RE: RE: Coffintrader The ASC is a joke. I am no fan of market manipulation but it so obviously happens right under our noses and we all know it. The ASC has made a major case of Coffintrader and considerable resources have been used to get this matter prosecuted. To say it nicely, there are much bigger fish to fry.
Much is made by the ASC of small trades that coffintrader made. But in most cases, he was matching orders that were "best prices" on the bid/ask. Much is made of these small trades and it is ruled "manipulation." But the trade has two sides and how was he able to make these small trades? Answer: because the bid or ask was there. Who is offering one lot on a penny stock that coffin was selling to?
We all turn the blind eye to the market makers manipulating the market every day. Naked shorting and what appears to be flagrant manipulation is allowed by them--under the guise of market liquidity.
HFT's? They do not manipulate the market, now, do they? From where I stand, they blatantly give the appearance of more trading than there actually is. Where are the regulators to look at that? I would venture to say that the public interest is much better served by looking at those MASSIVE problems than by going after a small trader in a thinly traded stock. Take a look at the BB story and you will see manipulation on a hundreds of millions of dollars per day scale.
That coffintrader's actions could even occur and move the stock's price speaks to the market's views on the stock in the first place. I for one, see stock prices move on single lots all the time and I don't worry about it because the market will straighten these problems out. The real problem is when there is gigantic volume created to create the false impressions in the market place. We see that every day.
The ASC is really making an A*$ of the law by prosecuting this case while not noticing the rest of the normal workings of the market that apparently condone this behavior.