one:put another way it's a nasty little strategy that brokers...

one:

put another way it's a nasty little strategy that brokers use to make it look like ADO is a bit if a no-hoper and cause frustration and manual forced selling. The sells can also automatically triggered by the SP hitting a stop loss set by an investor.

It's also known as "mind games" and "manipulation".

The brokers have a large pool of stock that they can sell small amounts to themselves and set a lower Share Price. The telling aspect to this turning point of setting a low SP is multiple sales at low volumes. This is why people look to "course of sales" for the real story of the sales. Brokers have the right to trade below the minimum amount of $500 that us retail investors work with, and as brokers they use electronic or 'bot' trading. They pre set the levels they are prepared to buy and sell at.

this low SP shakes the confidence of actual investors into selling and the volumes increase. this is what is meant by "finding liquidity", the buying and selling are matching more readily, as the buyers don't want to pay top money. the multiple sales at low volumes continue to soak up the impatient or the "stop losses" and get as many big ones as they can. Once this happens and still low volumes sellers are "exhausted" and they are forced to go up again. It has been claimed that some brokers are aware of one clients stop losses, will trigger them to sell to another client. This is why brokers are so loved and trusted.

"The weak holders" are their targets. The targets hopes go up with a rise in the SP, and down again, if they repeat it for long enough eventually it makes investors who don't fully understand the LT prospects of the company get impatient for quicker returns they imagine they will get elsewhere, and they sell just to have it over with. Or you could have traders who bought in hoping a rise would continue and are forced to sell before T3, or settlement date arrives, as they don't have the funds to settle. So the settle at a loss.

Sometimes the bot trading occurs at high frequency, so fast that you as a retail investor cannot possibly keep up with the SP moves. The theoretical purpose of this is to keep the market liquid, so the buys and sells are not too far from eachother. Stocks like MSB have had these movements, the Iress screen just continually flickers with live trades.

Anyway that's what is meant by "playing games" or "flushing out" weak holders as I understandit. It's why you watch closely and learn as much as you can in here.

Hope this is helpful and not telling you how to suck eggs, any corrections gratefully accepted.