Junior 112,

Just signed on looking at todays trading pattern and I would agree what has happened today is the taking out of, stop losses, on various peoples accounts. I have a level II trading platform with TD, and cannot see stops, but there is a higher platform with TD and I am not sure if that one allows you to see peoples stop losses. However your bank/fanancial institution or whomever you use for trading can see these stop loses and they can certainly take advantage of that.

How do I know this? About 5 years ago around the time I started to do my own trading a good friend of mine just got into this aswell. We were both in a stock that was doing well. The stock had settled into a new trading range and we were kind of waiting to see what was going to happen next. My friend set up a stop loss to, "protect his gain". Within a week or two of my friend setting his stop loss, he gets at call from someone at his bank(CIBC) asking him if he is willing to sell his shares at market. The guy actually said you have a stop loss at such and such a price how about if I buy them from you, at market price today, which of course was higher than his set stop loss. We discussed this, at length, at the time and often wondered if some broker at the bank just wasn't trying to take advantage of the, "new guy" with the "new" account.