barefootrunner, Here is a little more on my opinion and feelings on how today went in trading APPA.
In pre-market open we were seeing shares trading in the high 1.90s and then moved into the 2.00 range and I believe finally around 2.07 before some of the broker trades were cut off from extended trading at 9:15 am.
I was not surprised that we opened over 2.00 this morning, I kind of expected we might from yesterday, and I did expect a slight drop but I did not expect a drop to 1.90, but I still thought it was ok over all. What I did not expect is that we would trade in a very tight band for the rest of the day, even through closing for the most part. I thought we would run maybe in the last 10-15 minutes again as we did yesterday but that did not happen.
My thought on why we closed where we did is that I believe there was a trade imbalance that had to be reconciled. I am just guessing here in seeing the one large order for 16323, as I really have no way to tell for sure. Here again I really do not know why it closed as it did, as I thought we would close at 1.89/1.90 since that is pretty much where we were just before that last bid to close us out in regular hours.
Now as for the low trading shares, and the large number of them stacked up at the same time in queue that I was seeing at times and why they kept adding new ones when older ones were falling off. This happened several times as I was looking today. My feeling and thought on this was that the MMs were trying to keep this stock down in price, not to short shares, but more for accumulating them. I am not an expert in interrupting how Level II was looking and playing out in trading, but I am more giving my reasoning on maybe why it was happening this way.
There are a good number of shares held by institutions and the owners if I remember right. The over all company outstanding shares are low compared to some other companies. The volume being traded is pretty low as well in my opinion, and I think the number of shorts has pretty much remained low, compared to some other stocks, which I believe can make for a very volatile run up if a shorter is caught off guard. I think if I was someone that wanted to see this shorted today, I would have kept the price up more in the morning above 2.00 for at least the first 15 minutes shorting as I could and then shorting heavy. As it was, we fell below 2.00 in less than two minutes if I remember right. And if it was being shorted right off this may also explain the fast drop.
I have never shorted shares of stock, so someone maybe more knowledgeable can speak better to how today went. I welcome all thoughts on today as I like to hear them as it can help me in how I look at trading and can hopefully make me be better in how I look at trading.
I have noticed that this stock has a very hard time in trading any shares expecially when we are around the low 1.8x. I think if the MMs were trying to short this stock that they would be shorting a lot more shares to help force the price down more. I am actually hoping that in how we traded today that we are forming a healthy 1.90 level here. I think when the price was down in the upper 1.8x today we saw very little trading, maybe 100K shares at most.
I am not sure if I fully answered you barefootrunner on your question. I guess I got long winded for what you were looking for. I would be happy to try to explain more, and hopefully in smaller response if you wish.
Larry
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
