Teaching investing in public when you are a registered research analyst

I am a SEBI-registered research analyst, and I run The Capital Gains, a platform that teaches retail investors in India how markets work. Those two facts sit together less easily than people assume. The registration allows me to do things an unregistered educator cannot. It also makes the education side of my work more careful, not less.

Why SEBI drew the line

The trigger was scale. SEBI's own study, published in September 2024, found that 93% of individual traders in equity futures and options lost money over the three years to FY24. Much of that trading was encouraged by people online who called themselves educators and behaved like tip providers.

SEBI's response came in steps. In 2024 it barred the entities it regulates, such as brokers and fund houses, from associating with unregistered people who give advice or make claims about returns. In January 2025 it went further for anyone who offers education only: they may not use market prices from the preceding three months to name a security or hint at its future price. That rule ended the practice of teaching with live tips.

What the registration changes, and what it does not

Registration is permission to publish research, with obligations attached: disclosures, records, conflicts of interest and rules on how research is distributed. It is not permission to blur research into education.

The platform is therefore built as education only. It teaches concepts, frameworks and tools: courses on market basics, options, valuation and mutual funds, simulators for options Greeks and discounted cash flows, and transparent portfolio frameworks that explain how to allocate and rebalance. It does not give tips, and every page says that it is not investment advice.

Registration does not move the line between education and advice. It makes the line easier to see.

Rules worth adding

The regulations set the floor. A few further rules make an education platform easier to trust.

1. No live names in teaching. Examples use history, simulations or clearly labelled sample data.
2. No performance claims. Long-run index returns can be cited with a source. Returns from following the platform cannot, because there is no honest way to show them.
3. Costs before returns. The compounding effect of fees and taxes is taught before anything about picking investments, because it is the one thing every investor controls.
4. No broker tie-ups. Being paid for referrals to a broker would change what gets taught. The Capital Gains has none.

Is the regulation working?

It has worked on the most visible problem: live tips dressed up as classes are much harder to run in the open. It has not changed what makes them popular. Many new investors want to be told what to buy, and an education platform that refuses to tell them has to offer something better, which is understanding.

The lesson for anyone building in this space is that regulation clears the ground but does not build the product. A financial education business has to be worth paying for when the shortcuts are gone.