Market Makers: Tricks of the Trade

[blurring]

trap BICO

7/7/2004

tough stock, flat out.

the break on BICO is obviously .12 on the chart...a small break, but a break nevertheless. however, all of the action in the stock today occured below the break, on premarket news.

the news was good ( http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040707/flw015_1.html ), and it produced a modest gap (opening at .109x.11.) and run, although, it didn't run too far, as the best a trader could have sold was .116. the stock steadily climbed out of the open, as the ASK was hit for thousands of shares, on solid buying, for the first 18 minutes of the session, to achieve a high of .115x.116. on that climb, the ASK was spanked about eighty times, with a variety of lot sizes ranging from a thousand to a hundred thousand shares. eighty times. i counted, hehe.

six minutes later BICO was printing .105x.109.

ouch!

moreover, the BID was hit just sixteen times during the "sell off."

then, lots more shares were bought at the ASK on the "bounce," although this time traders were more savvy, selling more forthrightly between the spread before the fade abruptly topped out, at .108x.11.

again, the mms sprung into a concerted team effort to jar the stock. suddenly, in four minutes, (with the BID being hit just twice) the stock "sold" down to .10x.105.

the bid was hit just twenty times during the entire "sell off." lol. that's a ratio of about five-to-one buying to selling.

finally, the mms were done, with level two showing one slim mm on the bid at .10, and a stack of buzzing mms on the ask at .105.

obviously, the price action of the stock had NOTHING to do with "buying/selling" pressure. come on! no corrolation, whatsoever. please! it's clear to see in the tape and on the chart.

carnage. is there anybody out there who thinks OTC mms are playing with a fair deck? granted, some traders were selling the ask, but i can't imagine that more then 15 of the 100 or so lots were able to do so. BICO on July 7th is a nice example of a bunch of crooks stealing money, flat out.

with this bunch, BICO is one dangerous stock!

be careful out there!