NASDAQ volume spikes at market close Friday

aspenbet

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I have been watching a number of small NASDAQ stocks for a few weeks and noticed something unusual on Friday (June 25th) - at precisely 4pm there were huge trades made, many times the normal minute-by-minute volume, and prices are completely out of line with the norm for the day. For example PMTR traded at around $2.00 all day and then at 4pm one trade was done at $6.50; you can see the intraday data at:

http://host.wallstreetcity.com/wsc2...ate=06/25/04&Type=5&EndDate=06/25/04&Format=0

The same pattern was seen for PROX, ALTR and others. There were no similar huge volume spikes on any of the previous five or six Fridays, so I know it's not just Friday afternoon madness. Any thoughts? Are these unusual volumes caused by investors dumping shares prior to the weekend? Why this weekend - the Fed meeting on Monday? The Iraq handover? Are the silly prices the results of mistakes (someone offering to buy 100 at $6.50 instead of $2.00), or some creative accounting wheeze operated by MMs...?

Also slightly concerned that a spurious trade with a silly price might trigger a stop order - is that something people have seen or had happen?

Cheers,

aspenbet
 
Hi Aspenbet

I'm a real novice so apologies if this sounds obvious/Naive below....I'm currently engaged in surfing/researching all trading principles thru excellent websitres such as this one

I've read that the Market makers have a habit of manipulating stock above and below standard stop levels to make money....could it be so here ?...the less volume needed presumnably the better the prospect as in this instance ?

Regards
NVP
 
Looking at ALTR it did go up from 21.31 to close that 5 min bar (and for the day) at 21.49 on 388m volume. An 18c rise, but only 7c up on the high of the day.

Yes the volume in the last 20 mins did pick up a bit, but this isn't significantly different behaviour to the previous day...or few days for that matter.
 
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NVP said:
I've read that the Market makers have a habit of manipulating stock above and below standard stop levels to make money....could it be so here ?...the less volume needed presumnably the better the prospect as in this instance ?
The volume was high in these instances - indicating it was unlikely to be manipulation. Plus in ALTR's case, there was no price spike - it simply went up.
 
Your right. The trades were done on NASDAQ.
This might have been an error that was subsequently deleted.

15454,25/06/2004,16:00:15,._CSE_.,T,21.35,,116
15455,25/06/2004,16:00:15,._CSE_.,T,21.35,,884
15456,25/06/2004,16:00:15,._CSE_.,T,21.35,,294
15457,25/06/2004,16:00:15,._CSE_.,T,21.37,,284
15458,25/06/2004,16:00:16,._CSE_.,T,21.39,,500
15459,25/06/2004,16:00:17,._._.,BEST,21.37,21.42,
15460,25/06/2004,16:00:17,X_NASQ_.,TRADE,25.5,,847517
15461,25/06/2004,16:00:17,._._.,BEST,21.37,21.39,
15462,25/06/2004,16:00:18,X_NASQ_.,TRADE,25.5,,847517
15463,25/06/2004,16:00:18,._CSE_.,T,21.39,,500
15464,25/06/2004,16:00:18,._CSE_.,T,21.4,,400
15465,25/06/2004,16:00:18,._CSE_.,T,21.41,,100
 
The Russel2000 Index was re-weighted on Friday - it was this that was probably responsible for the Volume spike at end of Friday....(According to Tom Houggaard)
 
TheBramble said:
Aspenbet - l assume you mean 4pm (BST) i.e. 21:00 (EST) - US market close?

No I meant 16:00 EST. The 'spike' I'm referring to can be seen on the website showing the trades done over 90-second periods, around market close time they were:

low high avg volume
06/25/04 16:03:17 21.600 21.370 21.370 55,200
06/25/04 16:02:34 25.500 21.440 21.480 35,100
06/25/04 16:01:06 25.500 21.300 21.470 1,078,000 <---
06/25/04 15:59:27 21.520 21.270 21.520 236,000
06/25/04 15:58:06 21.300 21.279 21.290 37,500
06/25/04 15:56:35 21.320 21.290 21.300 23,200

1m shares were suddenly traded, some (but not all because the avg price hardly changes) at $25.50 when they'b trading around $21.00 all day. In the case of ALTR the $21/$25 fluctuation continued right through the after-market:

low high avg volume
06/25/04 18:26:24 21.670 21.670 21.670 500
06/25/04 18:23:28 25.502 21.670 25.497 5,000
06/25/04 18:20:24 25.517 25.517 25.517 14,800
06/25/04 18:17:56 25.532 25.532 25.532 5,200
06/25/04 18:17:31 21.710 21.710 21.710 200
06/25/04 18:14:39 25.517 25.517 25.517 5,200
06/25/04 18:14:35 21.750 21.650 21.710 1,800

In the case of PROX the price and volume spiked then went back to 'normal' for the rest of the day:

low high avg volume
06/25/04 16:08:46 1.210 1.200 1.210 173,000
06/25/04 16:03:15 1.210 1.200 1.210 4,800
06/25/04 16:02:25 1.210 1.200 1.200 1,400
06/25/04 16:01:03 1.750 1.150 1.150 3,756,100 <---
06/25/04 15:59:27 1.220 1.160 1.170 389,400
06/25/04 15:58:08 1.190 1.180 1.180 70,200
06/25/04 15:56:37 1.210 1.180 1.180 177,000

The average price was relatively unaffected which I presume is why the individual sale doesn't show on normal intraday charts.

I tend to agree with dsmodi that this was caused by additions and deletions to/from the Russell 3000, and certainly PROX and PMTR were removed from the index on Friday, but not ALTR curiously.

aspenbet
 
dsmodi said:
The Russel2000 Index was re-weighted on Friday - it was this that was probably responsible for the Volume spike at end of Friday....(According to Tom Houggaard)
Interesting... probably has a great deal of bearing on what I saw, thanks for the pointer.

aspenbet
 
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