Re:<<can you give any insight into this?
who was on either side of the transaction?
how might a block like this be moved without impacting the price?
why the after market trading?
any idea what might be going on here?>>
1. It is often very difficult to know what is happening in a situation like this because there are so many different players that are involved, nonetheless, you can narrow it down somewhat to the following:
a. It could be nothing other than some mm or shareholder printing to the tape, illegally, rather than actually trading stock. The participant might want to make the stock look active, and if they are a mm, they can report the trade to teh tape without it ever occurring.
b. It could have occurred but have simply been a cross between customer/firm A's account to Customer/Firm A's other account, thus no real change in ownership occurred. (Ie. cross trade between a husband to a wife's account. ) Depending on the price, if they do it at the offer, it makes, or they think it makes, the stock look strong. Nonetheless, notice the stock didn't move.
c. It could be a legitimate cross. If so, you need a large seller as well as a buyer. The mm or another firm might agree to represent the customer as agent-only as do so for xx pennies per share, 10, 12. etc. Then the firm doesnt go for the spread so the opposing trade is not done at a different price. In fact, all the prints, all the stock the buyer is accumulating is bought for his account without crossing into the firm account and THEN to the customer account.
4. Perhaps the buying firm shopped around to one of the large institutions or insiders and found someone willing to sell such a large piece at the inside market. Nonetheless, ask youself, someone is willing to sell a large piece at that price, thats not bullish.
5. The firm might have been working the trade (buyer or seller) as a principal and have been making the trades over the past few days for the client. ie. a client says sell 300,000 good for the week The firm gets to work, selling here, there, whatever price, selling out of firm inventory. At the end of the day, the firm is short stock. Now they bring in the client's stock to cover the short. If they acted as principal, they will want to bring it in lower, so they make some kind of spread. If they act as agent, probably at the price thye sold it. The same holds true for buying. They get an order to buy 330k shares so they start working, buying at the bid, being the best bid, buyinginbetween, finding large pieces, etc., buying the whole time into a firm inventory account. Now when they hvae the 330k shares the customer wanted,they crooss it into the customer's acocunt from the firms at a higher price, (similar to what might have happened here since the large pieces werea the offer).
Nonetheless, most firms would flatten out a day's end to avoid a client renegging and in case of bad news, client says "i never gave that order".
After hours. probably because they waited till the close to tally up the shares andd then put up the final prints.
These sorts of pieces are very difficult to evaluate but consider all the opportunties and have atleast an understanding of the 20 scenarios that could have occurred.
Regards,
Steve@yamner.com |
