Hey Yiannpiot, managed to spend an hour watching bots during yesterdays session (4/5/21). Just kept an eye on the order book, refreshing every 20 seconds or so, taking screenshots and matching trades where possible against the course of sales. I think its important to also look at the order book rather than just the course of sales at it can give a little more context to how the bots are working (ie. on or off screen). Not the most sophisticated way to analyse a stock - maybe I'll invest in commseciress when RAC hits $10.
Most speculative stock threads on HC think their stock is being manipulated down by bots so I'm a bit of a sceptic. I'm more inclined to think that there are hundreds of algorithms trading across the ASX at any time based on many different variables. Sure, from time to time these bots would push the RAC SP down a pip. Is there one bot solely focused on suppressing the RAC price? I'm doubtful, but can't prove it. If its that easy to push it down with bots I'm sure it would be worthwhile for one of our T20 holders to invest in a bot to push it back up for us.
Anyway, here is a few screenshots of what I saw during yesterday afternoons trading.
The most obvious bot action was occurring in the buy order book. Almost always creating and editing small orders behind a larger order at the front of the cue. I never saw it at the next price level down. At around 2:45pm the SP was $3.65 and the bot was putting orders in behind the 2000 buy order @ $3.64.
This was the order book.
I then watched the third order on the BUY side slowly creep up. Clearly bots as no retail seller could sit there amending and order every few seconds. I think it went up about 10 shares every 15 seconds.
I took a few screenshots.
This was the final screenshot before a sale went through.
At 2:53:44 someone sold 2250 shares into the market. A nice round even number spread across three trades simultaneously. I'll never know exactly what the order book would have looked like before the sale but I'm going to speculate the 41 buy order was pulled and the third order got up to 250.
| 2:53:46 PM | 3.66 | 12 | 43.92 | ASX |
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| 1 | 2:53:46 PM | 3.66 | 7 | 25.62 | ASX |
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| 2 | 2:53:44 PM | 3.64 | 250 | 910 | ASX |
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| 3 | 2:53:44 PM | 3.64 | 1750 | 6370 | ASX |
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| 4 | 2:53:44 PM | 3.64 | 250 | 910 | ASX |
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In this case a bot instantly pushed the price back up to $3.66. Buying 19 shares from 1000 order sitting on the sell side. (The 250 Sell order at the front of the cue was pulled - possibly same bot?)
Next.
At 3:03pm someone had sold into the market, completely wiping out the $3.64 BUY orders.
The 'bot' BUY orders then started stacking up behind the $3.63 line.
5th line @$3.63 amended again at 3:05. New 11 share bot order at $3.64 pops up.
Someone then sold exactly 4400 shares into the market at 3:05:39. Filling the 11 shares at $3.64, 2755 shares at 3.63 ($10k), 330 and 520 order and partially filling 784 of the 1928 order.
| 3:05:39 PM | 3.63 | 784 | 2845.92 | ASX |
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| 1 | 3:05:39 PM | 3.63 | 520 | 1887.6 | ASX |
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| 2 | 3:05:39 PM | 3.63 | 330 | 1197.9 | ASX |
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| 3 | 3:05:39 PM | 3.63 | 2755 | 10000.65 | ASX |
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| 4 | 3:05:39 PM | 3.64 | 11 | 40.04 | ASX |
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Then look at the sell side. 784 shares have appeared @3.65. Exactly the amount purchased a few seconds earlier of that partially filled 1928 buy order.
Those 784 shares were snapped up within a minute for a tidy profit of $16.
Clearly the bot was following the old 'buy low / sell high' mantra all within the same minute.
| 3:06:17 PM | 3.65 | 116 | 423.4 | ASX |
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| 1 | 3:06:17 PM | 3.65 | 784 | 2861.6 | ASX |
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| 2 | 3:05:39 PM | 3.63 | 784 | 2845.92 | ASX |
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| 3 | 3:05:39 PM | 3.63 | 520 | 1887.6 | ASX |
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| 4 | 3:05:39 PM | 3.63 | 330 | 1197.9 | ASX |
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| 5 | 3:05:39 PM | 3.63 | 2755 | 10000.65 | ASX |
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| 6 | 3:05:39 PM | 3.64 | 11 | 40.04 | ASX |
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The last few screen shots I took at 3:29pm again show the bot stacking the BUY order list.
SP was $3.64 at the time. Watch the $3.62 list grow over a few minutes.
The final order @$3.62 then started growing steadily again (the order after 107).
Someone then purchased shares at $3.64 and $3.65 so the BUY order book (and bots) re-positioned themselves
What is this all telling us? Pretty hard to say! The bot operating in the BUY order book explains why there often appears to be a cluster after a large order goes through. Is this a bot accumulating at the bottom of the spread? Quite possibly the bot is just buying small parcels at the bottom of the spread and selling at the top later in the session. Easy money for algorithms right?
I'm also pretty certain that the bots don't just play with orders less than 150 as evidenced by the 784 shares traded for a few pips at 3:06:17.
I didn't see any evidence of the bots placing small orders in the sell side of the order book. Certainly not the same quantity or constant editing of orders. This may explain why the small bot orders seem more evident when the price goes down.
Again this was just an hour of watching the order book closely during a pretty quiet afternoon of RAC trading. My rudimentary approach is unlikely to uncover anything for certain. If anything, hopefully it just adds a little extra context to your analysis of the course of sales data.
(20min delay)