george, also don't forget the fact that things have been rough with the 'nets lately. As I mentioned when I bought in a few weeks ago, when things get rough there the daytraders will come here. In fact I also mentioned that's exactly one of the reasons I'm getting more into biotech right now.
BTW, a lot of activity might have been SOES-like (i.e. 1,000 chunks in rapid succession fluctuating between bid/ask), but that just means it's popular with day traders, not institutions. I really didn't see much evidence of anyone large buying yesterday, so I would agree that most of the buying was "retail" under one interpretation of that word. IOW, when someone says "retail" it can either mean simply non-institutional (so that SOES bandit-types would count as "retail" under this interpretation) or more specifically it can mean little guys that aren't necessarily "savvy" day traders (so that buying is divided into retail, day trading, and institutional). Part of the problem here is that the stock is so cheap that little retail investors, the "odd lotters", are also buying in 1,000 size bites. It's easier to detect day trader type activity and distinguish it from little guy buying with a stock that's higher priced, say $50- in that case SOES-type activity will still proceed in 1,000 share chunks, but little guy buying will happen in 200 (or so) share chunks. That's my limited understanding, FWIW.
Anaxagoras |
