Dissatisfied with the unremitting short-selling incidents at the Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges, the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission has asked the bourses to take more measures to prevent the illegal practice by the brokerage houses.
To this end the stock market regulator issued a letter to the bourses on Monday.
The BSEC’s move came after it received a number of short-selling alerts through its surveillance system.
Short-selling is a type of sales of securities which is not owned by the seller.
The BSEC earlier had asked the chief executive officers of the Dhaka Stock Exchange and the Chittagong Stock Exchange to take measures to stop short-selling by the brokerage houses.
‘The BSEC has detected that a number of short-sales alerts have been found in the daily securities trading of stock exchanges since the inauguration of new market surveillance system which are not desirable,’ the BSEC letter said.
It also said, ‘The matter was discussed with the CEOs of the DSE and the CSE and they were advised to take initiatives to prevent brokerage houses from short selling, but no significant improvement is seen.’
A BSEC senior officer said, ‘Despite the fact that the stock exchanges have taken attempts to stop short-selling, we are receiving a number of short-selling alerts through the market surveillance software.’
The commission has instructed the bourses again to strengthen their supervision, investigation and monitoring on securities market transactions to prevent short-selling, the BSEC official said.
High officials of the DSE and the CSE, however, denied any short-selling at their respective bourses.
‘We have already got the letter from the BSEC, but no short-selling was occurred in recent times at any brokerage houses of the bourse,’ a senior DSE official said.
‘If the bourse finds any short-selling in future, it will obviously take necessary steps,’ he added.
In December 2012, the BSEC launched its own surveillance software to detect market manipulation through trading of shares.
-With New Age input
