Fast unto death by investors

Very seldom do we come across a situation where small stock market investors have to resort to fast and that too unto death to save their investments from what they think a market that has become the victim of severe manipulation. They had been compelled by the slide in the market as well as the government's inability to halt the downtrend. And added to that, nothing tangible has been done by the government to address the liquidity crisis in spite of the repeated assurance made to the investors. Just for the record, there has been a fall of nearly 1700 points since the new chairman took over.
The police had dispersed the agitating investors but one wonders whether that or the decision by the authorities to reduce by half the tax at source on brokerage commission or the NBR's decision to reinstate the tax rebate facility for the investors, which will be effective from the current fiscal year, will actually help to stabilise a market whose behaviour has at best been patchy. Neither do snide remarks of ministers help their confidence.
The ups and downs in the stock market are only to be expected, and the small investors are fully aware of that, but when there is an abnormal fall in the index which regains after agitation, surely it gives rise to the suspicion that the market is being subjected to manipulation. Needless to say, such erratic behaviour without rationale creates a deficit of trust in the system.
It is time the government took substantive steps to arrest the situation and there are several ways it can do that, one being to ensure that the liquidity crisis is addressed immediately. But equally importantly, it must ensure an end to manipulation of the market, a phenomenon that had been well established in the committee report of the 1996 market crash as well 2011 inquiry report on stock debacle. And that calls for taking stern action against the manipulators; many of them have been identified but continue to be in the system. Not seeing the recommendations through will only give the impression that the government is protecting the manipulators.