RE:Tomorrow I'm still confused on how this bid - ask process works. Can't find a decent answer on the internet. Say I got a stock with sp of $1. Someone bids $1.05, another asks $0.95. A bid is the highest price someone will pay. An ask is the lowest price someone will accept. So where does the trade settle at - $1.05 or $0.95? Does the asker get $1.05 or the bidder pay $0.95? My understanding is that the bidder pays $0.95. And which ask gets settled first is there is another ask at $0.97? The ask at $0.97 or the ask at $0.95? Same question on the bid side.
Can anybody point me to any info where I can read about this? I want to fully understand how HFT (high frequency trading) works. I've read that when the public float is low compared to OTC or "dark pool" float then sp is easily manipulated by HFT trading bots. I want to understand why. Because oyl sp movement is very volatile. People have made attempts to correlate it with well operations yet it may have nothing to do with well operations.