Ever since SEBI began separately reporting secondary market trades in equities, in December 2009, to find out what happened the previous day, you can look at SEBI data or at the combined figure available on the Web sites of the NSE and BSE.

The problem is, the figures are not the same.

There is a 36 ‘working hour' lag between the day of trade (on which NSE-BSE data are based), and the day of trade confirmation. So SEBI figures for February 4th, put out on the 5th, actually relate to FII transactions put through on February 3rd.

For January 2011, SEBI's Web site shows net sales of Rs 5,009 crore. Though the adjusted figure (shown in the table) is higher, it is still far below the Rs 8,900 crore (approximately $2 billion) reported by NSE-BSE.

Ideally, the reporting lag should not matter when compared over extended periods of time. However, the difference between SEBI and NSE-BSE figures is actually widening.

For 2010, net FII secondary market buys reported by the exchanges were less than SEBI figures to the tune of Rs 32,000 crore, out of a total of Rs 94,355 crore.

The reason is simply that SEBI figures come from FII custodians, and are backed up by data on individual FII trades, while NSE-BSE figures are, to quote sources in SEBI and NSE, ‘based solely on information provided by brokers'.

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