Price Band Hitters on NSE: How to Read the Daily Upper and Lower Circuit List

The price band hitters NSE list is the exchange’s daily roll call of stocks that moved as far as they were allowed to in one session. A name on the upper band list kept rising until it reached its ceiling for the day. A name on the lower band list fell to its floor. Most traders just call them “upper circuit” and “lower circuit” stocks, and momentum hunters go through the list every evening. Read it in a hurry, though, and it can fool you. A stock can show up on the upper band list and still close well below its limit, and plenty of the names sit in surveillance or trade-for-trade segments that come with their own rules. Below, we walk through what the list contains, how to read each column, and how to use it, with real examples from the October 16, 2026 session.

For the wider picture on any given day, start with our Stock Market Today India hub. If bands and index-wide halts are fuzzy, our explainer on price bands and circuit limits on NSE covers the rules in detail.

What the price band hitters NSE list shows

NSE publishes the list on its Price Band Hitters page under Market Data. Up top there is a summary: how many securities hit the upper band, the lower band, both bands, and the total. Below that sit separate tabs for the upper band, lower band and both band lists, plus a CSV download.

Each of the three lists tells you something different:

• Upper band: the stock’s high for the day reached its upper price band, the maximum price allowed for that session.
• Lower band: the stock’s low for the day reached its lower price band, the minimum price allowed.
• Both band: the stock touched both its upper and lower bands in the same session, a sign of an extremely volatile day.

Pay attention to the word “hit”. The list records stocks that touched a band at some point during the session. By itself, it says nothing about whether the stock stayed there.

Where the bands come from

NSE’s price bands page lays out the framework. Daily price bands of 2%, 5% or 10% either way apply to specific securities, and a price band of 20% either way applies to all remaining scrips, including debentures and preference shares. Stocks on which derivative products are available do not have price bands. Instead, NSE says, it has fixed an operating range of 10% for them, to stop members from entering orders at non-genuine prices. Stocks without their own derivatives that are part of index derivatives are still subject to price bands, and the auction market uses 20% bands.

The band for every security is published in NSE’s daily price band file (sec_list.csv), which lists the symbol, series, company name, band and remarks such as a GSM stage. In the version of the file we downloaded on October 17, 2026, 2,210 securities carried a 20% band, 577 a 5% band, 208 a 10% band and 44 a 2% band, while 548 were marked “No Band”. The exchange revises bands, so always go by the current file, not these counts.

A stock on the upper band list touched its ceiling at least once. Whether buyers were still queuing at that price when the market closed is a separate question, and the answer is in the last traded price column.

How to read each column

Each row of the list gives the symbol, the series, the last traded price, the change and percentage change from the previous close, the price band, the day’s high and low, the 52-week high and low, the traded volume and the turnover. We find it easiest to read them in this order:

1. Price band. Note whether the stock is in the 2%, 5%, 10% or 20% bucket. A 5% hit and a 20% hit are not the same animal.
2. High or low versus last price. On the upper list, compare the last traded price with the day’s high. If they are equal, the stock ended at its upper band. If the last price is well below the high, it touched the band and then got sold into. On the lower list, compare the last price with the day’s low.
3. Series. The series code tells you which segment the stock trades in, which matters for settlement and intraday trading (see below).
4. Volume and turnover. A band hit on tiny turnover may come down to a handful of orders. Check it against the stock’s usual activity before reading much into it.
5. 52-week range. A stock hitting its upper band at a fresh 52-week high is a very different setup from a beaten-down stock bouncing off its lows.

Decoding the series codes

NSE’s legend of series explains the codes that crop up most often on the band hitters list:

• EQ: fully paid equity shares and ETFs in normal rolling settlement.
• BE and BZ: fully paid equity shares in trade-for-trade settlement. NSE says BE is now used for securities moved to trade-for-trade for surveillance, while BZ is for securities moved to trade-for-trade (Z category) for non-compliance with certain listing conditions under SEBI circular CIR/MRD/DSA/31/2013 of September 30, 2013.
• SM: SME equity shares in rolling settlement, with ST and SZ as the SME trade-for-trade equivalents of BE and BZ.
• GB: sovereign gold bonds.

Trade-for-trade series settle differently from the normal EQ segment, so check your broker’s rules before you trade them. If a name on the list carries a surveillance remark in the price band file, our guide to the ASM and GSM surveillance framework explains what that implies.

Reading the October 16, 2026 list, row by row

NSE’s band hitters data for the session ended October 16, 2026 (timestamped 4:00 p.m.) showed a summary of 227 securities: 117 hitting the upper band, 93 hitting the lower band and 17 hitting both. Every number below is from that day’s data on NSE’s Price Band Hitters page.

1. A full upper band close. EUROPRATIK (series EQ, 20% band) closed at ₹193.36, up ₹32.22 or 20.00%, and its day’s high was also ₹193.36. Last price equal to the high: the stock finished the day sitting at its ceiling.

2. A touch-and-fade. MOMSBELIEF (series EQ, 20% band) also appeared on the upper band list, but its last price was ₹281.20, up ₹31.78 or 12.74%. Its day’s high was ₹299.30. Working back, the previous close was ₹281.20 minus ₹31.78, or ₹249.42, and 20% above that is about ₹299.30, so the stock did touch its band. Then it gave back a big part of the move and closed about 6% below its high (₹281.20 divided by ₹299.30 is 0.940). Call it an “upper circuit stock” and you miss the selling that showed up at the top.

3. A 5% band hit in a trade-for-trade series. HFCL appeared in series BE with a 5% band, closing at ₹256.01, up ₹12.19 or 5.00%, at its day’s high. For a 5% band stock, a full upper band day means a 5% move, not 20%. And the BE series code tells you it trades in the trade-for-trade segment.

4. A lower band touch and recovery. STLTECH (series BE, 5% band) was on the lower band list with a day’s low of ₹834.55, but its last price was ₹860, down only ₹18.45 or 2.10%. The previous close works out to ₹878.45, and 5% below that is about ₹834.53, which matches the low. So buyers came in once it hit the floor.

5. A full lower band close. AMAL (series EQ, 20% band) closed at ₹746.30, down ₹186.55 or 20.00%, with its day’s low also at ₹746.30, so it finished at its floor.

6. Both bands in one day. KABRAEXTRU (series BE, 5% band) was on the both band list with a high of ₹855.40, a low of ₹774 and a last price of ₹800.05, down 1.80%. From the implied previous close of ₹814.70, the 5% bands are about ₹855.44 and ₹773.97, so it swung from ceiling to floor within one session. That is a wild day by any measure.

Across the 116 rows shown on the upper band tab, the last traded price equalled the day’s high for 80 of them, which means roughly a third did not end the day at their upper band. That is a lot of fades. On the 92 rows shown on the lower band tab, 49 ended at the day’s low. The upper band rows were also dominated by narrow bands: 83 had a 5% band, 13 a 10% band, 13 a 20% band and 7 a 2% band. By series, 40 were BE, 32 EQ, 25 SM, 11 ST, 6 BZ, 1 GB and 1 SZ. (The tabs listed one row fewer than each summary count, so these shares are based on the rows shown.)

On October 16, 2026, most upper band hitters were narrow-band, surveillance-segment or SME stocks, not the large caps that move the Nifty.

Working out band prices yourself

All you need is the previous close and the band percentage. Say a hypothetical stock closed at ₹250 yesterday:

• With a 5% band, the range is ₹250 × 0.95 = ₹237.50 to ₹250 × 1.05 = ₹262.50.
• With a 10% band, it is ₹225 to ₹275.
• With a 20% band, it is ₹200 to ₹300.
• With a 2% band, it is ₹245 to ₹255.

The exchange’s own band prices can differ slightly from this simple arithmetic, as the STLTECH example shows (a low of ₹834.55 against a calculated ₹834.53), so treat your own number as a close approximation and check the live quote.

Using the list well, and where people slip up

Think of the list as a quick scan of where extreme demand or supply turned up in the session. Used with some care, it helps you:

• Spot possible news-driven moves. A band hit can follow a company announcement, so check the company’s exchange filings before drawing conclusions.
• Separate locked closes from fades. Comparing last price with the high or low, as in the examples above, tells you whether demand or supply was still unmet at the close.
• Flag surveillance names. A BE, BZ, ST or SZ series, or a GSM remark in the price band file, is a reason for extra caution.

The traps matter just as much:

• A band hit is not a forecast. A stock that ended at its upper band can open lower the next day; the October 16 data shows how often stocks fade even within the same session.
• Thin trading exaggerates moves. In small stocks with low turnover, a modest order can push the price to its band.
• Getting out can be hard. If a stock you hold is stuck at its lower band, there may be few buyers at that price. If you are short a stock stuck at its upper band, buying back can be difficult. Our guide to risk management in trading covers position sizing for these situations.
• F&O stocks will not appear. Stocks with derivatives have no price band, so large, heavily traded names rarely show up here, even on days when they move a lot.

A short evening routine

1. After the close, open NSE’s Price Band Hitters page and note the summary counts.
2. On the upper and lower band tabs, sort or filter for the stocks you follow and check the series and band for each.
3. For each name of interest, compare last price with the day’s high or low to see whether it closed at the band.
4. Check turnover against the stock’s usual activity.
5. Look up the stock’s corporate announcements and its line in the price band file for any surveillance remark.
6. Decide whether it deserves a spot on tomorrow’s watchlist. Not whether to chase it.

Questions we get asked

Is a price band hitter the same as an upper circuit stock?

People use the terms loosely. Strictly speaking, NSE’s list shows stocks that touched their band during the day. An upper circuit close is only the case where the last price is still at the upper band, as with EUROPRATIK on October 16, 2026.

Why do I not see Reliance or HDFC Bank on the list?

In the NSE price band file we checked on October 17, 2026, both RELIANCE and HDFCBANK were marked “No Band”. Under NSE’s rules, stocks with derivative products available have no daily price band and instead have a 10% operating range, so they cannot hit a price band and do not show up on the list.

Can a stock’s band change?

Yes. NSE publishes the current band for each security in its daily price band file, and the band for a security can be revised. Always check the latest file rather than assuming yesterday’s band still applies.

This article is for education only and is not investment advice. Stock names and figures from the October 16, 2026 session are shown only to explain how to read NSE’s data and are not recommendations. The band calculation example uses a hypothetical price. Price bands, series and surveillance rules are set by NSE and SEBI and can change; check the latest NSE data before trading, and consult a SEBI-registered adviser before making investment decisions.