Crb Cap Scrip Touches Nadir
The CRB Capital scrip grabbed the centre stage towards the end of the trading week, but for the wrong reasons. The scrip price touched its lowest at the major bourses on Friday, the last trading day of the week after there was a run for the deposits at CRB. Further, the BSE decided to get stringent and initiated necessary safeguard action regarding the stocks.
Last Thursday, CRB Capital Markets had to close office for lack of funds to pay its investors. The markets got wind of the financial situation and on Friday the CRB Capital scrip witnessed panic selling with over a lakh shares being sold at the BSE. The scrip crashed to Rs 1.65 levels on the BSE and Rs 3.20 on the NSE.
Sources close to the CRB group said that even before the non-banking finance company had actually closed office, the counter witnessed selling pressure.
Said a leading BSE broker: The CRB group has faced trouble in recent months. Of late, there were reports of the group borrowing heavily from the market at exorbitant interest rates in order to sustain its banking activities. Market players with this inside information had started off loading their positions from April itself in anticipation of trouble. But the small investors as well as the depositors had no inkling as to what was going on, the broker said. Trading volumes in the stock, which were usually in the range of a few thousand shares, started rising rapidly by mid-April. On April 16, the scrip witnessed a trading volume of 29,300 at the BSE. On April 21, trading volumes swelled to 50,850 and the scrip fell to Rs 7.75. The scrip hovered at that level for a few days before rapidly losing ground to close at Rs 5.05 on April 28.
Last week, the scrip came under tremendous selling pressure from the first trading day with the scrip hitting new lows everyday during intra-day trading. Leading brokers and dealers have written off the scrip for all practical reasons.
Said a dealer at a leading brokerage: Chances of a revival of the scrip are very remote. Over the past few days there was some buying by speculators. Since the scrip has bottomed out, even a marginal gain would be a bonus. Unless its liabilities are taken care of and some stability in the long run is witnessed, the future for the scrip at the markets looks bleak.