Here is a list of 'Unacceptable Market Practices' from eTrade's...

Here is a list of 'Unacceptable Market Practices' from eTrade's website. If you go through them, you'll find that these 'bots' violate pretty much every one of the rules. Why these computers are allowed to get away with manipulating the value of our shares and pushing them down is beyond me. If retail holders like ourselves were caught manipulating prices, we'd get into a whole lot of trouble. I for one and sick of it. I encourage everyone reading this to email your concerns to ASX and ASIC.


 Placing an order, with no intention of the order trading (and then cancelling or amending the order, so that it will
not trade, when it nears the price limit last set). If you don?t want the order to trade, don?t place it! Similarly, don?t place an order simply to ?test the market?, unless you intend for it to trade at the price limit you?ve set.

 Layering of bids (also known as ?order stacking?) ? placing buy orders at various price steps below the market
to create a false appearance of buying demand.

 Entering large or undisclosed orders on the opposite side of the market to that in which a genuine order is
to be executed.

 Closing the market, by buying or selling quantities of securities just before the market closes, at a price that will set the last sale price (either at an increased, reduced or same price ? and therefore be the value used for your holdings ? especially for small volumes).

 Placing orders to deliberately increase or decrease the last sale price.

 Placing orders where the same party is buyer and seller of the same security ? execution of such orders will raise
the question of whether the transactions involve a change of beneficial ownership, and whether the trades are
intended to artificially inflate turnover and/or increase the price of a security.

 Placing an order to sell or buy securities where you know that an associate has made or intends to make a
corresponding offer to buy or sell the same securities on substantially the same terms. These are also known
as ?matched orders?.

 Placing orders that are uncommercial (e.g. small value; brokerage may be higher than trade value).

 Placing orders, then cancelling them within a few minutes of entry without apparent reason (at any time, but
especially prior to the market open, just after market open, or in the period before or during ASX?s daily Closing
Single Price Auction).