Once the MM is caught short and the strength of the buy is overpowering the MM
will want to cover his short position. So the MMs call up one of his friendly
MMs and says some like "the weather is sure rough today." The MM along with
the other "friendly MM initiates a down tick about the same time. Now this can
also be done with a certain amount of shares such as an infamous 100 shares
flag. This down tick gives the illusion of weakness designed to hopefully
begin the bear raid of selling. The fickle, fearful, day trader, momentum and
short term begin to sell out allowing the MM to cover his short position at
lower prices. They will move it down quickly to get it to a price of least
financial damage. Problem they have is long-term investors in the OTC BB. They
start accumulating and buying comes flying in when they take it too far thus
the MMs took it to the point of volume again and not only investors the other
MMs step in the make money on the spread.


Alas the poor MM does not get to cover. Now comes various tactics like
stalling, boxing, or even locking the Bid and Ask for a while.


Of course, MMs aggressively deny any sort of collusion designed to fix quotes
or spreads, but a recent SEC investigation tells another story.