Is it just me or do the rest of you get the feeling we have some market manipulation going on? Every day we have a group of props swinging wildly one way or another. A few days later the same, or nearly the same, group swings back the other way. Unless something has changed one or two people can't be doing this. Even with wave riders jumping on and pushing the trend these price changes seem to choreographed to be natural.
In other news, has anyone tried posting in the old archived forum? If it works how about we go use it. This setup is really a pain in the ass and just isn't getting easier the more I've tried to use it. We can't reply to specific messages, we can't quote messages (without cutting and pasting), and try finding a message you've read once and want to find again. Besides we've lost all formating tools and those fun little emoticons!!!!
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Erick keeps track of the daily net worth changes on www.ppxchat.com...yesterday about two thirds (including yours truly) had a negative net gain.
Also, I just posted a test thread in the old forums...it worked! Get to it, guys!
that should have been www.ppxchat.com ...yesterday
The maximum gain for January 30th was $84 500, in the past maximum gains have rarely ever been even half of that amount (unless there has been a payout).
It makes me wonder if POPSCI may have tweaked the way stocks move so that the past history of stocks has been discarded or the most recent trades have a greater impact.
If we remember back to stocks like GOOGL trading at 100.25 it was probably because lots of traders purchased this stock before they stopped playing the game, to prevent this problem perhaps POPSCI have given recent trades an increased weighting with the intention of gaining more accurate predictions.
This would also explain how there were about 5 traders earning $40,000+ while many of the other top 20 traders had negative earnings. The top 5 were simply the ones to keep up with the most recent trades by trading all day, while the rest who only traded once/ twice or not at all, got hammered.
Giving a higher weighting to recent trades would make it easier to manipulate the market (as it would now require a smaller coordinated group or individuals using multiple accounts). I think this is happening because there has been a massive increase in stocks flipping back and forward with no reason to do so (there has been no news and day traders don't cause flips they just follow them).
It is a shame that POPSCI appears to have put very little effort into checking for cheaters (manipulators and automatic traders)!
Would it be hard to check the portfolio history of recent traders to see if any of them were causing these frequent flips by repeatedly holding stocks the opposite direction prior to the flip?
Incase any of the manipulators read this thread, any manipulator is wasting there time because 'wave riders' will earn just as much without spending all the time and effort flipping the stocks.
I think that it has a lot to do with wave riding. Let's say you jump on a stock like 787FLY as it's going up today. Tomorrow, you see another stock that's moving an want to jump on that one. Since the 787 probably won't fly in time and you're holding what you feel to be wrong position, you sell 787FLY to free up money to jump on the other stock. Enough people do the same and oh, look, 787FLY starts going down and people start shorting it. Meanwhile other people that have been holding long quickly also reverse their positions.
It's self perpetuating.
I am pretty sure that they did tweak it somehow. The numbers have been rather ridiculous. I can't keep up. I don't mind some wave riding, it keeps things lively, but this is too much. There is no sense to the movement. I hope they tweak it back.
If they changed it, it's funny how complaints have swung the other way. Before many wanted the kind of change we may be seeing the results of now. But now it is upsetting.
On another note, 4 out of my 9 stocks haven't changed at all today. I guess that plays into the possible change. The few newer stocks are seeing more pronounced movement.
I suppose it would be nice to know what changes PopSci made to the PPX like this so we weren't as surprised. I suspect there wouldn't be such an uprising.
I was going to chime in but Royha3 has it nailed. I want to note that the number I use on ppxchat for max possible gain is an appx taken from the bot in #ppx. I don't have enough time to manually add them all up. I wish I did. Anyway, that number is usually fairly close.
-erick99
http://www.ppxchat.com/
My theory:
PopSci has made it so that the market drastically changes without reason, while keeping track of real gains and losses in the background. That way no-one knows what to expect and--ideally--decides to predict and wait.
Just kidding, but it's almost plausible.
Stocks were flipping like crazy last night. It was between 2am and 4am EST so there were some night owls out there.
-erick99
http://www.ppxchat.com/
I think if you look at the stock flips today you can see that it is being manipulated by someone. The stocks are all moving, one right after another. I really wish it would stop.
11 stocks turned today which is a far cry from yesterday but still very active for a Sunday. I wish PopSci would chime in and let us know if this might be due to a change in some variable(s) in the software. If not, then I think a group is having some fun here. And if it is a group, they will do it for a few days or even a few weeks but ultimately they will stop. It can't be fun after a point.
-erick99
http://www.ppxchat.com/
from Clovis, NM
It was me... I buy, sell, buy, sell all night long around 2-4am est (or 11pm-1am) my time because someone out there flips them like mad.
I have no answers. Only suspicions. There is no reason for the majority of stocks to move like they do. I can see some movement in the crazy realm as being possible. Rocket races for example... Come on, 1000 shares for a gamble that it will actually pay out? And if it doesn't, you are out under 10K? I lost more than that on a DAY when stocks were going nuts.
POPSCI, please figure it out. It really seems there are manipulators out there. And if there are none, tweak the engine back a little.
~barrt
Adjusting the threshold for a stock changing direction would go a long ways towards damping these oscillations. It seems like it may be too easy for one or two people (possibly with multiple accounts) to move stocks in a new direction.
-erick99
http://www.ppxchat.com/
from Shelton, CT
I suggest the following as a way of ensuring lively trading without things getting out of hand:
Allow people to trade 10 or 12 thousand shares of stock a day commission free. After that, charge double the current commission rate.
My guess of 10-12k shares a day is based on the fact a turn will mean most of us will need to trade 2k shares to reverse our position.
Hi All
Sorry for the silence. We've been looking into this. It's hard to say if it's manipulation, and we did have a low threshold which has since been tweaked. We'll be keeping our eye on this but hopefully there's nothing insidious at play here.