Fundamentals haven't changed, page-317

It is not only GDX/GDXJ rebalancing or more precisely Van Eck rebalancing. All the mutual funds and instos go through this process at certain times or sooner or later. The next deadline for rebalancing by these funds in their ETFs and Index related funds is 16 June 2017. That is a date called the triple witching day as well. Triple witching day happens every 3 months when the expiry of options, futures and index rebalancing all happen on the same day. More precisely it is a quadruple witching day and heaps of fun and games happen to stock prices in the month of so leading up to these dates. The huge Van Eck rebalancing and reweighting underway has made the usual triple witching activity occur earlier than normal practice IMHO.

Here is a basic article about such activity:

https://www.thebalance.com/triple-witching-1031135

There are many funds involved with NST and there is no doubt in my mind their brokers/agents push the price around to suit their agenda. Most of the the actual transactions are done in dark pools, but these transactions must be brought to lite on the lit exchanges, like the ASX, to make them legit. That often means the lit exchange price is manipulated to reflect the dark pool transactions to be registered. Plus pro traders and hedge funds often front run these activities and that adds to the confusion.

The regulatory authorities just turn a blind eye to such shenanigans. They are toothless tigers and our political representatives are either too dumb, too lazy, to too comfortable or cosy to do anything either.

When you look at how many funds own shares in NST then one doesn't need to wonder too much about the magnitude of this dark pool activity. Here is the latest list of fundies/instos owning shares in NST and most would be operating in the dark pools at some stage and time leading into triple witching dates.

	Institution Name	Shares Held(% Change)	% Outstanding
1	BlackRock (Luxembourg) SA	42,507,910(+8.42%)	7.08
2	Van Eck Associates Corporation	40,156,389(-0.35%)	7.06
3	BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Ltd.	16,504,243(+8.02%)	2.75
4	Ruffer LLP	16,195,271(-5.59%)	2.71
5	Citibank China Co Ltd	15,000,000(0.00%)	2.50
6	Vanguard Group Inc	11,677,870(+0.85%)	1.97
7	1832 Asset Management L.P	10,785,000(0.00%)	1.82
8	Investec Asset Management Ltd	7,878,996(+5.85%)	1.30
9	Dimensional Fund Advisors LP	6,784,792(+0.55%)	1.13
10	OFI Global Asset Management, Inc.	5,653,877(+1.85%)	0.95
11	Wellington Management Company LLP	4,644,109(+7.88%)	0.77
12	Vanguard Investments Australia Ltd	4,075,760(+1.79%)	0.68
13	BlackRock Fund Managers Limited	3,999,807(+0.20%)	0.67
14	USAA Asset Management Company	3,368,928(0.00%)	0.56
15	DFA Australia Limited	3,241,128(+0.04%)	0.54

Cheers