If so, then the data that accaeric has collated looks accurate, as I do recall that @145 million shares were traded via the ASX on the opening day (5th April). In accaeric's report, please ignore the total volume column (or divide it by 2) and look at the buy or sell volumes that are virtually equal. That is the actual total volume that some of us see on our screens. Get it?
From the opening day we can see that Macquarie (or a client(s) of) was the main seller. However ITG Australia, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Deutsche, and Morgan Stanley were all offloading and none of these brokers and/or their clients bought back in.
It's also worth noting that Credit Suisse achieved the highest avg. sell price for the day at 3.78c, and so from this we can deduce that they were the first broker to set the cat amongst the pigeons so to speak. The question is did they know (and care) that others would follow suit and drive the price down all day long?
And what about Macquarie? Were they in on the act from the opening bell or did they sell in reaction to Credit Suisse and others? i.e. was it every man/woman/broker for themselves, or dare I say it was there a level of collusion understanding between these brokers and/or their clients that mum and dad investors simply aren't privy to?
On the buy side we can see that Commsec and Etrade absorbed most of the volume (no surprises there as that includes you, me, and the majority of mum, dad and smaller investors).
However Wealthub, Australian Investment Exchange (AIE), Third Party, CMC and State One were also overwhelmingly net buyers. Wealthub and AIE in particular were aggressive net buyers (i.e. very little selling), suggesting that these shares have fallen into stronger or longer term hands.
Am very interested to see the next batch of data covering the rest of the week that was (available this Tuesday @accaeric ?) and once we have that data I will attempt to translate the combined volume distribution into possible movement amongst our Top 20 shareholders.
Overall though, I am extremely encouraged by the opening day's volume distribution as it is clear that Macquarie, Credit Suisse and the other aforementioned sellers were interested in one thing only, and that is making a quick profit for themselves. The fact that they have completely ignored the massive improvement to company fundamentals in the last month or so (de-risk, de-risk, de-risk) only certifies their ADHD and shortsightedness IMHO.
TA sidenote: I saw that someone was asking (via facebook and due to this week's bearish activity) if we were now in a downtrend? Well if you take a look at the weekly and monthly candlestick charts then you'll see that a higher high and a higher low has been recorded versus the previous week and month. So unless we break below 2.8c next week, the gradual but steady reversal off the Jan 2016 low is still very much intact.
The exciting part will be if when a formal agreement with a chippie is announced and the big end of town collectively realise that their ADHD and shortsightedness is opportunity costing them a pretty penny. The reaction will be a feeding frenzy similar to the one witnessed in the video below IMHO.
(check it out from about the halfway mark if you are time poor).
Hang in there folks, as the sharks will be circling again soon enough and they will (all of a sudden) want your shares back at whatever price they can get.
All of the above is IMO of course, so please do not treat it as advice of any kind and DYOR.
(20min delay)