Hi good oil guy,
Time for me to 'fess up ! That small trade ws mine and I did it to highlight the fiasco that is currently occurring with TAP trading.
On Friday it was sold down from the start of trade to 33.5c on turnover of only a couple of hundred thousand shares - then buyers disappeared ........ BANG ! One 'at market' order for 350,000 shares took it back up to 35c.
I bought at 34c and 33.5c and ended up with an odd number of shares in my "trading" pile ending in 11,400.
Now I predicted that the same game would be played in the afternoon (the big shark chasing the little fish into his net) !
When there was only one 10,000 buyer @35c - I decided to sell my odd parcel at that price. As from your screenshot. I was left with the 987 order. Then two orders (mabe the same buyer) pulled buy orders at lower levels. This left the buy / sell market at 32c and 35c. So I thought I would conduct a little experiment and put the remainder of my sell order on 'at market'. My broker (CommSec) considered this for 4 minutes (they are required to ensure an orderly market) and then processed it for the big fall that your post shows.
I sat back and watched for a response - 5 minutes later a buy order of 50,000 at 33c then another for 50k @ 32.5c then another for 50k at 32c. I though to myself that the auction period would be interesting - correct !
A line up of sell orders at 34.5, 35 then right at the death, a buy order of 250,000 at 35c and the 100,000 seller at 35c pulled his order.
I had a bit of fun but the point being that the tactic is SO predictable. I have highlighted before with my screenshots that there is a largish buyer out there who is trying every trick in the book to scare little fish into his net (there is also a newish sell order of some 250k @49c and some orders at 60c simply to aggregate the skew to the sell side).
For what it's worth my advice would be to buy on the dips and don't sell at less than 35c at which price the current buyer is more than happy to buy.
AGM next week - wonder if the strategic review has come up with anything of consequence and whether the company have an update on Chatchai's default position. I would be more than happy to add to our JV share of Manora.
TAP Price at posting:
35.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
