RE:RE:TA.... Its fascinating to watch the intricacies of the Hedge fund trading thru CIBC, Morgan and Merrill ( probably primarilly POINT STATE HEDGE FUND in NY behind all of this ) if my spies are correct....
Nevertheless, they have a "wheel" of trading between Morgan Stanley, CIBC and Merril Lynch platforms. As part of this, they are using cross trading to manipulate the price lower, or to keep it from rising in order to suit their trade.
In order to manipulate the market effectively, EVEN IF YOU ARE A NET BUYER TRYING TO COVER A SHORT.... you have to be willing to put up big offers and even SELL stock in order to buy more.
If these guys are in "covering mode" ... as they appear to be.... then their goal on any given day is to buy more than they have to sell in order to keep the price down.
When there is a preponderance or on-balance of natural SELLING in a stock, then this activity is fairly easy... and the opposite is true if you are trying to manipulate the stock down when there is natural buying as there has been for the last few days.
These guys primarily used the TSX for down manipulation, and use the other platforms like Alpha and dark pools to quietly accumulate. Its an absolute ART.
Nevertheless... thats partly why you see this stretch of rather boring trade, followed by the huge flurries of activity and higher volume. Because If a firm is selling TOO MUCH trying to buy.... then they will often just cut their losses and turn around and lift a bunch of offers to try to get square. When market makers, day traders and MO guys get wind of that, they jump in too.
interesting times.