Tim, I've a question that I've been wanting to ask for a long time but keep forgetting to do so. I just remembered:
You and others on SI have, for a long time, discussed the influence the MM's, other big players, and potential merger talks have on prices. Frequently, we speak of stock prices being driven down because "THEY" want it to drop prior to expiration. We talk about stocks that are flat prior to earnings by saying that prices would be higher if earnings were going to exceed estimates.
All of this kind of talk is premised upon the idea that someone ELSE has knowledge that WE do not have. Do you REALLY think there are sufficient INFORMED insiders around to have a significant overall influence on a stock's price, where the knowledge is not generally available to the public? Don't you think this INFORMED GROUP would include the savvy investors on SI who have demonstrated an outstanding ability to dig out information? Apparently not, since we all endlessly discuss and speculate over what the real facts are.
I guess what I'm saying is that I have a hard time believing that prices are "controlled" by some undefined group of people with inside information. If, however, the GSCO's and MLCO's of the world trade a very big percentage of a stock's volume for their own account, then I can see that they COULD influence prices.
Do you think the big brokers and fund managers, based upon privy knowledge, are doing this in sufficient volume to influence the trends? |
