It is manipulation.
When PLS got as high as $5.60 people (paid actors?) where writing that PLS cannot be valued at a lot more than that (like P/E of 10 or 12) because US$8000/t was to be considered unsustainable and a forward looking market should price PLS at a lot less than US$8000/t. Otherwise, PLS could have risen to $9-10 or whatever.
Fine, the forward looking people where right.
Some few hundred million shares where sold short.
Spot prices were smashed. Futures were traded intensely (downward). All while long-term contracts were happily agreed on, while auctions fetched prices above spot prices, while China-supported mines spammed the market with cheap product and while we even read about actual price manipulation meetings in the backroom of global lithium conferences. Let's not forget about extensive and long-lasting PR campaigns against EVs (sometimes with really ridiculous and one-sided, constructed arguments).
Ah, and didn't they find out that statistically prices in eod auctions of ASX stocks significantly drop way more often than they rise? And weren't there reports of disgruntled ex-employees of investment firms (or their service partners) that told about them being paid per bs post?
About two years later, sentiment is at the bottom. There are still [insert your favorite insult here] here, let's call them trolls (paid actors?), roaming the threads spreading FUD. The daily amount of posts from people I have on ignore alone convinces me that this stock is manipulated - otherwise, why would they care about spinning opinions? (they don't seem to care about other threads of more boring companies, that don't show obvious price manipulation / bot activity / high short interest)
With sentiment at the bottom, even long term holders don't want to buy more - or in some cases get sucked into trading the obvious daily patterns provided by the bot activity, thereby even supporting the manipulators for their own small gain.
Without significant demand and no need to sell, the share price could stay the same. Case closed.
Ahh, noo, let's introduce some circle-jerk trading! With retail sentiment destroyed, why should I not sell some of my shares (and with "my shares" I mean "the shares that I borrowed from someone else, who could have sold those, but didn't, and instead lend them to me, because, you know, two potential sellers are better than one") from my left pocket to my right pocket... from my one international subsidiary to my other international subsidiary... for $0.01 less. And then back, for $0.01 less. Some more FUD, negativity. Lets sell them again for $0.01 less. Yay, today 90% of trading volume was just me and my bots/buddies. Let's borrow some more shares. None available? Who will find out whether I even borrowed it if I just buy it back before the eod auction? Couldn't buy it back in time? Let's just be a little sloppy with the paperwork. A few failures to deliver won't kill anybody, would they?
Apropos, where is the forward looking market when lithium prices are so low, that mines are going into care & maintenance while demand for EVs and ESS are still rising every year? Should it not factor in the cyclicality of the market? And the ~613 million shares that some people want to buy back?
As you said, "it can catch you on the wrong end of a trade very easily".
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