Very similar but, Painting the tape involves MM's manipulating the price! It's illegal, but again, down here it happens often, if not daily! But, if we rock it all day tomorrow for instance and someone sells into the bid in the last minute 2-3 ticks below the average trading and it closes 2-3 ticks because of a 5000 share trade for example, that again is a paint job. There are many obvious reasons for doing it. And IMO......Shorts, Longs, and MM's all do it at 1 point or another