Mesa Air Group, Inc. (fka MESAQ)

[Wheeeeee]

This is called a paint job. Same thing can happen to the downside.

If you are unfamilliar with this then please read closely.

There are people that run scanners. Scanners can be configured to find stock that match certain criteria. Was it high volume, was it a big selloff, did the 50 ma cross over the 200, was the open below but the close above the 200 ma etc etc.

Many technical indicators depend on the close price of a day. For instance a moving average takes the close of a day and computes an average over a certain period of time using those closes. Such a calculation is based on numbers, much like 3 + 3 or 5/6. So you REALLY have to understand that certain numbers DIRECTLY influence the outcome of such a formula. Imagine what will happen here

(( 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + X ) / 6 ) when the X is another 2 or the X is 10.000

it is THAT elementary.

Now consider popular indicators that are used in those scanners. Take the stochastics for instance.

http://www.transitionstrading.com/Slow_Stochastic.htm

one of its factors is: %Kt = ( (Closet - Lown) / (Highn - Lown) )

see the close ? How would it be affected by a high or a low close?

So without going into the details, I just want to point out that it is possible to influence the results of those indicators and the the result of scanners.
This means that the closes are not to be trusted, same goes for the open (the open price is DECIDED by market makers and not some logical result of a transaction).

This is done by painting the tape. It looks nice (or bad when they want to keep the price down). When people dont look at intraday they will think WOOOW what a close without realising that an entire cent move was on 3000 shares. Heck someone could just have cancelled his sell order that acted as a break for the unlucky sobs that pressed market orders etc etc.

Same painting happens in premarket and after hours. ALLWAYS CHECK THE VOLUME TO SEE IF THE MOVE IS REAL

imo 0.18 is the 'real' close.