IS THERE EVIDENCE OF MARKET MANIPULATION ON THE KASE?

Abstract

Kazakhstan stock exchange belongs to the category of the frontier market and the regulatory framework requires continuous development to preserve market integrity in this market. Even though there is no commonly accepted definition of the term “market manipulation”, there are some market behaviors on capital markets that are prohibited by regulators. Some of these observed actions can have enforcement acts and investigation will be done to identify whether actions were manipulative or not. Stock listed on the KASE has comparatively less liquidity compared to the developed markets; therefore, for KASE market participants, it can be challenging to identify during times of price movements whether it is based on fair valuation of the stock or manipulators are acting. The fact that there are no reported stock manipulation cases raises the question of whether regulators are not observing manipulations or tools of regulators are effective to prohibit manipulative behavior on the market. This work studies four first-class liquidity stocks to examine any evidence of market manipulations based on the limit order book data.