100 sales to 1 buy yesterday, npw they’ve changed their minds.. WTF?

[LookoutBelow]

I read yesterday that there were 100 stock sales yesterday to every 1 purchase, hence a down market…A REALLY down market….What changed everybodies mind ? Did the problems they percieved all of a sudden get solved to their satisfaction ?? NOW they are buyers ? I know short buying is in order after a fall, but this doesnt make much sense…..In addition to metals getting creamed yesterday too…not much logic in the market these days.

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

Huh ?

Who bought the other 99 stocks that were sold if there was only one stock purchased ?

I might need to check into this new math thing, but I think that the number of stock shares sold and the number of stock shares purchased were equal.

[no_such_reality]

It’s all program trading. When the market does something unexpected, the computers take over and start exiting positions.

[kewp]

“It’s all program trading. When the market does something unexpected, the computers take over and start exiting positions.”

Yup! In fact the market has ‘breakers’ that are thrown when this happens to suspend/limit trading. I think that happened yesterday.

It gives all the professor Frink’s time to hit the reset button on their robot traders.

[poorgradstudent]

A basic rule of short term trading is “Don’t try to catch a falling knife”. Once the markets went into near free fall, there was very little interest in buying until it looked stabilized and bottomed out.

Today seemed to be a very volatile day, with different stocks moving in a wide range of directions. I don’t think we’ll know until Friday exactly how the market feels about Tuesday’s pullback.

[Author]

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