JohnQ, Your question is interesting and I absolutely DO NOT know for sure about the large block trades.
That said, my feeling is that it involves the so called "dark pools" (the following is from Investopedia re: Dark Pools which are becoming more and more abundant):
"Dark pool liquidity is the trading volume created by institutional orders executed on private exchanges and unavailable to the public. The bulk of dark pool liquidity is represented by block trades facilitated away from the central exchanges. It is also referred to as the "upstairs market," "dark liquidity" or "dark pool." Read more: Dark Pool Liquidity Definition"
This is NOT conspiracy theory stuff but I am seeing it more and more with other stocks where they (large block trades) show up (mostly near the end of the day or in after hours). I think that they (the trades themselves) need to be reported and thus we see it ALL in one shot.
Obviously,on the exchanges that we see on Level II, we DO NOT see 500,000 shares traded at one time because it would show the hand of the Buyer or Seller and therefore they trade in much smaller increments. To me, if it is a Seller they are shorting more (because of desperation) and not other longs dumping cheap shares (knowing that this is going higher) already in their inventory. On the other hand it creates a great price for someone accumulating.
Perhaps we could look it with the following possibilities
Selling
Shorting (very likely in order to keep the pps down)
Selling by institutions (unlikely they are holding for the big money)
Day Traders (would impact the end of the day (pps down) getting out and that isn't happening.
Buying
Longs accumulating (very likely knowing where this is going-UP)
Covering (too much covering at once would make the pps explode)
Day Traders (would have to buy early in the day or on a dip)
At this point, no one is sure about what is really going on. Perhaps all of the above. I am hopeful that we will keep going up without the usual pullbacks of the past for which we need the higher volume and forceful buyers (not letting the shorts walk down the pps). The next short interest report on 8/9 will tell us a lot especially with the 10 days run with the pps having gone higher.
