RE: buys outweigh sells again26 Sep 2020 10:00
rhodi, no one except the punter in question and the MM associated with the trade knows whether a given trade was a buy or a sell. No one. Not LSE or ADVFN or anyone. What LSE etc do is say 'well we'll take the mid price between offer and bid and say that any trade that's priced above that is a buy and any below is a sell. Just as a general guide for our users.'
So it's a guide only. As a rule of thumb, it's generally reliable, especially for summed trades over a long period, give or take a bit. But it's not great for a single day's trading. We don't know whether buys exceeded sells, although at an apparent ratio of 2 to 1 it's true that it's likely there were indeed more buys than sells in this instance. But not guaranteed. In my humble opinion, all that's happening here is that that load of shares that were sold a couple of days ago are still being worked through by the MMs. Once that's finished, the price should rise.
Often what's referred to as ramping on here isn't ramping but is simply slightly misinformed impressions gained by people who don't grasp how the system works. I'm a very long way indeed from being an expert in any of this. It all strikes me as deliberately confusing and mysterious. But this is a fundamental issue that I do get... the buy/sell ratio on LSE or anywhere else is a rough guide only.