suspect

Leading into the open this morning, there is a 1-share bid on the sell side, crossing the 8-cent spread down to the highest buy bid. That will have the effect of pushing down the matched opening price by 8 cents, on the back of a single share.

Many people's portfolios will take a significant hit in their "snapshot value", on the basis of a single-share trade.

This has to be a broker from the big end of town - neither you nor I would be allowed to put in an order for a single share. I doubt it's a "remainder" share left over from a previous trade that wasn't quite filled - it hasn't been there over the weekend, and it didn't appear in the first couple of levels of the sell side either, as far as I could see.

Last time I tried to cross a spread of only 3 cents in a closing auction, trying to accumulate more TOX shares (the order was for 500 shares, well above the minimum marketable parcel requirements in dollar terms) I got a call from Commsec within minutes telling me I was not allowed to do that, as it would be interpreted as trying to fix the closing price up 3c. Ridiculous..!

One law for the big end, one for the rest of us...!