Unusual Trading Activity

[jet328]

Noticed a heap of really small parcels on IPM going through yesterday and today.
They seem to be about 20 shares at a time (attached)

Any ideas why someone would do this?


Cheers

 

[jet328]

Any ideas?

About 24 shares going through every minute now

Never seen anything like it

 

[bvbfan]

Without looking its most likely program buying/selling.

Someone wants a stake or wants to liquidate.

 

[Timmy]

Without looking its most likely program buying/selling.

Someone wants a stake or wants to liquidate.

bvb...could you elaborate on this a little?

24 shares of IPM equates to about $31 worth around current price levels...it is not what I picture when I hear the words "program buying/selling". If I actually do the numbers though, 24 shares at the rate of once per minute equates to about 1,400/hour - over the course of a day thats going to be 8,500 odd, which is actually a big chunk of a normal day's recent volume in this share. Interesting.

 

[bvbfan]

Hard to explain but basically a smarty pants makes up a program to run on a computer with access to the ASX system and drip feeds either buy or sell orders.

They do this to build a position without making a lot of noise to alert others and forcing price up/down

 

[cordelia]

don't they have to pay brokerage for each trade.....(excuse newbie ignorance)

 

[prawn_86]

generally not cordelia

bots are usually used by the big brokers (bell potter, JB were etc etc) and they do not pay per trade, they have some other sort of arrangement with the ASX.

 

[cordelia]

thanks for that........makes sense now

 

[DOC]

Hi,
thanks for the explanantion, i was wondering about that myself, but felt too stupid to actually ask.

So can anyone tell me if these particular trades indicate that some individual is slowly accumulating shares in IPM, or is someone dumping the stock slowly, or both?

cheers and thanks,
doc

 

[justincase]

Hi Doc,

To answer your question. You can tell if they are buying or selling by the price that the trade is executed. ie, if the buy is 1.00 and the sell is 1.01, when the trade is at 1.00 it is the BOT selling and when the trade is at 1.01 the BOT is buying. Often you will see it both ways as different funds use bots to pick-up small parcels of shares throughout the day.

Justincase

 

[xyzedarteerf]

generally not cordelia

bots are usually used by the big brokers (bell potter, JB were etc etc) and they do not pay per trade, they have some other sort of arrangement with the ASX.

i believe these are those so called black box discussed a couple of weeks ago here. so what are these arrangements can we get info on these??

 

[Timmy]

i believe these are those so called black box discussed a couple of weeks ago here. so what are these arrangements can we get info on these??

Some introductory material, links etc at Wikipedia on algorithmic trading

 

[Wysiwyg]

Two well not common activities are ...
1) The exact amount of shares being bought at one price but no excess in the visible depth orders. For example 387 shares appear for sale and 387 get bought followed by 2146 for sale then exact amount bought. Seen this go on for extended periods.
2) Limited or small parcel trading during the day and come closing auction time, large orders stack up against each other.

 

[rnr]

Two well not common activities are ...
1) The exact amount of shares being bought at one price but no excess in the visible depth orders. For example 387 shares appear for sale and 387 get bought followed by 2146 for sale then exact amount bought. Seen this go on for extended periods.
2) Limited or small parcel trading during the day and come closing auction time, large orders stack up against each other.

Which share were you watching re the first point above?

 

[Wysiwyg]

Which share were you watching re the first point above?

MQA