Main purpose of modern stock exchanges is to interconnect supply and demand
in the best possible way in order to ensure that all trading parties get same level
of information and fair game in the market. Still, even in the highly regulated
systems there are always players discovering loopholes helping them make more
profit.
Market abuse is more dominant on underdeveloped capital markets where there
is no suitable regulation and control. So is the croatian securities market a fertile
ground for different players: from powerful insiders that trade classified
information, to players that fix prices.
Lately, the croatian regulatory agency (HANFA) decided to rectify some of the
market irregularities. New rules of the game resulted with revoking licenses
from brokerage firms and brought substantial disorder among the brokers that
were used to do the business for a while their way.
Most common ways of market abuse were using classified information, price
manipulation, and spread of fake/untrue information.
Using classified information was the most widespread way of getting easy and
quick profits and was used mostly by company's executives (board of directors).
Classified information meant all the information about the company's business
that can influence its stock price (takeovers, mergers, financial statements,
analyst predictions, dividends payout, etc.) not presented in public.
Using such information the beneficiaries could make profits and disqualify the
other players that didn't have it. As is using classified information difficult to
detect directly, mos ...