Circuit Limits
Circuit limits are exchange-set daily price bands on individual stocks — commonly 2%, 5%, 10% or 20% — beyond which orders outside the band are not accepted; hitting the band is called being 'locked in upper (or lower) circuit'.
Price bands exist to contain panic moves and manipulation. Each stock is assigned a band by the exchange based on its risk profile; less-liquid and surveillance-flagged stocks get the tightest bands, while stocks with derivatives on them generally have no fixed daily band and instead use dynamic operating ranges that can be flexed intraday.
A stock 'in upper circuit' has buyers queued with no sellers at the permitted maximum price — trading effectively pauses at that price. In lower circuit it is the reverse, and exiting can be genuinely difficult, which is the practical risk of holding illiquid, band-bound stocks through bad news.
Separately, market-wide circuit breakers act on the benchmark indices: moves of 10%, 15% and 20% trigger progressively longer trading halts for the entire market, a mechanism used only in extreme sessions.
In practice
In the 16 September 2026 session, the day's biggest NSE movers stopped just short of 20%, the widest standard price band: Quint Digital rose 19.98% and ABH Healthcare fell 19.97%, while the Nifty 50 gained 0.43%. Read the filing (16 Sep 2026) →
Common questions
Can I buy a stock that is locked in upper circuit?
You can place a buy order at the upper band price, but it executes only if a seller appears at that price. When a stock is locked at the upper band, buy orders pile up with few or no sellers, so most of them stay pending and lapse at the end of the day unless they are placed again.
What are the market-wide circuit breaker levels in India?
They trigger at 10%, 15% and 20% moves in either the Nifty 50 or the Sensex. A 10% move before 1 pm halts trading for 45 minutes; a 15% move before 1 pm halts it for 1 hour 45 minutes; a 20% move at any time closes trading for the day. Later in the session the rules change: a 10% move after 2:30 pm causes no halt, while a 15% move after 2 pm stops trading for the day.
Who decides a stock's price band?
The exchanges set price bands jointly, based on each stock's volatility, liquidity and surveillance status, and revise them regularly by circular. A stock moved into a surveillance framework such as ASM or GSM often gets a tighter band, and a band can be widened again once the stock leaves that framework.
What is a dynamic price band for F&O stocks?
Stocks in the derivatives segment have no fixed daily band. Instead, the exchange sets an operating range, initially 10% from the previous close, and widens it in 5% steps when trades approach the edge and the market calls for it. Orders priced outside the current range are rejected until it is relaxed.
How stocks tend to react
Material news on tightly-banded stocks often plays out as consecutive days of circuit moves rather than one big repricing, because each day's move is capped. That stretches the reaction out and can trap late buyers or sellers — one reason knowing the news within minutes matters more for small caps.
MarketPing measures this instead of guessing: every analysed announcement carries the stock's actual price reaction across 14 horizons, and the Reaction Lab aggregates how each category of announcement has historically moved stocks.
Related terms
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Educational content, not investment advice. Regulations and tax rules change — verify current rules before acting.