Bank of India shares fall intra-day on freak trade speculation

Shares of Bank of India (BoI) on Tuesday fell nearly eight per cent for a brief period on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) during afternoon trade on speculation of freak trades, but recovered soon to end with gains. The company’s scrip tanked 7.8 per cent to Rs 314 on the NSE for a brief period in afternoon trade. Later, it recouped the losses and ended at Rs 343.70, up 0.90 per cent from yesterday’s close.

“Absence of physical settlement has seen another victim today in freak trade, that is, BoI,” said Kishor P Ostwal, chairman and managing director, CNI Research. The NSE did not comment on the issue.

Last week, suspected erroneous sell orders in Tata Motors and UltraTech Cement stocks had pulled these counters down by as much as 10 per cent on both the exchanges. Religare Capital Markets had said software technical glitch caused some “unintended transactions” leading to erroneous sell orders in Tata Motors and UltraTech Cement shares. Dalal Street has witnessed a series of freak trades in the last year or so. One of these last year had sent the benchmark indices tumbling. In early October, an erroneous trade punched by a dealer at Mumbai-based broking firm Emkay Global led to the Nifty diving 900 points or more than 15 per cent in a couple of minutes, forcing it to shut down trading for 15 minutes. In December, Sebi unveiled a set of risk controls to avoid flash crashes. The rules involved asking exchanges not to execute a single order in excess of Rs 10 crore.