Bulk Deal
A bulk deal is a transaction in which the total quantity traded in a stock on a single exchange crosses 0.5 percent of the company's total listed equity in a single day, executed through the normal trading session and disclosed by the exchange after market hours.
Unlike block deals, which were executed in a dedicated pre-scheduled window, bulk deals occurred through the standard continuous trading session during regular market hours. A trade or series of trades in a stock that cumulatively crossed 0.5 percent of the company's total listed equity in a single day on a single exchange qualified as a bulk deal. The disclosure was mandatory and was published by NSE and BSE at the end of the trading day, identifying the client name, the number of shares traded, and whether the transaction was a purchase or sale.
Bulk deal data was closely watched by market participants as it provided a window into institutional activity that was not otherwise visible in real time. Large domestic mutual funds, insurance companies, and foreign portfolio investors making sizeable position adjustments often showed up in bulk deal disclosures. The disclosure regime created by SEBI was intended to ensure that large trades that could potentially influence price were transparent to all market participants, even if after the fact.
One practical implication of bulk deals for retail investors was the interpretation of price movements on high-volume days. A stock that surged on unusually high volume but without any announced news often had a bulk deal disclosed after hours, revealing that a known institutional name had built or exited a position. This context helped investors assess whether the volume was a sign of informed buying or simply mechanical rebalancing by a large fund.
Bulk deals did not require the same pre-negotiation and window-specific timing as block deals, which made them more flexible but also potentially more disruptive to intraday price discovery. A large sell order executed through the open market rather than the block deal window could push a stock's price down significantly before the order was completed, which was why sophisticated institutional desks often broke large orders into algorithmic slices using volume-weighted average price (VWAP) strategies to minimise market impact.
The distinction between block and bulk deals was occasionally confused in media reporting. A useful shorthand was that block deals happened before the regular session in a controlled window, while bulk deals emerged from the regular session and were identified in arrears based on total daily volume crossing the threshold.