Ultratech Cement, Tata Motors, shares drop on unusual trades
India's National Stock Exchange (NSE) was investigating the deeply discounted sale of large blocks of shares in Tata Motors and UltraTech Cement in late trades on Friday, the latest in a series of unusual price movements to rattle the market.
An NSE official said the block sales in the two stocks appeared to have come from a single broker and the exchange was looking into the matter.
The unusual pricing reminded dealers of the time in October when a series of large erroneous orders were made on a broad basket of shares by a broker at Emkay Global Financial Services that sent the NSE's main index tumbling as much as 15.5 percent.
That incident had sparked concerns about the stability of the country's trading systems.
"In the long run these types of trading incidents may sap confidence of long-term investors, and as such, can erode the value of their portfolios significantly," said Deven Choksey, managing director of KR Choksey Securities in Mumbai.
Officials at both companies said they would not comment on market movements in their share prices.
A total of 2.07 million shares in Tata Motors were sold in six blocks at an average price of 274.92 rupees in the afternoon, well below the roughly 292 rupee level at which the shares were trading at the time.
Tata shares fell as low as 268.25 rupees before ending the session down 5.49 percent at 281.64 rupees.
Shares in UltraTech, a cement maker, ended down 3.4 percent at 1,838 rupees after an earlier block sale of
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