reason for the volume and price shenanigans

I contacted the ASX, and received an email in reply very quickly.

Basically, their computer systems had been alerted to the sudden huge price change and volume surge in a very short time, on the close. This occurred with PDN, ERA, and AOE.

Quote from the email:

"The reason is that these stocks join the MSCI Energy Index on Monday, and major funds have been "rebalancing" their portfolios, leading to volatile trading in energy stocks today"

End quote

But - a couple of problems still come to my mind:

(a) why did they all wait until the closing auction?

(b) why sell anyway? Many of them will be buying back on Monday...

(c) those sells were met with a lot of buys as well - who was that?

Still seems very "suss" to me, and as I put in my email to the ASX, how can retail traders compete with action and computerized trading systems like that? The market, and in particular the closing prices, are completely controlled by the big end of town abd the big money funds.

Not happy Jan....

We'll see if the reverse happens on Monday!