Look, it's possible but if there were really companies circling...

Look, it's possible but if there were really companies circling as you suggest, and price was pushed down to facilitate a TO at $20, as you suggest, I see no reason same company wouldn't be happy to offer $40 now given the substantial de-risking that has happened in between. Paying double for a heavily de-risked and now 'platform potential' asset, supported by significant revenue from trof. And yet we have not seen that eventuate.

The second thing I would say, nobody is ever complaining of or talking about price manipulation when shareprice goes up. Only when it goes down. Which says to me it is probably about the individuals emotions and belief of what a shareprice 'should be' and not whether it is actual manipulation

As far as @kens commentary on algos. I agree that are algos are common, almost ubiquitous in the market these days. And while they are no doubt efficient at securing 'good pricing' for their owners (not just insto either), I don't think they have ruined things entirely. I do get annoyed when an algo sometimes jumps in as soon as I put in a bid or offer on microcaps, and it moves the market away from me, but this is rare, and for the average or patient punter, algos have little material impact imv. I have been looking at charts a long time, the shapes and patterns that map out human behaviour haven't changed as far as I can see so I am not sure why you feel it has ruined it for retail investors. Same old shapes. Same old buy and sell points available to all.

NEU price is here because that is what the market sees as value today. If broader market saw it as super cheap (like a lot of us, myself included, think) than instos would be hoovering up everything they can and driving price up and algos would be competing for limited stock, not all allegedly manipulating the price lower for them to 'buy cheap'. To drive price lower they have to sell stock. They then have to buy back their sold position plus whatever massive amount of stock they allegedly wanted to own in the first place. I could be wrong, but I doubt that is what we just saw