Mart Resources Inc MAUXF

Those apples

[mjh9413]

I like a conundrum although I often get them wrong. The bid is 1.79 and the ask is 1.80, as long as the apple seller does not change his ask. But he does, although he sees many offering 1.79 he decides to go to that (odd) 1.77 level. he is bound to find more buyers now.  But there are a couple things wrong in your analogy for apple buyers. First, he knows that he is reducing his potential margins but, then again, he has a perishable good which has a shelf life to sell. He also do not need to sell in 100 lot sizes, the minimum for shares. Also the broker who can see at any moment how many bids might exist in the area between the 1.79 bid and where he is going to take his ask down to, and also see what is below even that and above the original ask price, an apple seller cannot. You will know too that these numbers are constantly changing on liquid and semi-liquid shares. The trouble is also that apple buyers do not pay a commission, at least I think not, but in our instance the share buyers and sellers do pay commissions BUT since our seller is a broker  especially if for his own account but even in other cases,  his overall added cost of commissions for trading in 100 lots does not have to be any more than dealing in 200 lots and so on. A broker gets defined quicker turnover and  more bidders are even likely to jump in than he saw at the 1.77 level if they feel his shares do not have a problem, but these are not apples that might be rotten or overripe, they are shares and all I see from this action, if it is manipulation, is a psychological impact on the willing share buyers at the lower price and so bidders might walk away and the other share sellers might think there ask is too high and will come down to the lower level...fear...remember there is a lot of profit in the MMT shares and also a broker can withdraw his asks, lower them even further and even raise them or turn it to a bid, in seconds. He might also have a willing seller in the background who feels they want to get out as quickly as possible for their very own reasons. This market has its crooked elements, we all know that. Caveat emptor.