RE:Buddy of mine responded to me on a previous post here Mtnbkr....
I kinda wonder....did your buddy even read my post ? or has he watched the day to day Level 2 trading since last October ?
The point he is making about the disadvantage of an institutions size... is exactly the point i was making. A typical ( non agressive ) insitution will use every covert means possible to either buy or sell. Thats not manipulation. They use Anonymous, so the market doesnt front run their buying or selling interest. Day traders / momentum guys FEED off of institutions need to buy or sell in an illiquid stock... so the Institutional traders to their best to do what they can with minimal leakage or evidence of their bias, so that they ultimately get the best average sale or buy price possible for their blocks.
My point... the buying activity in Anonymous for the last while is Institutional buying. I am not saying whatsoever that its manipulative. Its either organic buying... or its short covering. My point was i believe its a continuation of the short covering... and its positive for this stock... likely means we have put in a bottom.
What i DID say about manipulation, is that a typical HEDGE FUND M/O is to covertly build a position.... and then OVERTLY trade agressively to manipulate the stock up or down to profit on their underlying position. That is the reference to SHORT PINNING. The ridiculous absense of the Short Uptick rule allows agressive shorts to put up large sell orders in the level two matrix... and then hit thin bids day after day to push a stock price down. This happens ALL THE TIME.... And in the case of Prometic... you will notice that the pinning has been done overtly thru CIBC / Merrill.... whereby they WANT everyone to see that they are pressing their trade day after day, particularly if its working... because it creates fear and shakes out weak hands.
I worked as a trader on an institutional desk with one of the major firms for 10 years... i saw it... i did it... to think otherwise is frankly naive