Yeah, I read the log. There was major selling pressure from 15:21-15:29, then the stock rebound 3/16ths and remains there for 24 minutes without any significant trading activity. (You did read THAT part of the log, did you not?) Then, more "bid whacking" from 15:53-15:59. I am assuming, of course, that since you are working off the premise that this activity is destructive short selling and not someone blowing out a large position before the weekend, that by your reasoning both selling spurts must be part of the same malicious effort.
That means there were 24 minutes for buyers to show up or market makers to get contacted to spread the alert of a bear raid. In practice, nobody showed, but they could have and that would have made a terrible mess of the hypothetical raid.
My point is, if you're going to run a bear raid, and you know going in you've got about 15 minutes worth of "ammo", why would you start your raid 40 minutes before the close instead of 15 minutes before?
The pattern just seems more consistent with a broker under orders of "25K to go" 40 minutes before the bell. He starts unloading but stops after a few minutes when he sees the stock has absolutely no real support. He waits as long as he can for buyers to show up but finally he has to resume hitting bids or risk not filling the order.
I guess what we need to find out is where the trades were coming from, an item not on that trading log. If they came from an ECN, then the conclusion is that there was deliberate hitting of the bid. If a market maker was doing the trades, however, then I think we have to allow that we may have simply had a sell order too large for the market activity of the moment. |
