The Bombay Stock Exchange, will allow institutional investors to short sell stocks by February 1, 2008. “We are talking with the regulator (Sebi) to allow institutional investors to short sell stocks by February 1,” BSE Managing Director Rajnikant Patel told reporters here. Sebi last month said it would allow short-selling by domestic and foreign institutional investors from February 1.

The market regulator had banned short-selling in 2001 in the aftermath of Ketan Parekh scam. The Reserve Bank of India has given its nod to FIIs for short-selling, and Sebi will allow it for all institutional investors from February 1, Sebi Chairman M Damodaran recently said.