Trades under bid and why/how they occur.  I meant

Trades under bid and why/how they occur.  I meant to address this yesterday for the board, but didn't get around to it.

You know how you occasionally see trades going off at under the bid?  This is pretty much an OTC thing -- and why a lot of folks don't play in the pennies in the first place.

MMs can and do manipulate.  If an order comes in (either from a real investor or themselves), they do not have to put it out on the board but can fill it themselves at their desk.  So, for example, take PNCH.  It's last trade was at .0076 (yay!).  Now if all of a sudden you see a trade go off at .007 without it ever hitting your scanner, it simply means the MM sold to themselves or found someone whose order they are personally processing willing to do the trade at that price.  So basically below-the-bid trades are just one MM executing from their desk and NOT in the true open market.  They can do this with OTC because of the lack of better regulations.

The good news is that it doesn't show true market sentiment.  But it can be highly effective in causing panic selling.

I notice it tends to happen less when I call them on it, which I have done on occasion.  Could be coincidence...or not??  Nobody likes it when someone is watching their unscrupulous behaviors.  Apparently.