Broker Numbers on the NEPSE Floorsheet, Explained

Few things on NEPSE attract as much speculation as the floorsheet. "Broker 58 is buying heavily", "big players are collecting", "someone is exiting" — these stories spread fast, and some are useful, but many misread what the data can actually say. This guide explains what a floorsheet records, what broker numbers mean, and how to use broker activity sensibly.

What the floorsheet is

The floorsheet is the record of every trade matched on NEPSE during a session. Each line is one contract and shows:

• the contract number and the company's symbol;
• the buyer broker number and the seller broker number;
• the quantity and the rate (price), and so the amount.

A single large order often appears as many contracts, because it is matched against several orders on the other side at once.

What a broker number is — and is not

Every licensed stockbroker in Nepal has a number. When you place an order through your broker, the floorsheet records your broker's number — not your name and not your BOID. That has one consequence above all:

A broker number is not one investor. Each broker handles orders for thousands of clients. "Broker 58 bought 50,000 shares" may be one large investor, or five hundred small ones who happen to use the same broker.

You will also see contracts where the buyer broker and the seller broker are the same number. These are trades where both sides came through one broker — two of its clients met in the market. They are real trades, but they say little about anyone "accumulating".

What broker activity can tell you

• Where the volume was. Which brokers handled most of the buying and selling in a share, and how concentrated it was.
• Persistent one-sided flow. If the same few brokers are net buyers of a share across many sessions while others are net sellers, that is a pattern worth noticing — it can mean a larger investor building or unwinding a position over time.
• Sector-wide moves. Brokers buying across a whole sector at once can point to a theme rather than a single company.
• Unusual activity. A sudden jump in one broker's share of a quiet stock is a reason to look closer — at the news, the volume and the price.

What it cannot tell you

• Who is trading. Broker numbers do not identify investors, and you should be wary of anyone who claims they do.
• Why. Heavy buying can be a long-term investor, a short-term trader, a fund rebalancing, or a family consolidating accounts.
• What happens next. Net buying by a broker does not mean the price will rise. Many "accumulation" stories end with the price flat or lower.
• Anything reliable from one day. A single session is mostly noise. Patterns only start to mean something over weeks.

Reading it sensibly

1. Look over 5 and 20 sessions, not one. Consistency matters more than size on a single day.
2. Check net, not gross. A broker that bought 40,000 and sold 38,000 is close to neutral, however big the buying number looks.
3. Compare with the share's normal volume. 20,000 shares is huge for a thinly traded stock and nothing for a large bank.
4. Put it next to the price. Heavy buying while the price falls means sellers are absorbing it; heavy buying while the price rises easily is a different picture.
5. Treat it as a question, not an answer. Broker flow tells you where to look. The company's results, the sector and the price tell you what you are looking at.

Broker activity on NepseIQ

The Brokers page ranks brokers by the value they traded over the last 1, 5 or 20 sessions. Each stock's page has a Brokers tab showing who bought and who sold that share, net, over the same windows, and each broker's page shows which stocks and sectors it was busiest in. Every view says how many sessions it covers and when its history starts, and repeats the caveat that matters most: a broker number is not one investor.

The floorsheet shows which brokers traded, not which people. Use broker flow over weeks, net of selling, next to price and volume — as a reason to look closer, never as a prediction on its own.