I'll show you whats going on, have a look at the picture...

I'll show you whats going on, have a look at the picture below.

I'm drawing this data from 'Stocknessmonster' because my Etrade account only shows the market depth and not the crossed trades. Stocknessmonster only show a maximum of 10 trades so i can only show you a glimpse at whats going on but you will see it.

Trades are being executing and then a similar or the same quantity of stock is being cross traded. Basically it looks like they are buying and selling stock to themselves to make it look like sales are taking place.

The 'bots' are effectively algorithmic computer programs that trade stocks but are able to calculate outcomes and complete many trades in a fraction of a second.

The people who deploy these bots pay a fixed sum to execute as many trades as they like over an agreed time period, they do not pay for each trade like us mugs on the street.

Example 1 - I have hightlighted trades 16 & 17 in orange, they were executed at the same time,similar quantity, one was a cross and the other was not.

Example 2 - I have highlighted in green and purple the same thing.

I suspect there is also a link between trades 18 & 14 because although there is 60,000 shares difference there is a correlation between the 1,602 in both trades. The 60,000 difference would be picked up in another cross trade, for example trade 20 which was 100,000.

If i had the entire days trades you would quickly notice the cross trades and normal trades match up in quantity as you add and subtract the difference between the two.

Hope thats clear, not easy to explain when i can't show all the trades but just keep an eye on the trades and quantities.

JW