Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : DAYTRADING Fundamentals -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: johnsto1 who wrote (9012)	6/18/2000 6:20:00 AM
From: elepet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

This is not a response, but your post reminded me of something I've observed. I'll be watching real time stock quotes (not level2) and stock will be trading between say 50 and 51 back and forth in increments of 1/8, 1/4 etc. Then all of a sudden 55 flashes on the bid, and before I have a chance to say more than woaaah, what was that? and go to sell, that's gone and back to 50 3/4. So I check other real time quote sources and they all have that number, and it stays as "high of the day" for a while, and then after a few hours, the "high of the day" moves down to 54 3/4. What is that all about? It seems to happen more with some stocks than others. If it's a technical mishap, why does it occur on all quote sources? Another question: Occasionally the bid on a stock is higher than the ask. Why is that? Also at times the "last price" shows on the screen as 50 1/2 but the bid is 50 and the ask 50 1/4. I've always thought that the last price should be between the bid and the ask and have figured that was some sort of technical fluke, but am wondering if there is another explanation. Manipulation: I tried to follow the exchange on that subject between several of you the other day but do not have enough backround to understand everything that was said. I read many other threads and have often seen the term used... par example "the mm's are walking the price down". Sometimes the term is used in a silly fashion, such as one guy who yelled "manipulation" when a particular stock suddenly dropped 3 points. At the end of the day I noticed that it was up 3 points and wondered whether he was again complaining about manipulation. But putting that sort of stuff aside...as they say "where there's smoke, there's fire" and it seems to me that there is too much smoke to be ignored. Do any of you follow Rande's thread here on SI? He often has much to say on the subject of manipulation and it sounds pretty reasonable to a neophyte. Would anyone here please offer a simple definition of the term manipulation as distinguished from "normal" trading activity and give examples. Other than the MM issue, how else does it occur? What effect does this have on the ordinary retail trader/investor? I'm trying to understand how this animal they call "The Market" is put together and have learned quite a bit from the people here. I really appreciate your help. Thanks.