To: Due Diligence who wrote (132 ) 4/14/1999 12:05:00 AM From: Benchman Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Thanks for that chart! I just went over it. It confirms my thoughts about MM's on BB stocks, and also confirms what I have seen the past few days (I didn't watch it much today). The MM's will pull this down below 2 on any sale. Small, large whatever, and they are very reluctant to bring it up over 2 on numerous buys, large and small. When I say numerous, I mean relative to the normal volume of this stock. If you look after 10:04 when the bid was 2 x 2, it looks like two more buys came in at market, at which the MM's sold the stock over 2, then 2 sells came in. These two sells I feel are what made the MM's bring the bid below 2, even though they had two more buys lined up. Then from the times you pointed out (10:39 to 1:00), it was the 2 sells at 10:38, and the sell at 12:12 and at 1:08 that influenced them, IMO. I am not saying this is right by any means. It seems criminal to me. For what ever reason, they need almost straight buying with no selling to move the bid beyond 2. They could have 10 buys in a row and one sell and they drop it. The other day when the stock was at 2 1/8 x 2 3/16, Alan C. (he announced posted his sale) sold his shares at a 2 1/8, I think it was maybe 1500-2500 shares, and they dropped the bid to 2. Then someone sold 1500 at 2, and they dropped the spread to 1 15/16 x 2 3/16. These 2 sales had been after a number of straight buys, but all it took were 2 sales to drop it.
