# Micro trades are driving me spare



## Tannin (13 September 2012)

The practice of dribbling out trades in tiny, uneconomic quantities to try to manipulate the market has to be addressed.

Every week we see more and more rubbish trades unquestionably designed only to manipulate or obfuscate. These trades for 1 share or 10 7c shares are clearly not ordinary individuals trading in good faith, they are there for two apparent reasons

1: to change the price artificially - if another market participant just looks at the price, not the trading history, they will be tricked into thinking that the market price has gone up or down. 

2: to swamp the trading history with so many trivial entries that it becomes difficult or impossible for a human trader to see what is actually going on in a timely manner.

If you deal with thinly traded stocks, as recently as a few months ago, you wouldn't have seen a sign of this manipulative and dishonest technique. Now the cheating scum are everyywhere, even in some quite obscure minor stocks. You can't escape.

It's time the ASX and/or ASIC cracked down to restore transparency and honest trading.


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## Trembling Hand (13 September 2012)

How can bouncing a small parcel between the Bid or Ask do anything?


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## CanOz (13 September 2012)

Tannin said:


> The practice of dribbling out trades in tiny, uneconomic quantities to try to manipulate the market has to be addressed.
> 
> Every week we see more and more rubbish trades unquestionably designed only to manipulate or obfuscate. These trades for 1 share or 10 7c shares are clearly not ordinary individuals trading in good faith, they are there for two apparent reasons
> 
> ...




Yes, agree. To do this i suggest we re-instate pit trading!


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## tech/a (13 September 2012)

> If you deal with thinly traded stocks, as recently as a few months ago, you wouldn't have seen a sign of this manipulative and dishonest technique. Now the cheating scum are everyywhere, even in some quite obscure minor stocks. You can't escape




Tell me in your own words how you think trading small parcels at X price manipulates the stock and is dishonest?

Who do you think are doing it?
Why cant you and I do the same after all they are small parcels?

Oh Ill gve you my view after we hear some others.
T/H??


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

Tannin said:


> The practice of dribbling out trades in tiny, uneconomic quantities to try to manipulate the market has to be addressed.
> 
> Every week we see more and more rubbish trades unquestionably designed only to manipulate or obfuscate. These trades for 1 share or 10 7c shares are clearly not ordinary individuals trading in good faith, they are there for two apparent reasons
> 
> ...




You know that's not going to happen.
Those with the most money have the most power over those who make the rules.  
Bot trading is here to stay because it suits those with the most money.
I buy 'at market' where applicable, and sell _always _'at market'.  That's all I can do.

Keep in mind that you're playing against micro-cap fund managers and high net worth individual traders.  In good times such funds/traders do extremely well, with 60%+pa returns, so they do have some way of working the system to their advantage.  If you own 80% of the depth on both sides, it's easy to see how you can "see" anyone else in the queue and make them pay higher/lower prices than they might otherwise.  The other thing they do is add massive volume to the buy side after and as they are buying.  This is very easy to see.  Something moves and all of a sudden, BAM, 10 mill new buyers out of nowhere, so far removed from the action that they will never get filled.  Then when/as they stop buying, suddenly the volume disappears.

Summary - buy/sell at market.  Watch the depth action, especially outside the top 3-5 lines.  You can safely assume that the top 3 lines are "real" on both sides.  This is where day traders sit - in the top 3 lines.  Outside of that are longer term traders wanting a specific price that they have calculated as reasonable....and the manipulators.


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## tech/a (13 September 2012)

They arent manipulating!







Gringotts Bank said:


> You know that's not going to happen.
> Those with the most money have the most power over those who make the rules.
> Bot trading is here to stay because it suits those with the most money.
> I buy 'at market' where applicable, and sell _always _'at market'.  That's all I can do.
> ...




I think you guys have got it wrong

They arent manipulating.


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## CanOz (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> This is where day traders sit - in the top 3 lines.  Outside of that are longer term traders wanting a specific price that they have calculated as reasonable....and the manipulators.




No market makers?


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

tech/a said:


> They arent manipulating!
> 
> I think you guys have got it wrong
> 
> They arent manipulating.




Whatever it is, I don't see it as a huge problem.  One just has to watch the flow of the depth and go with it rather than against it.


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## tech/a (13 September 2012)

CanOz said:


> No market makers?




???
You wont find market makers in equities?? unless CFD's
Options warrents et al ---yes.
They make a market and pocket the spread.


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

CanOz said:


> No market makers?




Ahhh, good point and it reminds me, I should have said this instead:

If a stock is 'hot' - ie. moving 6% up or down on the day with volume+, then the bots will likely be switched off.  

At other times, the price will be moved around a few ticks by bots wanting to accumulate under VWAP on quieter days.  These few ticks can be extremely annoying.


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## 5oclock (13 September 2012)

May be the Cheating Scum are adding a bit of liquidity to very thinly traded stocks ??


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## skc (13 September 2012)

Tannin said:


> 1: to change the price artificially - if another market participant just looks at the price, not the trading history, they will be tricked into thinking that the market price has gone up or down.




Lol. Even if that's what those trades are designed to do, who's fault is it for being lazy by "just looks at the price"? Why ASX doing anything about protecting those who are lazy and uneducated about markets



Tannin said:


> 2: to swamp the trading history with so many trivial entries that it becomes difficult or impossible for a human trader to see what is actually going on in a timely manner.




FFS. This is even worse than 1. 

Many traders have no minimum commission on trades, let alone brokers. So selling 3 shares at a time can be done by many common folks. It's not a practice that is reserved for the manipulative instos.

For those who like conspiracy theories, they often forget that there are many instos competing against each other. If an insto A try sell down a share for no good reason other than manipulation, another insto B may see the price weakness as an opportunity and buy up - Insto A just delivered to Insto B a bunch of cheap shares. 

You can't have a bunch of massive instos colluding together so they can squeeze $100 out of the average Joe Trader who had a $5k position. There's not enough profit there for a round of drinks.


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## Trembling Hand (13 September 2012)

Imagine the prop group putting up a proposal to Insto management,

"we have this great bot that will take only 1 person to monitor and 1 co-located server per instrument but it will smoke the market, un-leveraged return of 1% a day"

Management,

"Great! how many funds? How many markets?"

Prop group,
"$400,000 per instrument"

Management,
"You mean 40 mil per instrument?"

Prop group,
"No they are really thin, only do 500,000 to a mil turnover a day"

Management,
"someone call security and kick these time wasting fools out"


LOL


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## CanOz (13 September 2012)

tech/a said:


> ???
> You wont find market makers in equities?? unless CFD's
> Options warrents et al ---yes.
> They make a market and pocket the spread.




I think there are liquidity providers on the larger cap stocks...surely.


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## Joules MM1 (13 September 2012)

man.........top thread

lulz


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## CanOz (13 September 2012)

Joules MM1 said:


> man.........top thread
> 
> lulz




LOL, hang on, I might actually learn something today


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## tech/a (13 September 2012)

CanOz said:


> I think there are liquidity providers on the larger cap stocks...surely.




Why and who wants to create this liquidity?


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## Trembling Hand (13 September 2012)

CanOz said:


> I think there are liquidity providers on the larger cap stocks...surely.




Not on ASX. Only in the options market. The closest you will get to  liquidity providers are the arb bots. And they sux cuz they stop the evil futs guys from pushing the market around


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

*Facts:*

--Bots exist
--They exist even on very thinly traded and micro cap stocks.
--We know this because no one in his right mind would spend $10-15 to buy/sell stock of value $1.
--They are instruments of institutions
--Their purpose is to get a better entry/exit
--One known algorithm is "buy <= VWAP".  Maybe there are others.  
--To achieve their aim, a bot may buy/sell into itself to artificially manipulate the price, in order to force other traders to give up a tick here or there.


*In question:*

--Who uses them.  I suspect almost exclusively instos, not private traders.  Too much risk would exist for an individual.
--What other sorts of activities they get up to.  I have strong suspicions that bots on certain stocks will jump in front of your trade with a string of tiny trdaes the moment they see it in the queue in order to get you to trade above your price.  I can't prove it but it has happened a hell of a lot on AGI stock.
-- Can it be considered cheating?


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## CanOz (13 September 2012)

tech/a said:


> Why and who wants to create this liquidity?




Tech, if there are no providers of liquidity, an issue could just go on an unlimited run, like they do on news....couldn't they?

I thought all markets had liquidity providers, with the exception of interbank FX.

Who will provide a floor if a market turns a little thin?

Yup, seems as this was mentioned before....here.


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## prawn_86 (13 September 2012)

Joules MM1 said:


> man.........top thread
> 
> lulz




lol yeh, we get one of these every 6 months or so


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## Trembling Hand (13 September 2012)

> --Bots exist



 And are very expensive to run if only turning over piddly amounts of money.



> --We know this because no one in his right mind would spend $10-15 to buy/sell stock worth $1.



This is the kind of rubbish you get when you listen to people who talk without knowing. Only retail pays per trade. Brokers, insto and hedgies pay per share.



> --To achieve their aim, a bot may buy/sell into itself to artificially manipulate the price, in order to force other traders to give up a tick here or there.



 This is wrong. You are not aloud to do this and there is ASX rules to stop it.


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

Trembling Hand said:


> This is the kind of rubbish you get when you listen to people who talk without knowing. Only retail pays per traded. Brokers, insto and hedgies pay per share.




DUH!  No individual retail trader would spend $10-15 brokerage to turn over *$1 worth of stock.*.  Not a stock trading at $1, but 10 shares in a 30c traded stock, eg.


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## Trembling Hand (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> DUH!  No individual retail trader would spend $10-15 brokerage to turn over *$1 worth of stock.*.  Not a stock trading at $1, but 10 shares in a 30c traded stock, eg.




Yeah. Your logic is cus its less than brokerage cost the only reason it could happen is to manipulate.

But you're wrong,

Again!


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## skc (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> *Facts:*
> 
> --Bots exist
> --They exist even on very thinly traded and micro cap stocks.
> ...




Mate... you can't even separate facts from your interpretations of your observations.

Only points 1 and 2 are facts.
Points 3 and 4 are your deduction of these facts and probably correct.
Points 5 is just hearsay although it doesn't really matter in this case.
Point 6 is your own made up assumption. So don't put that under the heading of "Facts"



Gringotts Bank said:


> *In question:*
> 
> --What other sorts of activities they get up to.  I have strong suspicions that bots on certain stocks will jump in front of your trade with a string of tiny trdaes the moment they see it in the queue in order to get you to trade above your price.  I can't prove it but it has happened a hell of a lot on AGI stock.




How does bots "jump" in front of my trade? All orders join the queue following the same rules - there is no leaping ahead even if I am a small timer. If evil bought starts buying at the ASK while I wait at the bid, they are paying more and so benefiting the seller at the ASK. I have not lost my place in the queue, and haven't paid more than I want to if I don't move my bid. 

I guess it's always easier to blame evil bots and instos for making the market difficult...


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## >Apocalypto< (13 September 2012)

Bots & algorithms are a part of the market now just have to live with them.


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

Trembling Hand said:


> Yeah. Your logic is cus its less than brokerage cost the only reason it could happen is to manipulate.
> 
> But you're wrong,
> 
> Again!




Why do 10 shares of a $1.20 stock get frequently traded throughout the day then?

skc, I'll concede point 7 is assumption only.  Point 6 is fact - IB offers traders bots that do just that.  Why in your opinion do bots exist and what are they doing?  What is their game?


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## tech/a (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> Why do 10 shares of a $1.20 stock get frequently traded throughout the day then?
> 
> skc, I'll concede point 7 is assumption only.  Point 6 is fact - IB offers traders bots that do just that.  Why in your opinion do bots exist and what are they doing?  What is their game?




Think about it GB it isnt that hard!
Ill butter your toast a little later after youve had a think!


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## skc (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> Why do 10 shares of a $1.20 stock get frequently traded throughout the day then?
> 
> skc, I'll concede point 7 is assumption only.  Point 6 is fact - IB offers traders bots that do just that.  Why in your opinion do bots exist and what are they doing?  What is their game?




Sorry I can't count...

Only points 1 and 2 are facts.
Points *3, 4 and 5 *are your deduction of these facts and probably correct.
*Points 6 *is just hearsay although it doesn't really matter in this case.
*Point 7 *is your own made up assumption. So don't put that under the heading of "Facts"

But your statement above, that IB offers traders bots that do just that, has in fact overturned point 4.

Here are some facts...

1. Bot exists and trade small parcels of shares through the day 
2. The parcels are so small such that they are uneconomical for retail traders who get charged minimum commission of $10-$30 per trade.
3. It is illegal to buy and sell stock of your own to create the appearance of trading activity.

That is unfortunately all the facts you have.  You may or may not understand what these bots are doing, but it doesn't lead to the conclusion that they are designed to to get you. 

Based on the facts, one can make some educated deductions...

A. The bots are there so the instos can benefit (I think that's pretty logical).
B. As share trading is a zero sum game - the benefit to one insto is the loss to other instos and non-insto participants (again, just using pure logic).
C. Instos gain benefit with bots as they either improve entries / exits, or they reduce costs (there are probably no other ways of deriving benefits with bots).
D. Everyone can see the bots working - if it is something illegal the instos would want to hide it better.

Now, using the above dudctions, people will come to different conclusions.

Some people jump on B and C, and conclude that the instos are evil, manipulating the market and trying the scam retail traders. They scream to ASIC to address D.

Others may conclude that instos are just doing their business of moving stocks in small quantities at a time so as not to move the market too much (and hence achieve better entries and exits). If some silly retail trader wants to get influenced by that and jump to a trade... that's really the problem of the trader.


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

skc said:


> Now, using the above dudctions, people will come to different conclusions.
> 
> Some people jump on B and C, and conclude that the instos are evil, manipulating the market and trying the scam retail traders. They scream to ASIC to address D.
> 
> Others may conclude that instos are just doing their business of moving stocks in small quantities at a time so as not to move the market too much (and hence achieve better entries and exits). If some silly retail trader wants to get influenced by that and jump to a trade... that's really the problem of the trader.




SO you're saying it's to achieve a better entry than they would achieve without using the bot.

Here's a list of the smallest *$ value* of bot trades on AGI today.  

And you're saying that buying $3 worth of shares helps them achieve a better price than if they bought a chunk of $30000 worth as it appeared on the sell side?

$3 
$3 
$3 
$3 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$5 
$8 
$8 
$8 
$8 
$8 
$8 
$8 
$8 
$8 
$10 
$10 
$10 
$10 
$10 
$10 
$10 
$10 
$10 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$13 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$16 
$18 
$18 
$18 
$18 
$18 
$18 
$18 
$18 
$18 
$18 
$21 
$21 
$21 
$21 
$21 
$21 
$23 
$23 
$24 
$26 
$26 
$26 
$26 
$26 
$26 
$26 
$29 
$29 
$29 
$29 
$29 
$31 
$31 
$31 
$31 
$34 
$34 
$34 
$34 
$34 
$34 
$37 
$37 
$39 
$39 
$39 
$39 
$39 
$39 
$39 
$39 
$39 
$42 
$42 
$42 
$42 
$47 
$50 
$52 
$52 
$53 
$53 
$55 
$55 
$55 
$55 
$55 
$55 
$57 
$58 
$58 
$58 
$58 
$58 
$60 
$60 
$60 
$63 
$63 
$63 
$65 
$65 
$66 
$66 
$66 
$66 
$66 
$68 
$68 
$68 
$71 
$73 
$76 
$76 
$76 
$76 
$78 
$78 
$79 
$81 
$81 
$81 
$81 
$82 
$84 
$84 
$84 
$84 
$84 
$84 
$86 
$87 
$87 
$89 
$94 
$95 
$96 
$97 
$99 
$100

and you don't think these can be used as markers to add/reduce volume to the depth as they get taken out?


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

tech/a said:


> Think about it GB it isnt that hard!
> Ill butter your toast a little later after youve had a think!




have you got anything?  Or just smart **** comment?


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## tech/a (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> have you got anything?  Or just smart **** comment?




Just smart **** comments.
Its an algorithm
what do you think its doing?

*Look Ill type slowly for you.*

Lets take a simple idea.
If a median price is X then trading below X initiates buying
the further away the more frequent.
If trading above the median then selling is initiated the further
away the more it sells.

*It buys into sellers and sells into buyers*
---you guys!

Now have you got anything??


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## notting (13 September 2012)

tech/a said:


> *Look Ill type slowly for you.*




Laughing


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

tech/a said:


> Just smart **** comments.
> Its an algorithm
> what do you think its doing?
> 
> ...




Median price can be calculated at 4pm.  And can be guessed at a bit earlier in the day, say 2pm.

Bots are active from 10am, and know nothing of future price movements for the day.

Your move smart ****


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## Trembling Hand (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> Median price can be calculated at 4pm.  And can be guessed at a bit earlier in the day, say 2pm.
> 
> Bots are active from 10am, and know nothing of future price movements for the day.
> 
> Your move smart ****




GB really????

Its very simple.

Super fund XYZ calls up their Broker and says buy me 1 mil of stock ABC over the next week/month/whatever.

They turn on a dumb ar$e accumulation bot to execute the trades.That's their job.


But the amazing thing about this is exactly how does an order for $3 influence you?


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## skc (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> SO you're saying it's to achieve a better entry than they would achieve without using the bot.
> 
> Here's a list of the smallest *$ value* of bot trades on AGI today.
> 
> And you're saying that buying $3 worth of shares helps them achieve a better price than if they bought a chunk of $30000 worth as it appeared on the sell side?




May be, may be not. That's the aim. Whether they achieve it or not, that's another matter. If say Insto A hit the ASK with 30,000 shares, people watching the depth, or other insto sell bots, might get spooked and pull their ASK out. Then Insto A would have to raise its own offer to achieve the volume.

Yes, they are trying to buy at a better price. If they are successful, the seller inevitably got paid a little bit less. But that's what everyone's trying to do. The size I trade these days aren't often on a single market depth level, so I manually split my orders to not move the market. Because I know that if I go for $30k in one hit, I will have to reach up for the next $30k. It's just economising your entries / exits, not manipulation. When you trade a large enough size, you'd be doing the exact same thing.

I can't see the future, I don't know for sure that splitting my own orders would guarantee better price, but that's my aim. Say there were $30k worth on the ASK, and I hit it $5k at a time. May be after 2 hits, the rest of the $20k on the ASK withdraws. On hindsight I should have just grab the $30k in one go, so that's the risk I take when I split my orders. 

I also don't know what makes the algo trade $3 x 500 times as opposed to say $300 x 5 times, but the principle remains the same. 



Gringotts Bank said:


> and you don't think these can be used as markers to add/reduce volume to the depth as they get taken out?




What does that even mean?



Trembling Hand said:


> But the amazing thing about this is exactly how does an order for $3 influence you?




Exactly the point I've been trying to express. They are doing their thing, you are jumping at shadows. Who's fault is that?


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## tech/a (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> Median price can be calculated at 4pm.  And can be guessed at a bit earlier in the day, say 2pm.
> 
> Bots are active from 10am, and know nothing of future price movements for the day.
> 
> Your move smart ****




Median price can be calculated every bar 1min/5min/60min/EOD/Weekly.
*This is just an example*and some clever quant will have an algo that will
Do something similar/better.

Check.

What's with the childish name calling.


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## barney (13 September 2012)

I think you'll find that Tannin (the OP) was not referring to Bots at all.

Pretty sure his gripe was with piddly trades being placed by Brokers on illiquid Spec Stocks ..... 

I trade illiquid Specs, and what he is talking about is this:-

Lets say you have a stock with a wide Bid/Ask spread  ie Best bid at 5 cents ...... Nearest Sell at 9 cents 

You put your Bid in at 5.1 cents thinking "I might pick up a bargain" if some desparate Seller wants out at market .... Wrong!! 

Some clever Broker will hit your 5.1 cent Bid with Sell of 1 Share (or whatever quantity tickles his fancy to either annoy you, or entice you to increase your Bid) share, then disappears for the rest of the month  .............. 

Result .... You pay Comsec $20 for your One share purchase, and the Broker most likely has a laugh at how easy it is to stitch up yet another Retail trader

Its all part of the game if you trade Specs ..... Best to keep your orders out of the Market Depth  with the very illiquid ones


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

Trembling Hand said:


> GB really????
> 
> But the amazing thing about this is exactly how does an order for $3 influence you?




Often with AGI, there's more than the minimum spread during the day, and this is when it can be a problem.  Say the 'bid' is at $1 and the 'ask' is at $1.05.  I think "ok I'll put a sell at $1.04 and be first in line".  The exact moment I hit ENTER, 10 new sellers appear at $1.02 and $1.03.  As these get hit, or if they get hit, new volume appears at 1.02 and 1.03, often bot volume, preventing me from exiting.  Same occurs when trying to buy.  So long as there is a fairly wide spread, they can play games and make you pay more, especially if you're day trading.

What skc keeps saying is that Insto B profits from any manipulation Insto A might be doing, but what if there's only insto A active?  It can do what it likes.


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## burglar (13 September 2012)

Does not affect me, but it does annoy!

Worst is when my piddling order is purged because I am attempting manipulating the market!!


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## tech/a (13 September 2012)

I tell you what guys.
Trading isn't for you.

If it was this sort of rubbish
Wouldn't be an issue to you.

Your not profitable because
Your not trading profitably
Not some external influence.


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> The exact moment I hit ENTER, 10 new sellers appear at $1.02 and $1.03.  As these get hit, or if they get hit, new volume appears at 1.02 and 1.03, often bot volume, preventing me from exiting.  Same occurs when trying to buy.




...and the reason it stops anyone from buying my stock, is because no retail trader will buy into 2 lines of sellers worth say a total of $100 in order to get to some real volume (where my 'ask' is).  What you'd do instead is put a bid in at $1.01.  But of course if you do that, then what happens?  The bot puts two lines of bids in front of yours with practically zero $ value, making sellers go WTF and wait for some real volume on the top line, which won't likely happen, because no one is going to sit themselves in the middle of the spread like that.


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## Gringotts Bank (13 September 2012)

tech/a said:


> I tell you what guys.
> Trading isn't for you.
> 
> If it was this sort of rubbish
> ...




It's not a problem for me because the second I see a bunch of bids/asks worth nothing crowding up the depth and pi$$fart1ng around the way they do, I*'m out, I'm not interested.  I go elsewhere.*  Whoever is fiddling with AGI and others has it all to themselves.


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## Trembling Hand (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank you're upset because someone is standing in front of you?!


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## tech/a (13 September 2012)

Ive never looked at AGI.
But what your saying is you haven't been able to profit from this move??

Those little trades just bugger you up?




*Really??*


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## notting (13 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> Whoever is fiddling with AGI and others has it all to themselves.




It just needs a stop that is deeper than mid or larg caps to get a peace of the trend.


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## Ves (14 September 2012)

I think the whole "bots are manipulating the market" theory is a load of crap, but I saw an algo (I think) buy 1 PMV share today to push the price up $0.07 to $5.35 on open!  Lots of low volume trades like that this week and last,  someone probably wants in quietly before Monday's 2012 results.  A pity, I was looking to enter under $5 and was a bit tardy in my research.


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## McLovin (14 September 2012)

Ves said:


> I think the whole "bots are manipulating the market" theory is a load of crap, but I saw an algo (I think) buy 1 PMV share today to push the price up $0.07 to $5.35 on open!  Lots of low volume trades like that this week and last,  someone probably wants in quietly before Monday's 2012 results.  A pity, I was looking to enter under $5 and was a bit tardy in my research.




I've seen you and craft having a chat about PMV. I started buying down around $4.75 did my last bit of buying at $5.01 a couple of weeks ago. Much for the same reasons that you guys were interested.

And yeah, I don't buy the whole bot thing. Sounds like the old a poor tradesman blames his tools.


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## Ves (14 September 2012)

McLovin said:


> I've seen you and craft having a chat about PMV. I started buying down around $4.75 did my last bit of buying at $5.01 a couple of weeks ago. Much for the same reasons that you guys were interested.
> 
> And yeah, I don't buy the whole bot thing. Sounds like the old a poor tradesman blames his tools.



I was a bit lazy in part & a bit hesitant because of my inexperience with a lot of this stuff.  In this case because I wanted to calculate a detailed ROIC & EBIT margins over the cycle which required figuring out the EBIT & assets employed for Just Group over the last decade.  Digging through some of the old financials for JST was fun at least.  The current EBIT margin of 2011 is the same now, as it was just before it listed.  Which is the lowest of the decade. I believe 2002 was a pretty rough economic year too.

By the time I had got around to doing that last weekend to confirm my rough calcs it was only a week away from the financial report.  So I figured waiting until I had an extra year of information couldn't hurt.  Murphy's Law suggests that it would appreciate in value over this week, and it has. Bah!  Although,  there is probably not much point in quibbling over 10% on a long-term hold. It's still pretty cheap IMO.


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## McLovin (14 September 2012)

Ves said:


> I was a bit lazy in part & a bit hesitant because of my inexperience with a lot of this stuff.  In this case because I wanted to calculate a detailed ROIC & EBIT margins over the cycle which required figuring out the EBIT & assets employed for Just Group over the last decade.  Digging through some of the old financials for JST was fun at least.  The current EBIT margin of 2011 is the same now, as it was just before it listed.  Which is the lowest of the decade. I believe 2002 was a pretty rough economic year too.




I love reading old financials. Or really any sort of corporate history. As Mark Twain said "history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes". 



Ves said:


> Although,  there is probably not much point in quibbling over 10% on a long-term hold. It's still pretty cheap IMO.




Ask ROE about one of his favourite Phil Fisher quotes. It's quite apt.


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## Ves (14 September 2012)

McLovin said:


> Ask ROE about one of his favourite Phil Fisher quotes. It's quite apt.



Without derailing this thread too much further,  he shared his quote when I wanted to buy CAB at $4.35 and didn't pay $4.37 at market when I had the chance.  Stupid mistake.  I kept waiting, should have bought at any stage sub-$5.00 in retrospect and never ended up getting any (and still didn't when it dropped again in the last few months) because I was busy buying other stuff.


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## Tannin (14 September 2012)

Ves said:


> Without derailing this thread too much further ...




.....chuckle ..... 

Derail away good sir! 51 posts in the thread so far and only one of them bears directly on the original topic we started with. (Barney, take a bow. Your post was spot on!) 

But no matter. I can aways start another thread another day. This one seems hopelessly off-topic already so it might as well continue in that direction. It has its own interest and I'll continue to follow it as time allows.


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## tech/a (14 September 2012)

Tannin said:


> .....chuckle .....
> 
> Derail away good sir! 51 posts in the thread so far and only one of them bears directly on the original topic we started with. (Barney, take a bow. Your post was spot on!)
> 
> But no matter. I can aways start another thread another day. This one seems hopelessly off-topic already so it might as well continue in that direction. It has its own interest and I'll continue to follow it as time allows.




Condescending. Crap.
You had the chance to re align but chose silence.
Wasted my time with rubbish --- again.

If that's what your all twisted about 
Then ---- I and I'm sure a few others won't bother with you.


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## Tannin (14 September 2012)

tech/a said:


> Condescending. Crap.
> You had the chance to re align but chose silence.
> Wasted my time with rubbish --- again.
> 
> ...




^ Excuse me, _you_ haven't wasted _any_ time responding to my post. You did have plenty of time to argue with someone else about things which were quite interesting to read but didn't bear on the topic - and that's fine - but abusing me because _you_ were off-topic is offensive and nonsensical.


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## Gringotts Bank (15 September 2012)

Tannin said:


> ^ Excuse me, _you_ haven't wasted _any_ time responding to my post. You did have plenty of time to argue with someone else about things which were quite interesting to read but didn't bear on the topic - and that's fine - but abusing me because _you_ were off-topic is offensive and nonsensical.




If it was about brokers trying to force your hand by selling into a tiny portion of your bid, then yes I've seen that a few times.  That can still be overcome by watching the depth closely and only buying at market.... if you have the time that is.


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## tech/a (15 September 2012)

Brokers trading small packages to manipulate markets.

Flying pink pigs
Rooster eggs
Men in white coats
Black suits.

Get a grip kiddies.


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## nulla nulla (15 September 2012)

tech/a said:


> Brokers trading small packages to manipulate markets.
> 
> Flying pink pigs........ *Hmm, I see thes often when I come off the grog (or are they elephants?);*
> Rooster eggs........... *I believe this is slang for "testicles";*
> ...




My bold, amusing thread but a lot of noise.




Love this one. Thanks TS


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## Gringotts Bank (15 September 2012)

tech/a said:


> Brokers trading small packages to manipulate markets.
> 
> Flying pink pigs
> Rooster eggs
> ...




I should say that I'm not looking for excuses.  My account and its success/failure is only about what I do, not what anyone else does.  Sometimes I see shifty things going on - price manipulation, insider trading and so on.... and I just do my best to steer clear.  

Wherever big money is involved, there will be cheats.  Maybe they're 1% of participants, maybe more.  But it's wise to keep one eye out for them.


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## Trembling Hand (15 September 2012)

Gringotts Bank said:


> Sometimes I see shifty things going on - price manipulation, insider trading and so on.... and I just do my best to steer clear.
> 
> Wherever big money is involved, there will be cheats.  Maybe they're 1% of participants, maybe more.  But it's wise to keep one eye out for them.




Bloody hell GB, Don't try futs then.


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