What I see sometimes is a certain MM such as CDEL will be on the bid and the ask, and when someone sells into their bid, they immediately take those shares and stick them on the ask for sale at a price lower than the old ask down closer to what the bid is. If they keep doing that, the ask gets huge (and the price lower), and it convinces some dummies to sell into their bid, and then they move those shares onto the ask again making it even uglier. Then when they have the price as low as they want it for a while and have loaded up on a ton of shares, they start slowly selling on the ask and let it creep back up again.
Another trick they have is showing a huge ask, but having hidden shares on the bid. The big ask looks scary, and the small bid makes it look like there's no bid support. But you can tell it's obvious that they have hidden shares on the ask when say it shows only 10K on the ask, but people are selling 100's of Ks into the ask and the ask isn't budging. That's when they're loading up, and they're loading up goes unnoticed unless you're keeping an eye on how many shares are actually trading.
I stopped getting all upset about what the MMs do, and just go with the flow. If I see they're on a mission to shove the price down, after a while you can start to get an idea of where they want it to get to. Then I buy some shares .0001 higher than where I think they want it to get down to. That way I get mine before they get theirs. Then they load up where they want it, and it goes back up again maybe the next day or a few days later. Sometimes when I put in my bid .0001 higher than theirs, I'll see them within seconds move their bid up .0001 above mine. It's like a friggin video game where you're playing against a computer that can make quick changes within a split second. It's high speed computerized trading based on algorithms, which are based on what everyone else is doing. Sometimes it's two or more MMs using computerized trading fighting against each other, and there aren't many real people involved with the trading at all. So then things can go all haywire and have no tie in with reality like what is actually happening in the news or whatever.
I keep most of my shares of SRNA long term so that I'm always ready for a big sudden spike. And buy and sell smaller amounts just to make a few bucks here and there. I just have the feeling that SRNA is going to be one of those stocks that suddenly jumps up five or tenfold in a short time. You don't want to be stuck on the sidelines when that happens. It has made a bunch of sudden spikes before, but not "the big one" I'm waiting for.
I guess one thing good about the MMs playing with the price all the time is that at least it makes the shares liquid. If you decide to buy, there's always some MM selling some, and if you decide to sell, there's always an MM that will buy them.
AI
