Next time if you want to sell your dud stocks in the market, beware.

You might end up in paying a huge amount out of your pocket, if your broker sells only a small part of your order.

The removal of all-or-none trading facilities by the Securities and Exchange Board of India has resulted in this skew in the market place, especially for those who want to transact in small lots.

For instance, consider this real-life example. An investor placed an order with a broker to sell 2000 shares of Yogi Sung-Won at Rs 5.50 per share. At the end of the day, his broker could sell only one share.

But when his broker gave him the final bill, the investor was shocked to see that his broker has actually demanded money for putting through the transaction.

For selling one share for Rs 5.50, his broker charged him brokerage of Rs 0.12 per share and depository charges of Rs 6.50 per share. Hence his broker ask him to pay Rs 1.62 for the sale order.

His plight does not end up there. At the end of the month, the depository sent him a bill covering the transaction charge of Rs 20, which is the minimum charge leviable. His cost of selling Yogi Sung-Won goes up to Rs 26.62. Which means for one share he pays Rs 21.62 out of his own pocket.

Brokers said this instance is the result of the Sebi ban on all-or-none trading facilities. Sebi might have done it to kill circular trading, but in doing so, it has given birth to another evil.

The demat charges, depository fees and brokerage on transaction are becoming onerous.

"They are driving small investors away from the stock market," brokers said.

The Yogi Sung-Won example is not an isolated case. If one reads through the daily transaction data from the BSE and NSE, there may be many such shares.

A study by the Business Standard Research Bureau shows there were as many as 1,238 stocks traded in January 2003 with an aggregate market value below Rs 100.

While the market value of these stocks aggregated Rs 41,290, the cost of selling on account of brokerage and depository charges aggregated at Rs 68,878.