Journalist Sucheta Dalal trends on Twitter for ‘crashing’ Adani stocks

As all things acquire a life of their own on Twitter verse, so did a news story on the Adani group.

Business journalist Sucheta Dalal was trending this morning after Twitter users attributed a sharp drop in shares of Adani group of companies to a tweet by her, hinting at “scandal” involving possible rigging in favour of stock prices of a group of companies. Dalal didn’t name any company in her tweet.

The shares of the Adani group of companies fell by 5-25 percent this morning after the National Securities Depository froze the accounts of three foreign funds that have high stakes in the company.

Economic Times' reasoning for the drop was far more prosaic: the now frozen funds have an investment of Rs 43,500 crore in the Adani group of companies. The accounts were frozen on or before May 31, the report added, possibly due to "insufficient disclosure of information regarding beneficial ownership". Consequently, the shares of Adani Enterprises fell by 20 percent, its sharpest fall in 10 years, and Adani Ports by 19 percent, ET reported.

On Twitter, though, the memes and jokes kept coming, connecting these seemingly unconnected events. Dalal, for those unfamiliar, is credited with unearthing the 1992 securities scam involving the late Harshad Mehta.

Update

Adani Ports & Logistics issued a letter saying that the report in Economic Times was "blatantly erroneous and...done to deliberately mislead the investing community". The letter urged the registrar and transfer agent to clarify that the demat accounts of the three foreign funds "are not frozen".