@fcmaster26, this seller wants to get out for whatever reason and at 21cps they are first in line.

But that’s only $580.

I guess someone just really need to buy a Nintendo switch today.

It could be somebody selling out of one or a number of positions they don't want to be in now, or liquidating an entire portfolio. We don't know. I have done similar things myself, particularly when you have such a small position in a company and you want to exit, just lock in a price that should guarantee the sale. Sometimes you get lucky in the opening auction because the price matching ends up higher than your offer and your trade will go through at that higher opening price. And sometimes it goes through at the minimum price that you have set. In AVA's case, if you look at the trading through the day, prior to that 3:13:52 PM trade of 20,000 AVA @ 21.5 cps, the majority of trades went through at 21 cps, in fact $4K of the $5.2K of AVA that was traded prior to that $4.3K trade at 3:13pm was traded at 21 cps. If you look at the entire day, and include all AVA trades today, $4K of the $9.5K traded were traded at 21 cps and the rest ($5.5K) were traded at 21.5 cps. Sometimes it's not because they need the money, it's just that they don't want to be holding those shares any more. The difference between selling that quantity of shares (2,761 or 2,762 shares) at 21 cps or 21.5 cps amounts to less than $14, so if I wanted to exit a stock or wanted to buy an opening tranche of shares, I don't think I'd quibble over $14.

As far as why there are two amounts that almost match, I believe in this case it's positioning to try to influence the opening price that results from the bid/offer price matching during the pre-open auction. My understanding is that if there are more shares (even one more share) for sale at a lower price than there is at a higher price, then the shares will open at that lower price, which is where they did open this morning (at 21 cps). If the buyer had offered to buy 2,763 (instead of 2,761) at 21.5 cps, then AVA would have opened at 21.5 cps instead of 21 cps. All overlapping bids settle at the opening price, so I think that's what this was about.

That of course assumes that no changes were made or additional trades were lodged at those prices prior to the completion of the opening single price auction (since that screenshot was taken of the buy/sell spread). Many trading platforms (including "CommSec One", Commsec's premium trading platform) provide real-time monitoring of the buy/sell spread and show changes as they occur so that you can quickly respond with changes to your own trades, both before the market opens and during the trading day.

The opening auction is explained well here: Understanding the ASX opening and closing auctions – Rivkin

Plain text: https://rivkin.com.au/members/resources/all/understanding-the-asx-opening-and-closing-auctions

The 4pm to 4:10pm pre-CSPA (match) and the 4:10 to 4:12pm CSPA (closing single price auction) is explained well here: Trading Hours (ASX & Global) - Market Index

Plain text: https://www.marketindex.com.au/trading-hours

Hope that helps.

In the example that you have highlighted @fcmaster26 I'm thinking it's somebody trying to influence the opening price by ensuring there were more shares on the sell side at 21 cps than there were on the buy side at 21.5 cps, which would result in an opening price of 21 cents instead of 21.5 cents.

@fcmaster26 good digging.

My take on this is that he has gone from being in charge of a division and maybe 5th or less in the company hierarchy structure, to running a whole company. I would think the salary tradedown for this opportunity would be pretty attractive to someone who wants to make his mark and build a reputation. The commentary from AVA was that they know him and like him so it seems unlikely that he was a dud in his previous role. He might also not think the company he was working for had the brightest prospects going forward.

I also think the step down from $1.3M to $3-400K probably isn't that big of a deal in the scheme of things, as really unless you have a very expensive lifestyle $300K is still plenty of chickenfeed, even in Singapore.