@invest99, You have spoken to one of my pet hates here, and as...

@invest99, You have spoken to one of my pet hates here, and as you say this blatant market manipulation is actually legal, it's even hard to even believe that ASIC can let this happen.

There must be some very subtle legal loopholes that are in place; and then the high cost legal interpretations that support this scam of the idea of a fair market.

Everyday I am witness to thousands of single digit trades, double digit trades and 3 digit trades; this is implemented by computers (bots) that are programmed by very highly paid (and highly sought after) quantitative programming analysts. They can push prices up and down to suit their algorithmic outcomes, the real outcome however is that the institutions which deploy this quasi legal scam are raking in billions.

A large proportion of the bot bounty is derived directly from the pockets of retail traders. To deploy this scam an insto needs very deep pockets to buy the sophisticated and powerful computing hardware, then the costs of employing the quants and then the bucketloads of $$$ to purchase or short sell large quantities of stock.

Then they buy and sell in tiny share parcels to achieve their very nasty ends, another part of this craziness is that they also get to deploy this scam at super low brokerage rates. If I sold a parcel of 3 AJM shares @24c for 72c this morning I would be charged $10 by Commsec for the transaction - I don't think I'll bother with that idea.

The thing is this scam is being deployed right across the ASX, it is an outrageous scourge, as if being a retail investor wasn't challenging enough already.