This question is asked a lot and I am surprised how few traders understand how this works. In this article, we will answer the question of whether one can buy shares from one stock exchange and sell at the other.

There are two cases you need to consider:

Case 1: You got delivery of shares (after 2 days of buying)

Let’s say you bought 100 shares of Reliance Industries from BSE. If you use Zerodha, you will see the options of buying from NSE (one on the top) and BSE (bottom).

You wait for 2 working days and take delivery of those shares in your DEMAT account. After that, you have complete freedom to sell the shares on either of the exchange.

If you take delivery of the shares, then both these combinations are possible:

• Buy from BSE, sell at NSE
• Buy from NSE, sell at BSE

Here’s an example of the former:

It’s as simple as that!

Case 2: You did not get delivery of shares (within 2 days of buying)

Let’s say you want to take an intraday trading because you saw an arbitrage opportunity. A stock trading at ₹100 on BSE and ₹102 on NSE. How about buying it at ₹100 from BSE and ₹102 on NSE and make a quick 2% profit?

Unfortunately, it can not be done. I know it’s kind of disappointing but that’s the way it is.

Now, why it can not be done is immaterial; what matters is understanding that it can’t be done and avoiding a very silly mistake that beginners make (read on).

Avoid this mistake!

Sometimes, beginners think that if they place a buy order at NSE and sell order at BSE and the second-order will close the first position. This is not how the system works. In this example, the trader has now in fact two open positions: A long position on NSE and a short position on BSE, which need to be squared off independently.

Conclusion

You can sell the shares at any exchange as long as you have them in the DEMAT account. So, if you are an investor or a positional trader, you have the complete freedom of buying from one exchange and selling at another.