Tale of the Tape 

Howdy folks. Welcome back to the Daily Rip!

Markets got thrashed today, with the Nifty and Sensex ending -1.6% lower each. PS - India’s ‘fear gauge’ spiked 16% amidst FII selloff, concerns over weak corporate earnings and the outbreak of HMPV cases globally. Midcaps (-2.7%) & Smallcaps (-3.2%) also witnessed deep cuts. A whopping 453 stocks in the NSE 500 ended in the red! Check out the Stocktwits Sentiment Meter:

Not a single sector ended in the green. PSU Banks (-4%) led the meltdown, followed by Energy (-3.2%) and Real Estate (-3.2%).

SEBI says Ketan Parekh is back to his usual, dirty tricks. Read our top story for the lowdown on how he helped frontrun trades in top blue chip stocks.

The long-awaited ITC Hotels demerger is finally here. More details below on what this means for the vertical and the broader business.

Banks got KO-ed today. Check out their charts below to find out why.

Kotak Mahindra Bank (-3%) was in focus after its CTO abruptly resigned.

Easy Trip Planners jumped +17% intraday after Nishant Pitti clarified he had no plans to sell any further stake and that he would focus on the firm’s international expansion.

Q3 update reactions. Nykaa gained +2% after saying its topline would grow higher than “mid-twenties” for the quarter. Jubilant Foodworks was up +1% after it said Dominos India saw a LFL growth of 12.5%!

Mphasis was in focus after Jefferies initiated coverage on the stock; the brokerage sees a +21% upside from current levels.

SBI Cards was up +1% after both Nomura and Nuvama upgraded the stock to a buy. They see a +14% and +17% upside from current levels respectively.

Happy Forgings will invest Rs 650 cr to set up new manufacturing units.

Here are the closing prints:

News
Guess Who’s Back!!!

The infamous Ketan Parekh is back! This time, he’s swindling both Indian markets and a big US-based foreign investor. At the heart of the scandal are funny intraday movements in your favourite blue chip stock. Here’s a rundown on the SEBI probe.

The scam: An unnamed US fund house wants to invest in Indian stocks. These are big trades (think lakhs of shares) and executed using Nuvama & Motilal Oswal. So far, so good. But it turns out the American buyer also used a Singapore-based trader called Rohit Salgaocar to find liquidity aka the other side of the trade. The only problem? Salgaocar slipped Parekh and his goons this insider info which allowed them to set up trading positions that profited off the US client’s buying. 

The modus operandi: Some of the trades were simple: big volumes usually pushes up a stock, so Parekh’s network would buy just before the US client bought and then sell later for a quick profit. But they also deployed more complex strategies using long & short positions. FYI - frontrunning was done on six stocks (HDFC, Titan, L&T, PB Fintech, Cholamandalam Investment and Tube Investments) between June 2021 and June 2023.

How they got caught: SEBI noticed weird trading patterns and got to work with raids & surveillance. Parekh used 10 different numbers to communicate with brokers from Ahmedabad to Mumbai. The brokers saved his name under nicknames like ‘Jack’, ‘John’, ‘Boss’, ‘Well-wisher’, and ‘Bhabhi’. Lmao. To top things off, a lot of the transactions were settled between parties through cash using an ancient Gujarati courier system called angadiyas.

Big Picture: The underlying problem is liquidity. The US client needed to find sellers & buyers. This is where Parekh’s network stepped in, helping them while also using the insider info to make millions on the side. Why did a big FII need Salgaocar’s help when Nuvama or Motilal could’ve done the same? A question for SEBI’s probe to answer. But for now, be wary of who is pulling the strings behind intraday movements!

Stocktwits Specials
Top Brokerage Picks For 2025

We’re back with Part 2 of our New Year Stock Picks series. This time we take a look at hot investment ideas from India’s leading broking houses - with up to 60% potential upside!!! The perfect cure for your underperforming portfolio. Do not miss it folks!