Pump and Dump
January 18, 2012
More Hedge Fund Employees were arrested by the FBI on Insider Trading Charges . Note Raj Rajaratnam the high profile hedge fund manager of the technology hedge fund is already cooling his heels in jail after being convicted of insider trading by paying money to company and insiders for illegal information. A number of low rung employees have also been jailed for lesser terms. His friend Rajat Gupta who was a former Mckinsey chairman is also facing charges which may result in conviction for passing confidential information to Rajaratnam.
January 9, 2012
Note blatant pump and dump IPO's have made the Indian market a heaven for stock market operators.Despite this going on for years,only recently SEBI has taken some steps against the manipulartion of the primary market.Now SEBI has taken some steps in the Insider Trading case as well by fining executives of JP Associates and Ranbaxy both of which are constituents of the Indian main stock market index. However a mere fine will not do to deter insider traders.A big jail term for a insider trader will make white collar criminals think more in indulging in criminal activity rather than small fines .
May 28, 2011
SEBI has been strangely and inexplicably absent from its role of supervising the primary market in India despite a stream of pump and dump IPO by small disreputable promoters and investment bankers.Most of these IPOs have no fundamentals to justify lofty valuations and without the role of market operators and investment bankers have no hope in hell of getting subscribed.Its a scary gambling scheme in which retail investors put money only with the hope of getting out on the first day with probably listing gains.There is no way that an investor can make money in these issues in the long term.However the shenanigans of the promoters and bankers have gone unpunished leading to more and more of these junk IPOs getting into the stock market everyday.This only brings a bad name to Indian stock markets where manipulation can happen so brazenly and openly and pushes away genuine investors away from equities.SEBI has been recently been trying to get more retail investors into the stock market however it seems mere words as it does not take action on open corruption.
May 8, 2011
Note the stock fell before it announced the results after the close of the markets which means that insider trading had take n place.The volumes at 10 times certainly seems to hint so as the JP Morgan downgrade of the stock could not have led to such a big fall in which there are a large number of foreign and domestic funds as investors.Besides its problems in Andhra Pradesh are hardly new and Indian brokers hardly that good that their reports cause such big stock price movements.Like other SEBI probes expect this one to fail or result in a small penatly which will not deter more such white collar fraunds in the Indian Stock Market.Insider Trading in India is quite widespread with some of the biggest business groups having been fined by SEBI like ADAG etc.
February 19, 2011
The CleanTech and Green Theme is being increasingly used by fraudsters and fly by night operators in the stock market.CO2 Tech Ltd.,a Pink Sheets Company has […]
February 18, 2011
Note it would not be surprising if the allegations were true as the Indian stock market is a pump and dump heaven of IPOs with blatant manipulation by market operators.Price Rigging Rings are also present with mid cap and small cap scams happening with an alarming regularity.With Corruption touching a new high,the Supreme Court has taken over the investigation of the Telecom Scam Probe from the Government.This has led the CBI which is mostly a ruling party puppet to question some top billionaires and politicians.However it remains to be seen if some of the top fish are caught or just some small scapegoats are imprisoned.
December 7, 2010
Midfield Industries which is a small low quality company did an IPO around 3 months ago at a very expensive price that did not justify the […]
December 3, 2010
India's Stock Market Regulator has been hardly proactive in cracking down on stock market manipulation except for some inefficient scolding.It has banned some companies and a stock market operator for artificially rigging up stock prices through a nefarious scheme so that the stock could placed through QIBs at higher prices.Recently GMO,Goldman,Morgan and Fidilety got conned by a fly by night Indian financier who managed to place $100 million of his company's shares a hugely inflated price.A cursory due diligence by these high flying financial institutions would have shown his business model to a sham.Realty Investing in India is always a dangerous game with real estate firms involved in all sorts of corruption scandals.Akruti City whose shares had seen a massive rise some months ago has been implicated by SEBI for rigging up its share price with the help of a "stock market operator" Dangi.Some other firms like Murli Industries,Welspun Corp have been found to be part of this corruption game as well.Broking Firms like Ashika and Anand Rathi were broking for the Operator.Note SEBI has not done much except banning these firms.I would have though that these white collar crimes should be punished more stringently.Banning some entities without any jail time will lead to more and more of these stock rigging in the future.
November 13, 2010
India's Stock Market remains a heaven for Pump and Dump Operators of IPOs.Despite some high quality IPOs in recent times like Coal India,the majority of the IPOs being done are by fly by night operators and promoters.Their is little justification for the valuation and the subscription numbers.But it is a lucrative trade for shady operators who easily manage to manipulate small cap IPOs leaving huge losses for retail investors.The stock market regulator SEBI strangely remains asleep at the wheel despite some blatant pump and dump issues.More than 50% of the IPOs in the Indian stock market over the past year are below their issue prices.But there has been no investigation and prosecution over these white collar crimes just seem gentle scolding.Like the totally infamous and ineffectual SEC of the US Stock Market,SEBI looks more and more like a toothless tiger.Despite some laudable reforms in favor of retail investors,it needs to act more quickly and reform much more.
October 12, 2010
Indian IPO Rules allows the Merchant Bankers of the Issue to give favored institutional clients a part of the IPO even before the issue starts.This has the advantage for both parties as funds get a guaranteed portion of the IPO and Bankers can tout the quality of the company.However you would have to question these "Anchor Investors' on how they invest in such IPOs.Prestige Estates a Realty Company coming out with an IPO is another low quality company to come out with a high valuation.So finding 21 Anchor Investors is a surprise.Despite the Real Estate Market being avoided by Fund Mangers due to questionable practice,23 Funds have found it worthwhile to add Prestige Estates to their portfolio.Makes you wonder if Institutional Investors are Plain Incompetent ,Compromised or Both
September 25, 2010
India's Stock Market Regulator SEBI has castigated the investment bankers for giving investors the short end of the stick.The regulator accused the I-Banking community of only looking out for the interests of the promoters by pricing primary issues too high.The proof is in the fact that 62% of the IPOs in the last 3 years are trading at below issue price despite the fact that Indian markets are near an all time high.Bad practises such as charging zero fees from big band government divestment,unethical if not illegal promotion of IPO companies through planted ads in newspapers were some of the other things that SEBI found objectionable.
August 27, 2010
There is no good way of shorting Prakash Steelage stock otherwise it seems a sure shot money making opportunity.What is funny is that mainstream media websites have described the stock glowingly as a multibagger.More reason than ever to strictly avoid mainstream financial media.These IPOs have become a fertile gambling ground with the dice loaded in favor of the promoters and connected market operators.Retail investors get sucked in not realizing its a "Greater Fool" Game with the whole purpose of making them the Greatest Fools.
August 20, 2010
Midfield Industries was another overpriced small cap IPO in the Indian market which listed on 4th August.This stock not so strangely has almost doubled in price […]
August 5, 2010
It is a microcap stock with only $12 million being sold to the public making it easily susceptible to manipulation because of its small float size.Its fundamentals could not in any way justify Rs 199 as even at Rs 118 it looked twice overvalued to me.But the stock kept climbing without any news probably sucking in naive investors out to gamble on the "greater fool" theory until the greatest fools were left holding out the can
May 11, 2010
I have been wondering whether the rash of low quality IPOs in the Indian markets is the sign of a market top. There have been numerous […]