amulet,The answer may lie in imagining you had a bot and could...

amulet,

The answer may lie in imagining you had a bot and could program your own bot. What would you want it to do? It would depend to some extent how much funds/shares you had available.

For example if you were an intending buyer and held plenty of stock already you might program a bot intending to sell just enough stock at the right times that stop loss orders get triggered repeatedly thus putting further downward pressure on the price. Also, as a buyer you would be wanting to disguise the volume you are buying as you can see the excitement (upward pressure on the price) that is generated when big volume buys go through?

As a programmer what you can't control is what number of other trades may happen at any given time, so you are not guaranteed that your trades will be disguised in a busy market.

Just my thoughts but I'm certainly interested in other suggestions about what is going on at any given time.

SSOC