Sebi senior executive director LK Singhvi said that discussions last weekwith stock exchanges and other market paticipants had elicited the view thatit was better not to try and introduce any changes or relaxations in thecircuit-filter system - where a scrip price goes into freeze mode when itswings by 8 per cent of its previous closing price, either way - in theprevailing volatile conditions.

The net effect of this is that there are no plans of implementing thecircuit-filter relaxation planned earlier, whereby a 4 per cent relaxationwas to be granted for each scrip as it hits the 8 per cent limit. This wasto provide an opportunity for investors and brokers to exit from theirpositions. The regulators are waiting for the market to return to "normal".However, Sebi officials confessed to feeling confused and baffled as to whatis to be done in an unstable market situation. "We will have to think aboutit," Singhvi told The Financial Express, adding that the issue had to belooked at in a "wider perspective" rather than as merely stock prices goingup and down. According to Sebi, the market swings and any solution to it canbe arrived at only after looking into and studying the type of manipulationsthat take place - relaxing the circuit by a certain level is not expected toachieve anything substantial.

Sebi is understood to be looking at a more holistic approach to the problem,though Singhvi said that they were still debating on how to go about it andmore important, the mode of implementation as an effective deterrent tovolatility.

He explained that at the time of its conception, the introdution of a 4 percent relaxation in filtering mechanism had appeared as a solution to theproblem, but it appeared ineffectual under the prevailing circumstances.