There has definitely been a pattern lately – someone buying the SP up early in the day, followed by someone selling the SP down with thousands of tiny volume trades for the remainder of the day. If I had to guess, I'd say it has been the same entity, but it's impossible to be certain. I'd say trading has been following this pattern about 80-85% of the time lately, although it looked like another bot – one which was buying all day – became active on Friday.
What I've learned in my relatively short time in the market is that there are two driving forces of a company's SP. The first is the fundamentals of the company in question, and on that level ASM continues to look great – better than ever, even. The second is where various types of games – those which are predicated on power, information, and operational asymmetries between different classes of investors – come into play. In the case of the latter, ASM is just like any other stock, although on balance, I would say companies such as ASM, with strong fundamentals and future prospects, and an investor base skewed towards having a long-term outlook, are probably less vulnerable to this sort of stuff over the medium to long term than most stocks. Perhaps these qualities attract a higher than usual amount of attention from the game-players, though.
Anyway, just some thoughts, and all IMO.
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