Now please don't call me a conspiracy theorist.
I have been at pains over the years to counter the "shorters", "Big boys", etc. theories of market manipulation but the close of day is a very very smart time to play your games if you are going to play them.
Today and yesterday are classic examples of what market manipulators are trying to achieve. (the manipulators are out there, that is not what I have tried to argue against. Their influence, at least in the medium to long term, is what I have argued against. Also, their influence (if there is any) is exactly what "WE", the market, turn it into, by falling for their tricks. If we refused to be swayed we would not be manipulatable ((my spell checker says that's not a word but I'm calling it a word)). Our belief in them is what makes them true. Its called a self fulfilling prophesy)
Yesterday the weighted average price for shares traded was around 80c (I do not have the data to calculate it again but I clearly remember doing the calculation at the time) and the (real) price at close (at 3:59) was 79c. However, a few (or one) players decided to try to put a false impression into the market that the price for the day was 77.5c with some shifty after close dealings to pull the price back.
Today was even clearer, plus I still have the proper data to calculate from. The weighted average price for shares traded today was 78.42c (an up day) The price at 3:59.50 was 77.5c (a flat day).......BUT, after 3:59.51 a bot (A bot I believe anyway, or a very quick fingered manual trader with brokerage free trading, ie. a broker, placed 2 mini trades at 76.5c which was a new low for the day. Hence the official closing price was 76.5c and the trader was then able to buy 7K at this price after close. The cost to push the price down was a grand total of 84c (the cost of selling 84 shares((and probably buying the same shares under a different name)) at 1 cent below the real price) The benefit is $70. A worthwhile trade off in its own right, but the story is bigger than that. History will now say forever, that the price for today was 76.5c which is clearly false. We can argue all day about how much this sort of thing influences the market or doesn't, but the thing that can't be argued, is that this is most certainly an "attempt" at manipulation. If only the market used, as it's standard chart, a weighted average price as a default, instead a closing price. This would utterly nullify (and therefore totally eradicate) this sort of dishonest trading strategy. The other thing that would go a long way to eradicating it would be to enforce a realistic minimum trading value of ,say, $1000. This would quite possibly make this sort of manipulation uneconomical if not drastically less attractive and far more risky.
I know that this post will draw critics on both sides of the argument, (Ironically, I am on the side that argues against this post) but surely even blind Freddie can see what is being "attempted" here. How successful is this kind of behaviour? Not that's literally the million dollar question.
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