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.

Non-Tech : Bill Wexler's Dog Pound -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: golden_tee who wrote (455)	3/28/1999 7:53:00 PM
From: Larry Brubaker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10293

<<Ignoring the unclears, the imbalance was 8,800 shares to the sell side. Since the NASDAQ double counts, the "25K to go" was closer to 4400 to go.>> Not exactly. The transaction log correctly indicates the number of shares involved in the trade. Therefore, if the transaction log indicates 5,000 shares went at the bid, somebody just sold 5,000 shares to a MM (or an individual buying at the bid via an ECN). The double-counting on NASDAQ means that on other exchanges, those 5,000 shares would not be counted until they had been resold by the MM (specialist) to somebody else. It is true that volume on NASDAQ is double-counted relative to other exchanges because it counts both sides of a trade. But it is not accurate to count the down volume for a time period and then divide it by half to determine the actual number of shares that were sold by investors. Personally, I prefer the way NASDAQ measures trades because you get a better picture of whether the larger blocks are buys or sells.

To: golden_tee who wrote (455)	3/28/1999 11:59:00 PM
From: Kevin Podsiadlik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10293

While I can't say one way or the other whether the math holds, apart from the glitch where you misapply the "double counting" to the individual trades instead of the overall volume, it really doesn't matter because it has nothing to do with my argument anyway. You may look askance all you wish at how 4000 or 6000 or 13000 or however many shares managed to bring VLNC down so many ticks, but the fact is it happened, and would have happened regardless of where the sales came from. So the bid was getting whacked, as you say, but the motivation remains to be determined. One possibility that we can eliminate is a group effort on the short side. As Mama Bear pointed out earlier, both sections of the downturn had long durations without an uptick. Which means if it was short selling it was either one or two huge orders or the market maker at work. This is where my point comes in. If the object was in fact to paint the tape as red as possible, why would the hypothetical seller put himself in a position where he would have to give the stock nearly 25 minutes to get itself back up and neutralize his efforts? As far as my counter-scenario goes, whether the selling was 25K, 20K, 15K, 10K whatever, it was enough. Don't get hung up on the number I gave, that was just for purposes of illustration. I see no evidence from that log that indicates that the selling need have been from the short side, and at least some indication to the contrary. At any rate we should know in about 9 1/2 hours.