IBC 2016, page-53

There is no doubt in my mind that the closing price is manipulated when possible. I have already posted on this and it met with little interest apart from one poster that told me that's how the end of day auction works! I have observed the numbers changing so as to manipulate it into a 1 point decrease. I don't pretend to know exactly what they do but it is clever and it works. I feel sure that other posters who were sufficiently interested would be able to see the jockeying of prices and volumes at the end of day to achieve the drop.
There is an explanation of the reasoning behind what is being done in this article http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/2...w-the-big-players-manipulate-the-stock-market

it states
"Another observation, shorts try to wear down the longs by making sure that the share price closes down as many days in a row as they can put together. At the close of each day, I witnessed volume dramatically increasing as the shorts tried to insure Herbalife's share price closed down. Shorts are hoping the longs frustration with the share price continuing downward will end up in capitulation where as many longs as possible just give up and sell their shares."

It's happening on a much smaller scale in our case... but it is happening.