Bots in Action, page-17

I emailed ASX and got this response:

ASX would like to thank you for making the time and effort to lodge your report

ASX notes it is not uncommon for the course of trading in a stock to show a large number of small volume trades. These are often part of a broader trading strategy, including:

** a broker seeking to execute an order at the volume weighted average price (“VWAP” – to achieve this, the broker will typically split the total order into multiples of smaller orders, with these smaller orders being executed throughout the course of the day in order to replicate as close as possible VWAP for the day;
** a broker completing a large volume order by breaking it into a number of smaller orders - by doing this, the broker does not alert the market to the full size of the order and thereby avoids possible disadvantageous price movements; or
** a broker seeking to discover if there may be hidden supply of, or demand for, a stock.
These are all legitimate trading strategies. Small volume trades therefore should not be assumed to be indicative of market manipulation.

ASX notes that high frequency trading continues to be a controversial subject in many markets overseas. However, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (“ASIC” has extensively studied the effect of high-frequency trading in Australia and concluded that it does not, on balance, negatively affect market efficiency or effectiveness. We refer you to a copy of ASIC’s most recent report on the matter available at this link: https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-reso...-of-high-frequency-tradingand-dark-liquidity/