Bombay Stock Exchange
By S Jha
New Delhi, March 13: The manic mayhem in small and midcaps extended to their large peers on Wednesday. Nifty went into a tailspin. Panicky retailers found trapped in their stock holdings.
Some estimates suggested that as many as 2000 stocks were locked in lower circuits. There were no escape routes. Nifty breached the psychological level of 22000. Bank Nifty wilted on the day of expiry even while the HDFC bank, Kotak Mahindra bank, and the ICICI bank stood tall during the all-round rout on the Dalal Street.
In some quarters it is being suggested that the smallcaps have lost Rs 25000 crores of valuations in a matter of a few days alone. There is no stopping to the battering. Bears are seen to have been holding the street hostage.
Several of the Whatsapp and telegram groups loudly thought of the reasons for the market mayhem. The lining up of a few factors – the Supreme Court ordering the SBI to share the details of the electoral bonds, the likely announcement of the poll dates for the Lok Sabha elections, crackdown against an alleged Hawala operator linked to the Mahadev betting App, and the last day of the advance tax payment – popped up as explanations for the “there will be no other day” rush to escape the equity market.
But the larger focus has turned out to be among the investors on the SEBI (Security Exchange Board of India) for making statements such as “there is a froth in the smallcap, etc.”. Investors questioned the background to the SEBI making such statements which as per them set off the cascading effect to allow the bears to pounce on the scrips running like sprints on the street.
A senior market participant said: “The SEBI has quasi judicial, quasi legislative, quasi investigative powers, and yet it in place of acting against the culprits who may have been into the acts of manipulation resorted to issue a general statement against a sector which is full of new age businesses and also linked to the emergence of a self-reliant India”.
The mayhem in smallcaps can be gauged from the example of a defence play scrip Data Patterns which was hammered in a span of three days to a level from where it would need to rise by another 50 per cent. The likes of Swan Energy, and the railway stocks lie bruised beyond recognition. Rail Vikas Nigam or Railtel aren’t penny stocks which could have been subjected to the dark play of manipulation.
Market participants are also questioning the SEBI for making a general statement against alleged manipulations in the SME scrips. They argue that the role of the SEBI is not to issue statements but to act in time and eliminate the scope of manipulation. The market participants also question the flood of IPOs in the SME sector with many of them getting subscribed to a mind-boggling figure.
(Note: Inputs have been used from general sense prevailing in some of the groups linked to equity investors) Subscribe: youtube.com/@TheRaisinaHills Join: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaFAp9b60eBiuA8v1x0s
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