What exactly do people mean when they talk about dark forces...

What exactly do people mean when they talk about dark forces (instos) playing with or manipulating the price? This nonsense about a grand conspiracy is quite embarrassing at times. Its called market forces. If people want to sell more shares then the price drops. if more people are wanting to buy shares, then the price rises. When instos sell on market they often sell a lot so the price drops until enough buyers are found. If they have a deal to buy a heap of shares from a single seller (eg director), then hardly surprising they want (and get) a slightly better rate than market. Similarly the company director is getting the security of knowing all the shares are being sold to a long term investor and might be prepared to pay a few cents for that. And don't get me started on the 'mystery' of regular parcels of small numbers of shares being bought and sold and the likelihood its all done by a shady 'bot' or similar. Its just a product of the program the traders happen to be using. That's not manipulating the market so I'm not surprised the ASX does nothing about it when people suggests manipulation. Then, sometimes there's a special event and people try to guess what it all means. A director selling is likely to scare people more than boost their confidence, so not surprising the price falls, especially given Wall St overnight, but if there's really no drama behind it, the price will reach a level where people think its cheap and buy in. That's happened in the past and those buyers have usually been rewarded as the price rebounded. Personally, it looks like a similar thing here as I'm inclined to believe the Directors message about the reasons for the sale, but I'm just holding and not worrying about these little blips because the long term looks pretty good.

No need to overthink these things and jump at shadows.If you think the company is undervalued, buy more. If you think its overvalued, or you need the cash, sell. Add up all the people doing just that at any one time and you have today's market price. No manipulation required.