Margin, intraday and short selling in Nepal, explained from the beginning.

The three in one line each

Every one of these is a way to do something the ordinary buy-and-hold investor cannot: buy with money you do not have, trade without waiting for settlement, or profit when a price falls. That is also why each one can cost you more than an ordinary purchase.

• Margin lending

  Borrow from your broker to buy more shares than your cash allows. Legal in Nepal today, under rules that took effect in February 2026.

• Intraday trading

  Buy and sell the same share on the same day. Not possible today, because NEPSE settles on T+2 and the shares are not yours until then.

• Short selling

  Sell a share you do not own, hoping to buy it back cheaper. Not permitted today, and the borrowing that makes it work does not exist here yet.

What is margin trading in Nepal?

Margin trading means buying shares partly with your own money and partly with money borrowed from your broker, using the shares themselves as collateral. Nepal already allows it under the Margin Lending Directive 2082, which took effect on 13 February 2026 and requires you to fund at least 30% of a Class A purchase yourself.

The arithmetic that makes margin attractive is the same arithmetic that makes it dangerous. Put in Rs 30,000, borrow Rs 70,000, and you hold Rs 1,00,000 of shares. A 10% rise is Rs 10,000 on a Rs 30,000 stake, which is a 33% gain. A 10% fall is the same number in the other direction, and it is a third of your money gone while you still owe the full Rs 70,000 plus interest. The rules, the classes and the collateral maths are in the guide to the margin lending directive.

What is a margin call?

A margin call is your broker asking you to add money or sell part of your position because the shares you borrowed against have fallen too far. If you cannot fund it in time, the broker can sell your shares for you, at whatever price the market is paying that day.

Is intraday trading allowed in Nepal?

No. NEPSE settles trades on T+2, so shares you buy today reach your DEMAT two working days later and you cannot sell them before that. The 21-point reform plan asks the Finance Ministry to approve intraday rules by mid-October 2026, but nothing has changed at the trading screen yet.

T+2 is the reason, and it is worth understanding because it governs a lot more than this. A trade is an agreement today and an exchange of cash and shares two working days later. Until that exchange happens the shares are not in your DEMAT, and you cannot sell what is not there. The mechanics are in how NEPSE trading works.

What is short selling in simple words?

Short selling is selling a share you do not own, in the hope of buying it back cheaper later. You borrow the share from someone who owns it, sell it at today's price, buy it back afterwards, and return it, keeping the difference if the price fell and paying the difference if it rose.

Can you short sell shares in Nepal?

No. Short selling is not permitted on NEPSE today, and neither is the securities borrowing that makes it possible. Both are in the reform plan with a mid-October 2026 deadline for the rules, so treat any offer to short sell NEPSE shares today as a scam.

That warning is not decoration. New instruments attract people selling access to them before they exist, usually through a group that wants a deposit. There is no legal way to short a NEPSE scrip right now, whatever a message promises, and the dates for every promised change are public: they are set out in the 21-point reform plan.

Which is riskiest for a beginner: margin, intraday or short selling?

Short selling, because the loss has no ceiling. A share you buy can only fall to zero, so the most you lose is what you put in, but a share you sold short can keep rising, and every rupee it rises is a rupee you owe.

Ranked the way they will actually hurt an ordinary investor: short selling first, margin second because borrowed money turns a temporary fall into a forced sale, intraday third because it mostly drains money through costs and quick decisions rather than through one catastrophic position. None of the three is a way to make a small account big. All three are a way to make a small account smaller, faster.

Do these changes matter if I never use them?

Yes, in two ways. They tend to add trading volume, which makes it easier to buy or sell without moving the price, and they let people bet against a company, which puts downward pressure on prices that have run ahead of the business behind them.

The second one is the argument for short selling, and it is worth stating plainly on a market where a scrip can run for weeks with nothing behind it. When only buyers can express an opinion, the price hears one side. The cost is that falls can be sharper, which is why every market that allows it also has circuit breakers, and Nepal's are explained in the guide to the 15% limit.