RE: I am a New Shareholderspecster
I suspect that is a tactic used by some traders to force you into making a decision whether to pay your commission on that transaction, or up your bid. Depending on the size of your order, and your commission rate, it can be financially beneficial to just pay the higher price than to pay 2 or more commissions. It has happened to me before where it made more sense to up my bid to fill the remainder of my order than to pay another commission. Has also happened to me on the sell side where I had to lower my ask near the end of day to finish my sell after someone took only a partial bite out of it. Never for only $5 though...that just sucks! On the bright side, your $5 (and then some) likely went to his broker, so he essentially paid to get rid of those shares, and got screwed too ;)
TW