Tale of the Tape 

Hola Amigos!

Markets were back in the green with Nifty (+0.5%) and Sensex (+0.4%) seeing decent gains. This tracks a rally across Asian markets that has been fuelled by expectations of a Fed rate cut, hopes of a US-India trade deal and renewed AI optimism. Broader markets were up too with Midcaps (+0.6%) and Smallcaps (+0.4%) seeing buying. A cool 341 stocks in the NSE 500 finished higher.

Except Auto (-0.7%), every other sector gained. Oil & Gas (+2.1%) jumped the most followed by Metals (+1.7%) and Pharma (+0.8%).

In today’s issue of the Daily Rip, we tell you how to avoid getting trapped in new trading scams, cover Varun Beverages and Blue Dart Express’s Q2 results, unpack the AMC stock sell-off and more.

Honourable Mentions:

Coherence Lifesciences cracked -9% after its managing director V Prasada Raju abruptly resigned. CG Power jumped ~4% after reporting all-time high quarterly sales.

Check out the NSE 500 heatmap:

Market
Reality Check!

Another day, another scam! Over a hundred brokers and investors have potentially been scammed of ~Rs 50 cr, all because they fell for the promise of assured returns. Here’s a quick rundown on what happened and what to avoid.

The bait was simple. A company called Green Wall Enterprise told investors that if they deposited around ~Rs 5 lakh, they would get the ability to trade with capital of Rs 50 lakh by paying some interest. The cherry on top: you also get fixed & assured returns per month which could help offset any losses. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well it was all a big fat lie, with reports saying investors finally learned they had been scammed when their accounts were blocked and funds frozen.

Now, the thing is that many brokerages do offer margin trading. But as podcaster Aseem Juneja notes, Green Wall’s model should trigger huge red flags. This is because 10x margin trades aren’t allowed by SEBI and charging interest would require registration with the regulator.

The bigger problem is that Green Wall was claiming to act on behalf of a decently known broker called Jainam Broking. It’s unclear at this point whether Jainam actually knew about any of this; whether they were in on it or just their name was illegally used by Green Wall. But this again should be a red flag. SEBI doesn’t allow funds to be routed through sub-brokers -- the regulator only recognised authorised persons which is why you should deal with them directly!

Big Picture: When you first start trading, it can be tempting to find shortcuts to making a lot of money. But remember, they will always fail. There’s no real method to getting rich quick. If we had to leave you with just one thing today, it’s that if anyone is offering ‘assured’ returns and it's not a fixed deposit, run in the other direction. That’s got Ponzi scheme written all over it.