Moscow exchange reported an increase in the number of attempts to destabilize share prices

In January and February, the Moscow Exchange recorded eight attempts to destabilize share prices, RBC Boris Blokhin, director of the stock market department of the stock exchange. According to him, for the whole of 2022 there were 13 such cases. The exchange is preparing to introduce new regulatory instruments agreed with the Central Bank (CB) and market participants.

“Moreover, if earlier such cases were observed in very illiquid securities and all this growth occurred on volumes of 10-30 million rubles, then in January-February, some papers fell into the top in terms of trading volume per day with a volume of over a billion,” said Mr. Blokhin. In his opinion, the possibility of sharp unreasonable movements in stock prices is associated with insufficient information.

Valery Lyakh, head of the Central Bank’s department for combating unfair practices, confirmed that this year the regulator “began to communicate with the market more often on such stories.” He argues that the participants in unscrupulous practices are individuals, and not always intentionally. “Often the issue of unfair practices on their part (individuals.— “b”) is a matter of financial literacy, understanding how the market works, and what can and cannot be done on it,” the representative of the Central Bank explained.

Boris Blokhin said that the Moscow Exchange has a number of tools to counteract increased price volatility, but additional measures are planned. “We narrow the price range for a paper to 10% instead of the standard +/- 40% if we see that the price changes sharply and strongly without any significant corporate events or news … Despite the fact that from mid-February until now there was not a single case when we had to narrow price corridors, we understand that additional measures are needed,” he specified.

In particular, the exchange discussed with the Central Bank and market participants an increase in the price step for a number of low-liquid securities, that is, the minimum value by which the price of a security can change. “We also plan to narrow price ranges for securities traded with 100% backing, for which anomalous price deviations were recorded,” Mr. Blokhin added. When new response tools may be introduced is unknown.

The plans of the Moscow Exchange to introduce new measures to combat abnormal fluctuations in share prices became known back in March. The site representative said that two possible mechanisms are being discussed: discrete auctions for all shares with a significant deviation in value, as well as the introduction of narrower price corridors for securities with a small free-float (the number of shares in free float).

Details – in the material “Kommersant FM” “Mosbirzha will follow the quotes”.

Laura Keffer