the negative sentiment seems to correlate with the intention to force sellers into the buy side, there is no real SELL volume at the moment, it is sell with the left hand and buy with the right hand, and is occurring between custodial holdings in the main part and quite often at midpoint pricing too.
It stands out like dogs balls, and was reiterated by virtue of having sat at the very top of buy side for 3 days before a small order was filled, with yet many times more "volume" apparenlty traded over those same 3 days.
The Buying and Selling isn't real in the sense of being available to unrelated accounts and very much appears to be the type of thing that ASIC achieved a successful prosecution for in June 2022, I am citing this below article as an example of a more recent ASIC prosecution and the type of behaviours they can go after, it's interesting that the person prosecuted had their own Hot Copper posts used against them too.
and then there's the Close price manipulation with downticking and also fake BUY and SELL volumes that during the 10 minutes get altered multiple times, these dummy bids are what is known as "spoofing" and is mentioned here in the same article from above.
This is happening almost daily here with AAU volumes and is in plain sight, you just have to look for it, especially during the 10 minute Close window.
The fact that the sentiment being desired is negative with a goal to surpress the price, IMO indicates that something is being sought, is that a large position via attrition of other shareholders (especially leading into Christmas and New Year now), delays and a further cap raise, getting set in the long dated options ?? don't know for certain but it is very easy to see and became crystal clear sitting atop the queue and watching all this volume apparently happening in free market trade, everwhere except the top most buyer !
anyway here's the full article if of interest to anyone -
https://www.holdingredlich.com/guilty-plea-to-market-manipulation-following-asic-investigation-into-online-pump-and-dump-posts
(20min delay)