the timing of buying these days has been quite distorted by the...

the timing of buying these days has been quite distorted by the use of bots. There have been a number of reports by the ASX (I do t have the links but they are easy to Google) about the rise of institutional buying in the closing auction. You might find those early flurries aren’t shorting positions but are probably retail buyers and sellers.

One of the things I often notice is that HC punters often talk about setting stop-loss positions, which I think actually creates the environment for stop-loss positions to be triggered. It’s in effect a dark or off-screen sell order and often pretty easy to trigger with an algorithmic trading bot. I think those early trades are probably bots searching for lower prices volume and hitting people’s stop loss positions and taking their shares cheaply. The institutional buying is either late in the day in the match or more likely on a Thursday afternoon with option settlements.

Have you had a look at how trading is or has changed around Thursday? European options have a set execution or assignment date, American options can be any time but are released on a Thursday. Most hedge funds that do shorting or any pure alpha fund who is involved in shorting is usually very sophisticated and experienced, I just can’t see them grabbing things without a clear plan so I’m just a bit on the fence that they are driving that early volume as it is quite erratic.

I love the depth you go to in your charts and the very generous level of explanation.