‘Sebi develops algos to catch mkt manipulators’

Mumbai, Oct 29, 2022

Sebi chief Madhabi Puri Buch on Friday said that the regulator has developed a market surveillance and analytics system that will detect complicated and layered cases of insider trading, front-running and other market manipulations. And this system has been developed in-house by a pool of Sebi officials, she said.

She said that it’s possible for the regulator to lag market manipulators for a while but added that it was in a position to catch up with those who are out there, trying to outwit the system. The Sebi chairperson was speaking at a gathering at IIM-Bangalore.

In one of the recent orders, Sebi had embedded a QR code. When someone scanned the code, it would take the person to a video on Sebi’s side that showed how a person, who was trading with insider information just ahead of quarterly results, was caught. There were several instances when the person’s trading behaviour showed sudden and huge spikes just before the quarterly results.

Buch said that Sebi was working on algorithms to detect several types of market manipulations. Its surveillance and investigation systems are now able to detect if the violation was taking place at the broker level or at the fund house level, she said.

[The Times of India]