In the latest MarketVision Chronicle (Feb 19 2011): Read about how Ambani shut down the BSE for a couple days in 1982, and all else at MarketVision.
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Ambani Shuts Down the BSE
In the newsletter last week, I mentioned this story and got a few requests to expand. So here goes. The story draws heavily from Gita Piramal’s Business Maharajas and Hamish McDonald’s The Polyester Prince.
March 18, 1982. The Reliance scrip was falling. Down from 131 to 121 in minutes, large blocks of shares were hitting the market and that was destroying the price. Engineered by a “bear cartel” that involve influential Calcutta industrialists, the shares prices of key scrips like TISCO (now Tata Steel) were also hammered down. The idea was simple: You sell shares. And when the prices go down, you buy them back. The concept of short selling, and in particular, naked short selling.
In that fateful month of March in 1982, the bear cartel shorted and took down a number of stocks. They sold 11 lakh shares of Reliance short. The cartel was powerful – it had its grubby hands everywhere – and was known to take down companies when it wanted. Yet, they didn’t know what Dhirubhai Ambani had in store.
He bought the shares that were being dumped. Not directly, but through known brokers, more than 800,000 of the 11 lakh shares were bought by Ambani. This carried on for a while, and the share zig-zagged. Then came Friday, April 30, 1982, a settlement day, when the price of Reliance was 152. (Wikipedia) The bear cartel wasn’t worried; they would simply do unbadla and roll the trade over. Dhirubhai’s brokers demanded the shares, and put up the money; and asked for a Rs. 25-50 unbadla charge, which was ridiculously high.
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At MarketVision
China Beats The Next 10 In Steel, Added Up!
Data from the World Steel Organization for 2010 is in, and there’s an incredible show out there. China, with 626 million tons of production, is greater than the next 10 countries, added up.
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Editors Picks
A set of external links chosen from our daily updated Editor’s Picks section.
All You Need to Know About Why Things Fell Apart: Michael Lewis – Bloomberg
Lewis is often a great read and this time he gets in a little humour as well.
Keep mouth shut…(Subramoney)
if the client takes credit for his investments doing well, the Relationship Manager should allow him to take the credit. As long as his bank gives him the credit for the sale and cash for the bonus – how does it matter what the client thinks. Sometimes opening your mouth can mean death…like it happened for the tortoise…
Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail? | Rolling Stone Politics
Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer… (Matt Taibbi frothing at his mouth, with good reason)
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Do read and let me know what you think!
