RE: Price20 Feb 2026 13:32
They make an easy villain. When a share doesnât move how people expect, itâs simpler to blame MM âgamesâ than admit the market just isnât buying into the story presently.
Most donât understand how market making actually works. Itâs mostly automated liquidity provision and hedging not someone deliberately pushing prices around.
Low-liquidity shares create weird price action. Wide spreads, small trades moving the price, and thin order books look like manipulation but are usually just normal microstructure.
Human psychology loves patterns. Random moves get interpreted as hidden intent: âtree shakesâ, âwalkdownsâ, âloading upâ, etc.
It protects the ego. Blaming MMs is easier than accepting bad timing or overestimating a stock.
Forum culture amplifies myths. One person posts a conspiracy, others repeat it, and it becomes accepted lore.
Misunderstanding of price discovery. People assume buys should push price up and sells down, when spreads, limits, off-book trades, and order-book imbalance actually drive movement.
Most âMM manipulationâ is just low-liquidity behaviour, automated systems matching orders, continually moving the spread around to create liquidity to make their profits on the spread.
As investors we like to project some kind of meaning onto random price noise when things are not going as expected, but quality assets will usually come through.