Context:

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) placed Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, and Ambuja Cements under the additional surveillance mechanism (ASM).

What is additional surveillance mechanism (ASM)?

• Introduction:
  • The ASM was introduced in 2018.
• Aim:
  •  To protect investors from market volatility and unusual changes in share price.
  • Additional Surveillance Measures (ASM) are based on objective parameters viz. Price / Volume variation, Volatility etc.”
  • The shortlisting of securities for placing in ASM is based on criteria that are jointly decided by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and exchanges.
• Parameters covered:
  • high low variation,
  • client concentration,
  • close to close price variation,
  • market capitalisation,
  • volume variation,
  • delivery percentage, and
  • number of unique PANs

• Put simply, an ASM shortlisting signals to investors that the stocks have seen unusual activity.