deer79:

Perhaps someone here with a knowledge of how the exchanges work could explain what I am going to describe but, to the uneducated, it certainly does look like manipulation.

The TSX publishes the last 25 trades for its stocks and shows the time, the volume, price and price change and the buying and selling broker by a code number. I believe those code numbers can lead to the broker's name if you know where to look.

I just looked at the last 25 AUM trades. 17 of them were for 100 shares each valued at around $250. They were made over a short period of 15 minutes. The buyer for 20 of the trades was #079 and the seller for 24 of the trades was #001. The same buyer and seller did 9 trades in one minute, all but one at the same price of $2.44.

It doesn't seem possible that these brokers were trading for a different client every trade so why would the trades be for such small share numbers? I would certainly be interested to hear if anyone can explain this. It certainly looks like manipulation but, if it is, why wouldn't the company or the exchange regulator, be putting a stop to it?