Well I just learned a whole lot with this post, thanks for the careful and very reasonable explanation. Definitely irrefutable if you ask me. Seems you have a very good amount of expertise that some IMO should take to the bank.
One more important factor that I forgot to alert you to. If you see an ASK for 600 shares or more, look at the other side of the box for a BID by the same MM usually within 100 shares of the ASK. That signals to me anyway it's a MM short rather than a real retail sale. It happens more than you know. And if there is no outside activity, they lower the market to try to stimulate trading. That's all.
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