| In that event much of the blame for handing the future of high risk high reward resource exploration and development to the Australian Stock Exchange can be laid at the feet of the TMX Group which in pursuit of short-sighted greed and possibly bankster inspired stupidity has strangled the resource sector as a risk capital allocation arena where investors speculate on fundamental outcomes rather than manufactured volatility. The decision to allow short-selling on a down-tick and the hookup of algorithmic trading systems to the electronic order book in a regulatory environment where juniors are severely handicapped in helping investors visualize the value of potential outcomes as a project travels from grassroots concept to a production decision, has created a one-sided playing field where trading predators systematically harvest capital in-flows from investors placing bets on fundamental outcomes. Thanks to high speed connections that feed market depth data to powerful computers on a real time basis a new reality has been created whereby the TSX/TSXV market for resource listings can be likened to a vast information web on which lurk spiders monitoring for the slightest quiver that signals anomalous inflow of capital not emanating from fellow spiders. Like spiders sensing an ensnarled fly these traders race toward that stock's electronic order book and start feeding sell orders to match the incoming buy orders, displacing long shareholders by inserting their orders ahead of manually placed orders, or at the same price in the multitude of order execution platforms whose existence is touted as some sort of ode to competition and liquidity but which in reality fragments the market, violates the first come first serve principle that retail investors assume, and creates a two-tiered transparency where the professionals see the order book consolidated while the rest see only the TSX/TSXV order book unless they pay extra. The "spiders" see it all, and they intercept incoming real money orders by selling paper they intend to borrow, paper they never need to borrow, because before the day is over, after they have sucked up all the new capital possibly generated by a positive research report, a newsletter tout, a favorable mention by a video or audio media talking head or web article, or even by a direct pitch made by management to a fund manager or investor group, they lean on the bid side of the order book pounding out stock on a down-tick, triggering instant buyer's regret among the new shareholders placing bets on fundamental outcomes, and unleashing capitulation among the existing longs, who add their real sell orders into the downtrend, enabling the spiders to close out their short positions before the market close and eliminating the need to deliver on their intent to borrow the stock. |
