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Shame on INDIAN BUSINESS MEDIA, and kudos OLA ELECTRIC! 🙏🙏 Ola Electric and Bhavish just created a brand new playbook on how to legally manipulate stock prices in India. And it’s hiding in PLAIN sight. They launched something called a "Muharat Mohotsav sale." The deal was special, offering unbelievably low prices for a "fixed number” of scooters and bikes. I checked the prices myself, and they were indeed VERY low. But here’s the clever part. They never, EVER disclosed what that fixed number of inventory was. .. Then, on the very first day the sale went live, they played their trump card. They issued a formal stock exchange filing. The filing stated that within just 5 minutes of going live, their entire SALE inventory was completely sold out. And since then, all media has gone bonkers, writing about it. Some idiotic influencers have also been pumping this aura up. But, for ones with a brain, use it. .. They should have clearly stated the number. OK, we put 5 scooters on sale, or 500, or 5k. - Without that single data point, even if they only put 5 scooters up for sale, their claim still works perfectly. And it generates incredible, free publicity and market hype - But does this change the fundamental business prospects of the company? MASSIVE NO. Does it help create a positive sentiment and uplift the share price, even temporarily? Almost a MASSIVE YES. .. And, the entire system reveals itself to be a complete joke. - The financial media is completely silent - only peddling Ola’s claim further - The BSE and NSE are silent They don't dare ask how this filing provides investors with any real, business-sensitive information - for which the process for stock market filings exist. It’s pure noise designed to influence trading behaviour! .. One has to give it to Ola Electric’s new PR agency. They have outdone themselves. Kudos. But, beyond that, this is a pathetic state of affairs. It creates a perfect recipe for all sorts of listed consumer companies to game the system. - Imagine Trent filing a stock exchange update that Zudio’s latest sale inventory sold out in 5 minutes (Hope is, Tatas being a responsible and respectable management would never do it) - Imagine Swiggy or Zomato announcing to the exchanges that they sold out their "Biryani Fest" inventory in 3 minutes. Let’s hope they would never do such a thing .. But, the precedent has been set today by Bhavish and Ola Electric. And, it’s an absolute mockery of corporate disclosure norms. All Ola Electric had to do was state the size of the inventory. ONE number. Why hide that? What is the reason to be so deliberately opaque? The only logical reason is that the number was probably embarrassingly small - deliberately kept so, as it helps execute the PR push and stock uplift. This is just so pathetic. No?