The Sensex had crashed 700 points and the mood was rather sombre, but the irrepressible Jignesh Shah was bubbling with confidence at being the first bourse to cross the regulatory divide and be permitted by SEBI to start a currency exchange. The first two were launched by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) just weeks earlier and, according to Shah, India...

Like the issue of PNs, SEBI is also keen to revisit the grading of IPOs introduced in April 2007. On 2nd September, chairman CB Bhave said that “SEBI would review the IPO grading concept as it has received both positive and negative responses to the practice.” As we said earlier, there is a strong lobby of market intermediaries who do not want IPO grading, while investors want it to continue...

For the second time in the past few years, ICICI Bank seems to be paying a price for its rapid growth. A few years ago, depositors panicked when its ATMs in some cities of Gujarat went dry over a long weekend. This time, with financial markets in turmoil, the Bank seemed in danger of being crushed by malicious rumours that seemed deliberately directed at driving the stock down, to profit by...