But where's the evidence for this? It all sounds good on paper...

But where's the evidence for this? It all sounds good on paper but unless you've got proof all of this is just unsubstantiated (and possibly libellous) rubbish.

Whenever this subject has come up I've always asked the poster exactly how one can 'manipulate' a publically listed security, and they never give a proper, clear answer that can be justified.

RRL is SETS traded, so anyone can put an order onto the order book if they wish. You can't 'shake down' a price if there's orders on the book below the current trading level as they would need to be filled by willing sellers first (unless you're suggesting every broker in the UK is 'in' on this conspiracy- from Barclays, to Lloyds, to TD Waterhouse, iii, Selftrade, and countless others).

The post talks about 'marking prices down', like it's as simple as just pressing a few buttons on their computer and all of a sudden the price is down 10%. It isn't. Because anyone can place an order onto the order book. Put it this way, if the bid is 12p and the ask is 12.5p, and a market maker decides to drop his own bid (the price he's prepared to accept sells at) to 11.5p, he'll get no business so long as other market makers keep their bids at 12p.

Even if there's a conspiracy between all the market makers- which there is not- and they were to all move the bid down to 11.5p, they would still get no business so long as other investors are only prepared to sell at 12p. Because they'd put sell orders onto the order book themselves at 12p, bypassing the market maker completely.

For this reason, as far as I can see, 'market manipulation' is impossible. No matter what the market maker does he can't make you buy or sell. I could buy soem RRL, then put a sell order in at 50p- but no one would buy them. Same applies with 'dropping' the price.