The delivered quantity of one stock on a trading day, divided by the total traded quantity of that stock on the same day and shown as a percentage, tells what part of the day's trading ended as shares actually held by buyers. The figure is worked out for each stock after the session ends.
Investors often ask what is delivery percentage in practice, and the idea is simple. Shares held at least overnight count as delivery. Shares bought and sold on the same day count as intraday trades and these are not included in the delivered quantity.
Intraday trades still add to the traded quantity, so a stock with heavy same day trading will show a lower figure. The formula is delivered quantity ÷ traded quantity × 100.
NSE publishes it after close, not during trading
NSE publishes the figure for every stock after each trading session, in the security-wise delivery position and in the bhavcopy file. It also shows on the quote page of each stock, inside the trade information block.
The figure is end of day data. The delivered quantity is fixed only at the time of settlement, so investors cannot see it while market is open.
For a hypothetical stock with 80 lakh shares traded in a day and 40 lakh shares delivered, the delivery percentage will be 50%. The other 40 lakh shares were bought and sold within the same day.
High delivery on thin volume can mislead
Delivery percentage is a descriptive measure of participation on a given day, and it is not a forecast of where the price will go.
A good level differs from stock to stock. Large and heavily traded index stocks often show lower delivery than thinly traded stocks, so the same figure can look low for one stock and normal for another.
The common mix-up is with volume. A high delivery percentage on thin volume is usually noise, so the two figures are looked at together. A single negotiated block deal counts as delivery and can lift a day's figure sharply, and NSE publishes bulk and block deals separately.