Sebi has debarred three persons and a finance company from trading trading for five years, for price manipulation in Arpan Leasing & Co scrip during September-December, 1995. The persons who have been debarred include the chairman of the company Ashwin L Shah. Avinash Magan, Yogi Leasing & Finance and Babu Lal Agarwal are the others who have been held guilty of price manipulation. The price of the scrip had shot up from Rs 15 to Rs 216 and Sebi's investigations revealed that these persons were responsible for creating the false market.

BoI forays into demat business as DP:

Bank of India has become a depository participant with the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL). The bank plans to launch the operations first in Mumbai and some foreign branches and would extend services to other centres later.

Mukund Flexipack plans rights:

Promoters of Mukund Flexpack Ltd stand a good chance to hike their stake through the proposed Rs5-crore rights issue. The company proposes to issue 15 per cent cumulative convertible redeemable preference shares (CCRPS) to its shareholders. As the scrip is hardly traded on the bourses, the promoters have already committed to pick up the unsubscribed portion. This may result in a stake hike by promoters from the present level of 52.63 per cent at the time of conversion of CCRPS. The issue is priced at Rs 100 (face value) per CCRPS.

Stocks turn easy on fresh selling at NSE:

Share prices turned weak on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday on emergence of selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and domestic funds. The market opened on a positive note but equities could not maintain their opening levels and declined during the course of trading. Reflecting the trend, the S&P CNX Nifty declined by 15.70 points to close at 884.25 from the last close of 899.95. The CNX Nifty Junior reacted by 16.95 to end at 1519.00 as against the previous close of 1535.95. The S&P CNX Deftyreacted by 12.10 to finish at 721.25 from the last close of 733.35. S&P CNX 500 fell by 9.31 to close at 609.06 as against 618.37 on Wednesday. CNX Midcap 200 fell by 4.49 to end at 546.17 from the last close of 550.66.

DSE year ended lower on profit booking:

Speculatives ended lower on the last day of 1998 on the Delhi Stock Exchange on Thursday on brisk selling largely of profit booking nature by both foreign as well as domestic funds. Market players said reports that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers on NSE to the tune of Rs 286 crore affected the sentiment. Mirroring the market move, the DSE senstive benchmark index was down by 13.04 points at 669.54.

Equities fail to maintain initial gains on MSE:

Equities failed to maintain their initial gains at the fag end on profit taking and settled with marginal gains or losses on the Madras Stock Exchange on Thursday. The MSE share price index marginally moved up to 3353.15 against the previous day's close of 3352.96points.

Share prices on CSE recede:

With widespread profit taking in evidence after a smart start, stocks on the Calcutta Stock Exchange receded, though the undertone remained bullish. This change reflected more due to squaring up of deals by operators because of settlement than to any selling pressure. Thus the market closed the year on a decisively better note with prices staging a smart come back from the lows touched earlier in the year in the wake of a prolonged bear phase.

Indian GDR increases 2.86%:

The Skindia GDR Index, representing GDR's of 18 actively trading companies increased by 2.86 per cent from 579.30 to 595.89 on December 30, 1998 as per the Skindia GDR Index with a base January 3, 1995 equal to 1000. The skindia GDR index P/E ratio was 16.67 as compared to 16.17, a Skindia Finance said in a press release issued on Thursday. There were 28 gainers, 3 losers and 29 unchanged ascompared to 38 gainers, 4 losers and 18 unchanged on December 29.

Demat trades worth 5.23crore:

A total of 6.10 lakh shares valued at Rs 5.23 crore were traded in the demat segments of both National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange here today, a National Electronic Settlement and Transfer (NEST) release said. At NSE, 77,500 shares of HPCL worth Rs 182.82 lakh were transacted in 45 trades, in a single trade, both IPCL and IDBI traded 190,000 and four shares valued Rs 110.58 lakh and Rs 0.002 lakh respectively. While, TELCO traded 36,384 shares valued Rs 61.37 lakh in 8 trades. At BSE, Tata power traded 60,000 shares valued at Rs 64.16 lakh in 4 trades, and IDBI traded 130,600 shares worth Rs 47.99 lakh in a single trade.

Jakarta shares to be strong in the new year:

Indonesian shares are expected to strengthen early in the new year as fresh buying incentives emerge, dealers said. But the dealers also said that the stock market, which weakened 0.9 per cent in the holiday-shortened trading week to Wednesday, would remain volatile, mainly because of the political situation.``The market should be a whole new ball game next year. But it will remain volatile with quite a number of domestic political events likely to have great impact on the market,'' a dealer with a local brokerage said. The Jakarta Stock Exchange closed 3.817 points down over the three-day trading Week at 398.038. The average turnover for the week was 184.4 million shares at an average value OF 14.07 million dollars, compared to the previous four-day week's volume of 157.4 M Illion shares at 19.3 million dollars.

Singapore stocks end barely lower:

Singapore share prices ended barely lower Thursday with a last-minute run-up failing to materialise, dealers said. The Stock Exchange of Singapore's benchmark Straits Times index fell 1.97 points to end the year at 1,392.73 points.

Euro share rally runs out of steam on Euro eve:

Most European sharemarkets ended lower Thursday - the last day of 1998 trading and the last day of trading in national currencies before stocks are listed in Euros.London and Frankfurt closed early, traders putting in only a half day so the exchanges would have time to gear up for the changeover to the European single currency. The two sharemarkets plan to reopen as a merged floor on January 4, enabling investors to trade shares on either exchange, even though Britain is not among the 11 EU countries adopting the Euro. The FT-SE 100, the index of the leading 100 shares on the London stock exchange, lost 0.99 per cent Wednesday, shedding 58.9 points.