PLAYING BY THE RULES
Is Viceroy getting the short end of the stick?
What constitutes market manipulation isn’t that obvious, and prosecutions are few and far between
When is a market lurch:A: Insider trading?B: Market manipulation? orC: Plain old price discovery? If this multiple choice has you baffled then you — with some top JSE bosses — are not alone. That the share prices of Capitec and its biggest shareholder, PSG, fell mysteriously the day before the release of Viceroy Research’s report has sparked furious debate on platforms like Twitter, the argument being that some had access to the report, or knew it was about to be released, and were able to trade on that information, at the expense of less-informed investors. Unsurprisingly, PSG CEO Piet Mouton is firmly of the view that Viceroy’s actions are reprehensible. "If they short-sold the share, then published an erroneous and misleading report while electing not to check such figures with management beforehand, and the share price drops as a result of such report, then in my opinion they should be investigated and prosecuted under the full extent of the law," he tells the Financial Mail. Ot...
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