Unusual Share movements

20th Jun '15 by Rusty2

9 comments 20501 reads

I noticed at close on Friday 2 of the shares on my watchlist had closed well down. When I looked into the sp more I noticed there were both very similar, selling before close but then both had a large buy at 16.35pm, now this buy price was well below the selling price during the day. As it was a buy then the close price was well below the trading prices before the close. The 2 shares were Centaur Media (LON:CAU), and British Polythene Industries (LON:BPI),

Now is this a system glitch or market makers marking shares down for Monday? Are there any other shares behaving like this?

Just seen also Xaar (LON:XAR), has a similar drop although not so marked.

Unlock with Email

Unlock with Google

Already have an account?
Login here

About the Author

Rusty2

Premium Member

9 comments

Novice Investor

20th Jun '15

Herbie, do you really not know what an uncrossing trade (UT) is at the end of the auction?

Lol...

NI

WarrantStar

20th Jun '15

Marine Gulf Services fell in a similar way which showed up on Stockopedia at about 5pm.
Novice Investor please can you enlighten us all by telling us what an uncrossing trade is?

Rusty2

20th Jun '15

No I don't, could you please explain?

Novice Investor

20th Jun '15

UHere are the last few trades of CAU on Friday (I hope they format ok)

19-06-15 16:35:05 72.00 39,446 UT 71.00 72.00 Buy 58,672 81,012
19-06-15 16:29:43 74.00 431 AT 74.00 78.00 Sell 19,226 81,012
19-06-15 16:29:43 74.25 281 AT 74.00 78.00 Sell 19,226 80,581
19-06-15 16:29:35 76.00 469 AT 74.25 78.00 Sell 19,226 80,300
19-06-15 16:21:12 76.00 469 AT 76.00 78.75 Sell 19,226 70,300
19-06-15 16:21:12 76.00 9,531 AT 76.00 78.75 Sell 19,226 79,831

At the end of the 16:30 5 minute auction the whole set of accumulated persistent orders are matched against each other. The basic idea of this is to find the “uncrossing price” at which the largest number of shares can be traded – the idea being that if you go higher than this price, the number of trades goes down because there are too few people willing to buy, while if you go lower, it goes down because there are too few people willing to sell. The orders get matched if there is a mismatch between the numbers of shares people are willing to buy and to sell at the uncrossing price.

So basically, not a separate buy order as you seemed to believe. The UT figure is an aggregate number and will nearly always be large relative to the average trades during the day.

NI

Mark Simpson

21st Jun '15

I noticed a few closing UT's at the day's low on friday. My thought was that maybe a few people not wanting to hold stocks over the weekend due to potential greece news. Shouldn't matter (or be an opportunity) if your investment strategy is much longer term though.

DLG12

21st Jun '15

Looked like a similar issue for Low & Bonar Low & Bonar (LON:LWB)

Rusty2

22nd Jun '15

Thanks for trying to explain. So I understand that these are the unmatched trades during the day that are auctioned off in the 5 minutes after the market close. Now some of these had a marked effect on share price but I see this morning all seem to have gone back up.

Richard Goodwin

3rd Jul '15

Novice investor, since you are clearly well informed, I presume that your name is a tease?

Novice Investor

4th Jul '15

Yes Richard. I've been investing for just over forty years. I made just over a couple of million in small oil companies via spreadbets, starting with literally not a single penny of my own money, using insanely high levels of leverage initially. I didn't take much off the table and lost a fair percentage of it. Perhaps if I'd not had so much success I'd have been more receptive to advice.

I've had a lot of experience, and consider myself to be a decent investor now; but I'm nowhere near as good as I thought I was when I was riding high.

I thought I'd try some humility, hence the name.

Occasionally habit takes over and I accidentally sign off as my more familiar nom de plume/alias/handle, whatever the correct term is. I wouldn't check though, as I think I've edited all of the lapses. :-}

NI

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...

Take a free trial

Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram RSS

This site cannot substitute for professional investment advice or independent factual verification. To use it, you must accept our Terms of Use, Privacy and Disclaimer policies.

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...

Take a free trial

Unusual Share movements

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

About the Author

Rusty2

9 comments

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...