I think you make some very good points in your last paragraph. And, I believe, the perspectives of all of us contain certain truths, even though they aren't identical. The next move of the stock should be longer lasting because it will be more real and less speculative. It will be institution-based, and not from "marginal, intense public speculation", as you call it. Those are my thoughts, and I've learned a lot from everyone (Robert, AHM, Ahaha, etc.) even though I'm not in 100% agreement.
My take on it is that the MMs are there to ensure an orderly market, but there is manipulation, no doubt about it. Lehman and oppenheimer are definitely in bed together, colluding, whatever you want to call it. Today (and Robert could probably confirm) Opco and Leh were on opposite sides of the bid/ask, and were swapping stock. There was that crap about the sturza report on the bloomberg wire (not an accident), so games are played. Just part of the landscape. And when the market makers take the stock down on light volume to shake out nervous investors that's manipulation (recall the trading at the end of the day on June 8, I believe, when the stock traded all day at 11 3/4 by 7/8 with big blocks going out, and they took it down in the last 10 minutes of trading on 1000 share blocks to 11 1/4 by 3/8. That continued in the opening minutes of the next session (light volume down to 10 5/8)....And you can't tell me they didn't know what they were doing. Heck, the AGPH deal was 2 days from being announced...they knew it was coming. There's a lot of nervous, manipulable nellies out there just waiting to give back their valuable stock, and the MMs know that. Not that the MMs can be faulted. It's a game, and they know how to play it. If an investor doesn't, he should not even try.
Looking for good things the next 2 weeks. |
