RE: Sells31 May 2024 16:00
It's usually an aggregator at work when this happens.
They'll have one or more clients, looking to buy or sell positions in the same market. Instead of sending every transaction to the market, they might just reconcile buys and sells that come via single nominee accounts.
For example, say I want to buy 80k and you want to sell 80k but we both use AJ bell. Now AJ bell are the registered holders, we just own the beneficial interest of our shares via proxy. So all AJ bell has to do is reconcile their order book, amend their own records as to who holds the beneficial interest and hey presto. They've made margin on the spread and charged us both brokerage.
Two people have traded but there's been no change in the company's actual register as there has been no actual change in ownership of the shares, they're still held by the same nominee.