RE: Sp drop20 Oct 2025 21:26
Bit of profit taking, leads to a bit of panic, a lot more profit taking, even more panic, the stop losses when price slips below certain levels, those automatic sell orders kick in all at once. Market makers see the flow turning one-way and mark the price down fast to protect their books. That creates the sharp leg down you’re seeing.
But here’s the confusing bit — on LSE and other sites, trades are labelled as “buys” or “sells” by guesswork, not fact. The system assumes:
• Above the mid-price = buy
• Below the mid-price = sell
When market makers suddenly move the spread down during a panic, the mid-price shifts lower. So trades that actually hit the bid to sell can end up above the new mid, and the algorithm wrongly tags them as buys.
That’s why you can see “more buys than sells” even while the price tanks — it’s a reporting illusion created by a fast-moving spread.
So in short:
👉 Stop losses trigger → forced selling → market makers cut bids → system mislabels trades → looks like buyers, but it’s really panic selling.
Happens all the time on AIM when liquidity’s thin and traders get spooked.
Trick now is for the believers to call the bottom and top up or those that have now sold (intentionally or otherwise) to consider buying back in at a discount.
Ultimately we need II to steady the ship, I’m still very confident in EEE, less confident on my ability to call the bottom, but maybe a few more tins of mythos will help me with that.