HNI‘s compulsorily have to apply through ASBA in IPO’s

SEBI has mandated that henceforth all HNI applications in IPO’s would have to be through ASBA. This would bring about a change in how applications happen in IPO’s currently and how they would happen in future.

HNI applications are leveraged applications to a great extent and because they involve interest payment, they have typically been coming on the last day when the issue closes. With the change happening it would now not be possible to see the huige subscription that happens in this category on the last day. The reason for this is that ASBA applications need longer time to process and there has to be a clear balance in the account prior to submitting the application. Until and unless the balance exists, the bank would not be able to block the account with the application account.

Till now typically an issue which closed on Friday, the cheques of the same would be cleared only on Tuesdaay. Henceforth if the issue was to close on Friday, you would need a clear balance on Friday itself. This would increase the number of days for which money would be borrowed in any issue.

The rate of interest is likely to come down because there is interest which is being earned as the money does not leave the bank or the bank account of the applicant. It would take a couple of issues for systems to fall in place and new rates of interest to stabilise. However one thing is for sure, the retial investor would get a much better idea of the response of HNI’s well before the issue closes and he could take a much more informed decision on his application.

Track record of Merchant Bankers to be made Mandatory in IPO’s

SEBI had some time ago discussed the proposal of asking merchant bankers to give their views on giving track record in past issues at the time of an IPO. Not much has happened and now SEBI has asked the association of Merchant Bankers to come up with a code of conduct or self-regulation or SEBI would be forced to take suitable action.

The concept behind this is the number of issues which are aggressively priced, over hyped and result in huge losses for investors post listing. Once the track record of a merchant banker is published as part of the RHP in an issue going public, it would become more difficult to hide the facts and people/investors would become aware of what happened in previous issues.

In continuation of this over pricing, there is also a move to reconsider whether as part of the listing day the circuit limits which are kept open should continue or be reduced. This point needs to be reconsidered and decided in the greater interest of investors and the capital market.

I believe these would be steps in the right direction and would make markets better manged.

SMS Menace in the stock market

Making money is becoming increasingly difficult in the stock market and to make matters worse one is finding that a lot of these SMS (short message service) talk about their performance and also offer facilities that only profitable calls would be chargeable. SEBI has disapproved of such SMS and had some time ago issued a press release to that effect.

There has been no improvement and these messages are sent with impunity and even to cells whose names are registered in the DND (do not disturb) category. Sending SMS’s have become very cheap and convenient. Bulk SMS cost one or two paisa per message and one single message is sent out to hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of people.

I believe that if there is a serious  attempt to ban the proliferation of these messages the simple way to do it is ask the service providers to check whether these people sending messages about the stock market are regulated or approved market intermediaries or not. In case they are not they should not be allowed to use this facility of sending bulk messages.

Some sample messages received by me in recent days are enumerated below: –

LM-BBUZZ1        Liberty shoes rose from Rs 75 to 101 (44%) in 2 months after BazaarBuzz.com gave a BUY in it. To get such tips, Subscribe now or call 09360116111 for details.

LM-SM                  Our PVR call today made Rs 2404 profit on Rs 50,000 investments. We charge ONLY on positive calls. To start earning send BSA to 56767 now!

TD-BULLSEYE      Buy Century Ply CMP 72.50 INTRADAY 1st TRGT 74, 2ND TRGT 76. Value to be unlocked very soon. Post demerger TRGT 120. We expect a huge upward movement. BUY

There are thousands of such messages luring investors to subscribe and pay fees for getting these tips. They would lose the subscription and their money as these are unregistered bodies and in case of disputes SEBI would not entertain investors with such complaints.

I reiterate SEBI should get such providers of tips sending bulk SMS’s debarred from using these mass mailing facilities. This would be of great service to investors and save a fortune being lost on a daily basis.

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