Will SEBI investigate yesterday’s Market Manipulation?

Our markets opened with a gap taking cues from the Asian indices and crude prices. But when Asian indices were trading about 1%, we were slowly sliding from the open. We did not cross the first 15 minutes high on Nifty. That is surprising for a vibrant market like ours, when Asia is performing well. Then came the announcement at 12 PM about the surgical strike conducted by our Army. This sent markets into a tizzy and suddenly there was panic. Personally, I felt, this is a good news. The strike happened within PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir). That is theoretically, within our territory. But market participants thought otherwise. Nifty futures made a low of 8562.05 at 12.48 and recovered to 8673.8 at 13.34. Later it fell to close at 8591.

After checking the charts of different strikes of put options, I have a strong feeling that some insiders knew about the announcement!

If you see the charts of 8700 and 8800 puts of September (contracts that were expiring tomorrow), there was huge buying as Nifty gapped up in the morning. 8800 puts would have been lapped by these insiders at a price between 19 and 25. It closed at 190. 8700 puts went up from 2.5 to close at 99!

Check the performance of these stocks after the news was announced.

Stocks that bounced from panic lows

Stocks that closed below panic lows

Will SEBI investigate this?  Your guess is as good as mine!

Khelo India Khelo!