Markets decline
Mumbai: Major Indian stock markets fell on 1 October 1999. The Bombay Stock Exchange index of 30 shares closed at 4,702, registering a drop of 62 points from the previous day's close of 4,764. The National Stock Exchange index of 50 shares closed at 1,403, dropping 10 points. Within half an hour of the beginning of the first trading session, the markets saw huge selling pressure.

Major trading activity was witnessed in Zee Telefilms, Satyam Computers, Ranbaxy, Reliance Industries and Pentafour Software.
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Auctioning may be replaced by stock lending
Mumbai: According to a report in the Business Standard, the Securities and Exchange Board of India may make it mandatory for brokers to undertake stock lending, in case they are not able to deliver shares sold by them. Sebi feels that the current system of auctioning should be done away with. This will ensure that stock lending will provide the necessary liquidity in the stock markets.
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UTI collects Rs.14 cr.
Mumbai: The Unit Trust of India has mopped up Rs.124 crore through the sale of its open-ended schemes, during the period 1 July 1999 to 22 September 1999. The amount is significant since it excludes collections of the UTI’s US-64 scheme, and also because during the past few months, the collections has averaged just about Rs.10 crore.
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Quick setting up of ARC’s a must: MFs
Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Reserve Bank of India have been asked by the public sector mutual funds to speed up the process of setting up of asset reconstruction companies. Mutual funds such as Canbank Mutual Fund, GIC Mutual Fund and LIC Mutual Fund are among those that want the process to be accelerated.

About Rs.150 crore is blocked in non-performing debt instruments in these mutual funds’ old schemes. The asset reconstruction companies will take up the non-performing debt and try and find out means to recover the amounts.
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Sebi exempts Compaq, Otis from open offer
Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India has said that Compaq, which acquired Digital Equipment India Ltd, and Otis Elevator, which took over the Mahindras' stake in its Indian joint venture, have been granted exemption from making an open offer to the general public. These exemptions have been granted under regulation 3 of the Sebi takeover guidelines, which deals with inter-se transfer of shares among promoters.

The Sebi has also made modifications to two regulations. A company going in for a buyback will have to state the ‘maximum price’ and not the ‘specific price’ in its extraordinary general meeting. The buyback can be of any ‘specified securities’ and not just ‘shares’. The word shares has replaced the word ‘specified securities’ in the new regulations.

Sebi has also increased the maximum limit of securities that can be held by stock broker depository participants to 100 times the net worth, from the earlier range of figures of 35-50 times. Previously, brokers were permitted to hold securities up to 35 times their net worth if they had a net worth between Rs.50 lakhs to Rs.7.5 crore. Above Rs.7.5 crore, up to Rs.50 crore, the limit was 50 times.

The Sebi committee on insider trading, headed by Kumar Mangalam Birla, has said that companies should reveal as much information to shareholders as they do to equity research analysts. The committee feels that this will help curb insider trading to a certain extent.

Sebi will soon frame guidelines on use or misuse of information by all capital market participants.
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