who reads it badly, is interpretation.
One timing detail matters more than most people realise: since April 2022, broker-specific details aren't published during market hours. They appear after the session ends. With continuous trading running 11:00 to 15:00, Monday to Friday, the floorsheet is an after-hours document. If you're new to the session structure, start with NEPSE trading hours.
Why the broker number is the whole point
As of April 2022, NEPSE was the only stock exchange in the world publishing broker-level transaction detail on its floorsheet. That's an unusual amount of transparency for any market, let alone a frontier one, and it's the reason local trading vocabulary is built around broker numbers rather than institution names.
NEPSE's trading network runs through 92 registered brokers and 41 remote work stations across 21 cities. Each house holds a number, and the number is how the market refers to it — not the company name, not the logo. Traders say the number.
That gives a Nepali trader something a foreign platform can't: the ability to watch a specific participant's behaviour over weeks. If you don't yet know how the exchange itself is structured, what NEPSE is covers the basics.
The history: removed in 2014, restored, restricted in 2022
2014: the numbers disappear
In January 2014, broker numbers were removed from the floorsheet. Brokers had asked for it, arguing a right to privacy and pointing out that many markets, India included, don't publish broker identity.
Investors reacted badly. Retail traders argued the removal made manipulation impossible to spot and left them unable to form a strategy, and some threatened legal action. SEBON said it had received written complaints, was discussing the matter internally, and would ask NEPSE to clarify why the numbers had been pulled.
The numbers come back, then get restricted again
By April 2022 broker numbers were being published again, and the argument had shifted from whether to when. SEBON had received complaints and suggestions about broker details being visible during the session, and wrote to NEPSE to restrict them in a way consistent with sub-rule (4) of Rule 27 of the Securities Market Operation Rules, 2064.
The result is the arrangement you trade under today: no broker-level detail while the market is open, full detail after it closes.
| Period | Broker numbers on the floorsheet | What it meant for a trader |
|---|---|---|
| Before January 2014 | Published with each trade | Broker identity visible in the public record |
| From January 2014 | Removed | Flow untraceable; SEBON asked NEPSE to explain |
| By April 2022 | Published again | Flow readable again |
| Since April 2022 | After market hours only | No broker detail during the session |
How traders read the floorsheet
Three questions, in order of how much they tell you.
1. Who is accumulating
This is the core read. Pick a scrip, filter the day's rows to that symbol, and net each broker's buying against its selling. A broker that keeps appearing on the buy side across several sessions, in size, is accumulating. A broker that appears on both sides in similar size is usually just facilitating client flow.
Traders care because a broker house with a large, persistent, one-sided position is doing something deliberate. That doesn't tell you why. It tells you someone with size decided the price was worth paying.
2. Where the big trades printed
Size is the second read. A single row worth many times the day's average trade is a decision made by someone who wanted the position now, not over a week. Where those prints land matters more than how many there are. A large buy at the high of the session means something different from the same size at the low.
Context matters too. Since 20 April 2026 a single stock can move up to 15% in a day, with the market halting for 15 minutes at a 5% index move and closing for the day at 8%. A big print in a stock pressing that band is a different signal from the same print in a quiet one — see the NEPSE circuit breaker.
3. Whether the move had real money behind it
A price can rise on thin volume. The floorsheet lets you check. If a stock gained on trades that are small and scattered across many broker numbers, the move is light. If it gained while a handful of brokers absorbed size, someone committed capital. That distinction is the difference between a move worth acting on and one worth waiting out.
The limits: what the floorsheet cannot tell you
This is where most floorsheet reading goes wrong.
- A broker number is not an investor. One number covers every client that broker traded for that day. A broker printing a large buy might be executing for one client or fifty. You're seeing a firm, not a person, and you're seeing the sum of its day.
- It's after the fact. Since April 2022 you can't watch broker flow during the session. By the time the numbers are public, the trade is done and the price has already moved.
- Rows are gross, clearing is net. A broker that bought and sold the same scrip all day appears on both sides of the floorsheet, but at clearing it delivers or receives only the net position. Reading gross rows as conviction overstates what happened. The mechanics are in T+2 settlement on NEPSE.
- It records trades, not intentions. No orders, no cancelled orders, no size sitting in the book. A broker buying heavily could be building a position, covering a short, or filling a client instruction it disagrees with.
None of that makes the floorsheet weak. It makes it a document that rewards patience and punishes storytelling.
A routine that works
- Pick a scrip you already follow, not one you're hunting. The floorsheet is a comparison tool; it works best against your own memory of how a stock behaves.
- Track the same three or four broker numbers across a week. One day is noise. A pattern across five sessions is information.
- Note the price where the size printed, not just the size. A broker buying at progressively higher prices is a different story from one buying a falling knife.
- Check the volume against the move. A big price move on a thin floorsheet is a warning, not a signal.
- Write down what you concluded before the next session, then check whether it happened. That's the only way to learn whether your reading of broker flow is any good.
Where Nepsense fits
Reading a floorsheet by hand, scrip by scrip, session by session, is slow work. Nepsense takes the same NEPSE floorsheet and turns it into broker flow and big-order views, so the accumulation and the large prints sit on the chart instead of in a spreadsheet. You can see it on a live NEPSE chart rather than rebuilding the netting yourself.
The raw data stays free, and it should. What you're paying for is the reading. If you want to see the difference, the plans are on the pricing page.
Key takeaways
- The floorsheet is NEPSE's record of every trade, with the buying and selling broker numbers attached to each row.
- Broker numbers were removed in January 2014 after brokers argued for privacy, restored, then restricted to after-market-hours only in April 2022.
- As of April 2022, NEPSE was the only exchange in the world publishing broker-level transaction detail.
- Read it for accumulation, for where big trades printed, and for whether a move had real money in it.
- A broker number identifies a firm, not a person — and it's published after the session, not during it.
- The floorsheet records trades. It doesn't record intent, so it can support a thesis but never prove one.