Member Info for Stupmy

What you mean Ice is that the segulls stole your chips AND your icecream!!

SG, worth considering that hedge funds don't do particularly well. Funds tracking the US500 have out performed the bulk of hedge funds. Their shorts often lose them money. That suggests they have a lumpy performance, some big winners to smooth out the losers. My point being that they are often wrong. They know what driving a SP down does to the emotional state of those holding the stock. Some of it is bluff. Wait for the dark cloud to get people worried, then borrrow stock and sell into. It'll have a good chance of weeding out holders with low conviction. At a certain point it'll work less well and they will have to buy the stock back. I'm not saying that CBG is out of the woods, just saying that it's like poker where you think others at the table are weak, you can raise the odds to make them sweat. You don't have to have a strong hand to do that, you just need to have big b lls.

For my money, this is simply buying and selling. There are for sure some blackarts in this business, but I think that largely just means the stuff we don't fully understand. There is 'dark cloud' hanging over this share, means that the risk is perceived to be much higher than in other places. At a time when markets are starting to sell off in a more general sense (FTSE off about 5% from it's highs) then those stocks with a higher risk are probably being divested faster by large holders. They'll continue to drop hard as long as the large holders are reducing risk. The shares are being distributed to us (the dumb money). Over time, that'll either look like it was free money to us or we'll feel foolish for having hoped for 'to infinity and beyond'. I don't think we need any conspiracy theories. How do hedge funds bring the price down? Borrowing stock and selling short over time until they've dropped all of their borrowed stock. At which point, buyers come in (including the hedgies) and buy stock. Then we move up again. For me, this is normal market activity. The biggest risk is a sharp sell off in general markets and big correction (beyond the motor insurance issue).

I was in 3 x between 230-240. Added again today. Obviously down, but still confident that the SP will rise to (hopefully above) me mean entry. Will continue adding if it looks useful.

So, you were right Gary (more or less and it may not yet be over), but you weren't patient. Isn't life a b tch.

Funny! There cannot be many murders in Shetland!

Broken Britain Spin, I read about it every day. I doubt there's an easy solution. For the high street, taxes need reducing on the retailers, but the government are short of tax revenue, for the main street the office buildings are tumbling in value which means the tax returns to the various cities/states/governments are falling. We apparently need more money to fix the problems and the governmenets can't get their hands on it. What's the answer? A new tax on innovation, investment, entrepeneurial individuals: basically asset graps/asset stripping of those who work hard to understand finance/business and in many cases provide services. Broken Britain, but not just Britain and not Switzerland or Singapore at all. Surely we could learn from more successful systems.

But the ACTUAL price paid - or received is irrelevant - everyone involved in a transaction KNOWS if it is a buy or a sell.

I fear we won't progress this much, but I kind of agree that the price paid is irrelevant as to whether it's a buy or sell, but if you reference the price paid to the spread at the time the sale transacts, then you can make an assessment of whether it was demand or supply driven. That in theory gives you information as to whether you should classify it as a buy or a sell. In reality the info is very flawed, so why not just stick to the impact that transactions have, over whatever you timeframe of interest is, on SP? That data is real and in theory should be unequivocal (I'd imagine there are complications that sometimes mean that's not exactly true, but more or less it should be)?

How else can the MM's make the market (i.e. facilitate the trades, other than moving the spread to bring buyers and sellers who were static in their positions, together? That's what they do, and the profit they take is based on volume. They don't typically like to hold stock, they buy it at one price and as quickly as possible sell it at a higher price. When they hold it, they risk being on the wrong side of the SP and have a real risk of making losses. They get paid, because of that risk. They're normally very good at what they do and will mostly make a profit, but it's not guaranteed.

I suspect the big players don't have anything better than the SP to go on, except they will have more acces to info on off-book activity. That info on positioning of smart ('large') money is more useful to them than what we do as 'small' or 'dumb' money. I mean retail by that and don't want to imply a perjoritive view.

The large sale that triggered this is still got mystery attached to it

Absolutely agree WC, that is weird to buy and sell that amount over such a short period of time with such a big loss. Pensions/institutions are not normally that flighty/jumpy; I see mystery there too. Might be an internal issue, might be (thinking negatively some knowledge of the reach of this investigation). We'll see, but I've been buying and selling but have now accumulated 2.5 x my original position.

watch.... patience.... information spreads slowly.

in a way knot we're agreed. but the info spreads slowly to us (without bloomberg terminals etc), but fast to the 'smart money'. by the time we get it, the smart money has digested and incorporated in most instances. when we get it simultaneously to the smart money, we have the advantage of being to react as fast as they do. in this case, where i assume they got it faster than i did (for example), it's saved me making the silly bet that this news on reeves levelling up the playing a field a bit will make a difference. in reality, i know it'll take so long to find out what impact she has that i'd not have bet on that news anyway. but you probably get my drift.

but to make a commen like 'watch.... patience.... information spreads slowly.' is patronising and pointless. it's like 'when saying, when i click my fingers, you'll forget that you were ever ***' (see the clip below; it's funny and not offensive), it's a self fullfilling circle. the price will rise and you'll say "there, i told you, news spreads slowly, you need patience'. that is of course nonsense?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf682hv_q_c

But the answer is there WC, there is a counterparty who is selling into your buy. So you have 1 buy, 1 sell (simplest view), if they meet in the middle (of bid-offer spread) they cancel each out as it's neutral in sense, but if the seller gets a better than expect price then it's a buy as it shows demand. The buyer gets a better than expected price, it suggests more supply than demand and is viewed as a sell? Not sure how you can make that more reliable. Where there are MM's involved, then they can move that spread as they seek to keep the market moving. They seek volume as that's where they take profit. So you could have a static buyer and a static seller (no trade unless agreed, but if agreed it'll instantly execute and not show on the book). If the buyer/seller positions are static, the MM will likely move the spread to encourage the market (get the trades), if new trades hit the book with for example lower bids, then overall the price is going to fall. Probably the most reliable way of looking at the data is just watch the price. In that case you're not estimating wether it's a buy or a sell, you know if the price is falling, selling on the book is outweighing buying?

Yes, have just kippered pippered

AGM was what, May 30th? If that's right then we should hear about it in the next 17 days. Maybe 16 as the 30th is a Saturday or 19 if they announce on a Monday. Be interesting to see if you're right KO and whether they'd have been better off not stating the timeframe. To be honest timeframes trip up most forcasts/predictions. What is clear is that it didn't happen within 6 wks of the AGM (that's fact)!!

Short covering panic in.... 3.....2.....1....

Knot, I guess it's been absorbed and put to one side by the market. Don't forget, we're the last to know!

Does it not have to be like that WC, there's a bid and an offer that get matched at the trade price. If the trade price is towards the bid it's a sell, if it's towards the offer it's a buy? How can it be estimated differently. I do agree though that the buy/sell and it's impact on SP is quite complex. Large off book transactions don't necessarily impact price, but samll on-book transactions in an illiquied market can impact price. I've never looked for a good video explaining it all, but maybe I should. There are certainly times when I get a bit confused about it.

"You maybe need to find all the help you can get when buying £100k at 73p (if indeed true..probably not)

Member for 11yrs.on LSE but posting like a child"

that is very strange. 'Love it when the sell their shares to me or some such guff.

What is wrong with the world.

Laura, in case you might be interested in this side of things, take a look at YouTube 'James Jani', particularly 'the cult of the dead stock'. Not directly interesting to WG, but every bb is BBBY, to one extent or another. Every personality is present, every loony is posting the same thing. Only a small percentage can make money on the stock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5Bd6YxifCo

I'd love to understand that better helloDave (can you hear me?). I sometimes feel that you could run a degree course on trades, the ones that affect the market, the ones that don't change the price (off-book?: someone wants out/someone wants in; overall neutral but whose right) etc etc

Agree with that WC, those trades are most frequently visible to the makers who make their money by seeking volume while maintaining market liquidity.

I think it's entirely normal and predicable. With wider market risk off, those stocks with perceived higher risk will be 'off' in an amplified manner. The question to me, is where does this start to look like value. By that I mean, where is the next low likely to be? I'm watching closely, but I'm spoilt for choice some other markets of interest to me.

Sitting, I've said that I think the downside is likely, but I'm not sure you're clutching at straws. I'd love to see a chart of the divergence you spoke of because I'm not looking things over the right time frames or I'm missing something. Today, the drops are not directly related to spot oil as that's stable from yesterday, also not obviously HBR specific as many UK stocks are off.

UK unemployment up and german annual inflation up.That might be enough for the drops on european bourses