SC, just to clarify my point...
I wrote: "there's an individual buyer and an individual seller on every trade"
You replied: "That is simply not true with "micro-cap" Market Makers! Their shorting practices and other suggestive data dictate otherwise"
I agree that some [many] market makers can and do short stocks that are going up, in the name of "creating liquidity," and can squash down the trading price of a stock that is running -- and then cover later. Easy money.
HOWEVER... I see no evidence of anything improper in EIPC's trading yesterday, or any day, except maybe when it ran over .05 in 2011. For THIS STOCK, at this time, there is indeed an individual buyer and an individual seller on every trade. That should actually make EIPC longs feel BETTER, because why would any individual investor want to wage war against shorting market makers? Anyone in his right might would not, because the individual is going to lose that war. Fortunately, if tripl7z and everyone else continue to buy more shares of the stock than other people sell, the price will go up. It is just that simple.
You're also correct that reading Level II is often misleading, for the reason that I described last night on that one particular trade. The market maker's quote is almost always updated BEFORE the trade that created the change hits the tape, so it is often not obvious whether the trade was at the bid, or the ask, or in the middle. That is not "manipulation," and it's not restricted to IHub's "Trades" page -- it's just that IHub is at fault because they insist on labeling something as a Buy or a Sell based on whether the trade price is closer to the bid or closer to the ask at the exact time the trade prints, without regard to what the quote was a few seconds EARLIER. The solution to the problem is simply to look back at where the quote was right before the trade to see whether the trade was at the bid or ask or in-between, if it matters to you.
