Your first table shows that in the two weeks from 4th May to last Friday, buyers were reasonably dispersed, with Morgan's accounting for about 25% of the net buys and, perhaps remarkably, they or their clients disposing no shares in those two weeks. Obviously they had more faith than AEL that something good was on the horizon.
What's more surprising, however, is that virtually only one broker, Taylors, was a net seller in that period. Taylors sold 4 million shares, or 90% of net sells and bought only 4,900 shares. Adding in all trades - the buys and sells from the net buy list, there were 9.2 million shares traded, excluding a cross trade of 400k - and Taylors sold 43% of all trades. If Taylor hadn't been selling, it's most likely that the price would have advanced steadily over the two weeks.
So who was Taylors selling for? Key, if you can post the list of transactions of all buys and sells since 1st April we will be able to see if Taylor was the major seller when AEL got rid of 16 million from 1st April to 5th May. It may be that AEL has continued selling, and if so, they have typically advised the market of significant sales within a week or two - so a notice would be due about now.
If Taylor was not acting for AEL during their sell down, then who have they been acting for now? We think AEL are completely irrational selling down such a large volume of shares when they have been advised by management that a favourable announcement was imminent (how can AEL be ethically representing their policy holders by foresaking expected great gains?) - so who else would be so stupid unless they were deliberately keeping the price down? And if so, what have they to gain from keeping the price down?
ANP Price at posting:
4.8¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
