The sudden decline of Multi Commodity Exchange of India's (MCX) shares surprised foreign institutional investors today. Because of this, investors panicked as they dumped the stocks of MCX and Financial Technologies. Financial Technologies is a promoter of MCX.

These foreign investors were worried that National Spot Exchange (NSEL) might default on pending contracts after postponing their settlements for 15 more days. All outstanding contracts were to be resolved within half a month except e-series contracts.

Most of the stocks of MCX were owned by institutional investors. Foreign institutional investors held 38.40% of the stocks, while almost 20% were owned by local institutional investors in the last quarter. Almost three-quarters of the stock was lost from its peak of RS1696.80 in November last year.

FID Funds, an institutional investor from Mauritius, suffered deep notional losses. FID Funds owned a 5% share of MCX.

Other insitutional investments who also suffered losses included Passport India Movement, Euronext NV, Fidelity International, and Merril Lynch Holdings Mauritius.