Hi @mcseamus88,In hindsight, I think we are in agreement in...

Hi @mcseamus88,

In hindsight, I think we are in agreement in saying that the bot(s) are not here purely for price suppression as an end goal, and realise I may have made a poor choice of words 2 posts above: “Price suppression”alludes to manipulation at greater scale, by an insto, something which is borderline conspiracy theory.

The bot(s) are quite likely doing this for either 1) accumulation, or 2) scalping, or 3) a combination of both.

Nonetheless, what I wanted to convey is that the end result is, inevitably, the suppression of the SP. The bots just have to open the SELL tap when they feel the SP is high enough to profit. But when the SP drops too low they don’t need to buy, just stop selling and new buyers will take care of pushing the SP back up.

Most importantly, what I can say with confidence is that this or those bot(s) have a very material impact on the RAC SP. By placing small orders strategically they can impact the price greatly. If you’re not convinced, take a look at today’s close: small parcels reigned in at the closing auction. By trading just up to 1,007 shares (~$3.5K), they managed to further drop the price from 3.53 to 3.48 (-1.42% which is also ~$7.9m taken off the RAC market cap, or about x2250 “gearing ratio”!). And that is just in the closing10 min! This is possible because of the tight RAC registry and critical for RAC investors to understand the trading dynamics.

Daily chart 05/01/2022:

Starting3:50 PM, market indecision, low volumes, and SP stagnating until the fall during auction.

Course of sales 05/01/2022:

Starting4:00PM SP gets slashed by a handful of small, low ball sells.