Pump and dump- Modus operandi of operators driven stocks

If you are an investor having a demat account, you should have received a message like this:
SMS promoting operator driven stocks
This is a message I had received recently. My inbox gets at least two or three such messages every day. The above message from AM-KARVYS which looks like it is sent from Karvy. Karvy is one of the top financial services company in India and they never send such messages. After all, why should they send me such messages when I have no relationship with them? The message is sent by someone else. That someone else is called a market operator. They manipulate the stock price by spreading such SMS or fake good news about a stock and make the innocent investors buy such stocks. The people having some vested interests stay behind the screen and operate the stock price through such operators.

Pump and Dump:

Pump and dump work in favour of promoters or shareholders. They just want to dump the stock at a good price. They hire the operators and pay them for pumping the stock price upward. There could be bigger agenda like money laundering, tax invading etc. The operators spread SMS like above, sometimes with false news of big orders, merger, takeovers etc. The innocent investors fall prey to them and buy the stock. The stock gets locked in upper circuits as the demand gets created and no one is selling. When the stock reaches the required level the promoters or shareholders start dumping the stock and exit with a huge profit. The innocent investors will be in loss and they can not even sell the stock as it locks in lower circuits every day. Their money gets stuck in that stock. If you receive an advice to buy a stock over SMS or social media from unknown resources, that could be to trap you. Never ever think of investing in such stocks.

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