twouptom, depending how you view it. It is manipulation but it...

twouptom, depending how you view it. It is manipulation but it is perfectly legal. These apply to both trying to move a price up or down.

I have to say AZY trading has exhibited some of the below. It does not mean that the price is under or over valued though. In the end it just comes down to technical vs fundamental trading methods.

CandidCamera asked a related question the other day. No one can be absolutely certain of a seller or buyers motives but there are more and more algorithms at work on the ASX that get their rewards off small, fast, volume measured movements in stock prices. I was reading an article the other day which said the average time a stock is held has reduced from days to fractions of a second because of auto trading systems.

There are certain buy and sell patterns that tend to show that an algo or dark trader is at work. For example;

• large sell orders pulled just before open or they are hit;
• small sell or buy orders that move the price when the asks or bids are thin;
• the testing of 'stop losses' by algos.