I don't think this is manipulation. its just an order balancing...

I don't think this is manipulation. its just an order balancing thing commsec does. Would be great to hear some feedback from someone with certainty on this subject. I personally ignore it as its inconsequential for investing. If you believe the price is being pushed down then isn't that great? you can buy cheaper shares, right? or are you trading and trying to out compete this trading bot algorithm?

here's a copy and paste from a lazy interwebz search:

"share trades are the most common odd lot trade size, accounting for 9.62% of all odd lot transactions and 3.65% of all trades on NASDAQ in 2012. While 50.41% of 1-share trades result from broken orders, 34.89% of 1-share trades are intentional. We provide substantial evidence that traders use 1-share trades to “ping” for hidden liquidity. In particular, our results indicate that 1-share trades are disproportionately aggressive and also execute against hidden liquidity more than any other odd lot trade size. We also find a relative increase in trading immediately following a 1-share trade. Our results are in line with Clark-Joseph (2014), who suggests that traders may use small, unprofitable trades to detect information from other traders. Specifically, 1-share trades represent the minimum cash outlay necessary to trade, while simultaneously producing the smallest possible effects on a market maker's inventory, and in turn, a security's price."