hmm, yeah that does sound odd @umop3pisdn -- Especially when all you're doing is matching an existing buy order!

Maybe just a bad implementation of the rules that don't allow for some of the nuance of low liquidity stocks? The ASX isn't great at tech, imo.

Are you trading with Commsec @umop3pisdn - coz I've had that issue with Commsec on a couple of occasions, and the way I got around it was to place my sell order at the last traded price - for the full quantity of shares to be sold - which will be accepted, and then every couple of minutes, modify the order by one tenth or two tenths of a cent down towards the bid. Eventually you will get to the bid. Commsec and possibly other trading platforms have automated checks in place that try to catch market manipulation with orders placed that are too far away from the last traded price - other online brokers such as Selfwealth do not - so I don't think it's actually the ASX, I have had to ring Commsec and explain the situation and they actually advised me to do the small modification method to get around their own automatic checks.

The breadcrumb bids may take nibbles from your larger order as you move it down, but it won't cost you any additional brokerage, as you'll be charged one brokerage fee on the entire trade once it is fully settled, so they are annoying but fairly irrelevant. As the name suggests, they are supposed to provide a breadcrumb trail to suggest there is liquidity down there if you're prepared to move in that direction, and they are there to lead you, not to serve you, and are generally automated bot trades, but they can be ignored. Not sure if this helps but that's how I have managed to get around that problem in the past. Commsec's system doesn't check small modifications to orders even if those mods move the price down to levels where an originating order would be picked up and not accepted.

The joys of low liquidity stocks, eh!

Beware the one fee. I had an order complete in two tranches over two days and cmc marlets charged me two fees.

I complained, saying it was one limit order that executed auotmated, by chance over two days. Their response was 'tough luck', two days = two sell fees.

Also i wonder how much of this pricing action is due to dark pools. Don't some big brokers run their own trading pools before going to open market?

Don't know much about those dark pools @reddogaustin but those "breadcrumb" bids are live bids that occur as soon as you place a trade during the trading day with low liquidity companies, so I would have thought nothing to do with anything that occurs pre-market. The "breadcrumb" bids are usuually small, often the exact same low volume amounts at various price points that give the appearance of liquidity when there is bugger all liquidity because the bids are so small. They seem designed to move you in a particular direction towards higher volume bids (or offers when you're buying instead of selling) and I've always assumed they are created by automatic trading systems used by brokers or similar, i.e. people who don't have to pay fees for each individual trade.

In terms of the one fee per trade thing - over multiple days, I haven't used CMC markets so I don't have anything to add there, however there are occasions with Commsec and NABTrade where if your order is part filled on one day and that part filled order reduces the dollar value down to a lower fee bracket, you will be charged the lower fee on the first trade settlement (day 1) and the balance of the larger fee when the remainder of the order executes. For instance, if I placed an order to sell 50,000 XYZ @ 20 cents/share (cps) (for $10K) but only 4,500 of those are sold on day 1, my Commsec brokerage fee on day 1 will be only $5 instead of the usual $19.95 because the settlement amount is under $1,000 before fees - see here: https://www.commsec.com.au/support/rates-and-fees.html and then if the other 45,500 XYZ get sold on a subsequent day, I would be charged an additional $14.95, due to the total order value being $10,000 and the Commsec fee for online trades for over $3,000 up to $10,000 being $19.95, less the $5 I have already been charged, so Commsec and NABtrade subtract the portion of the fee that you've already paid when the fee becomes higher, and when the fee stays the same they charge $0 brokerage on subsequent settlements that are part of the same order. With Selfwealth, they charge you their flat fee on the first day settlement and $0 for subsequent settlements that are part of the same trade order, because the amount of the trades makes no difference to them.

I have examples of all of those things occurring having traded with all three online brokers for a number of years at different times. All of that assumes that you have NOT lodged the order as "good for the day", i.e. you have nominated a time period for the order to stay in the market. The only time I use "good for the day" orders is when I am lodging opportunistic buy or sell orders that just might get triggered if there is a spike up or down in the CSPA at the end of the day but that I don't really expect to go through, otherwise for all ordinary buy and sell trades, I lodge them good for thirty days and then review them during that time.

I once forgot to tick the "good for 30 days" box and had one share bought of a 10,000 buy order - and of course the brokerage cost more than the share did - I haven't made that mistake since. I've made others, but not that one.

I have been observing an ETF as I consider investing in it. I've noticed that there are same number of units available for buying ans delling, but their prices vary each day. This seems unusual. Could this be a sign of market manipulation? Is it too risky to invest in such stocks or ETFs? Screenshot attached.

@Bear77 Appreciate the info, I'll see if I can make it work.

Having to find info about how to game the system to trade in an open market seems insane to me.

Hi @rija - ETFs have a unique feature called market makers to provide liquidity which is what you are observing - more info here: https://www.rbcgam.com/documents/en/articles/what-is-the-role-of-the-market-maker-for-etfs.pdf

In short, the job of the market makers is to provide liquidity so that people can buy and sell ETFs at close to or exactly at NAV. The difference in the price points is often to do with the buy/sell spread that means you are likely to pay just over NAV when buying an ETF and just under NAV when selling, but the percentages are fairly small and the small difference is supposed to cover the costs of the market makers to buy and sell the underlying shares held by the ETF, i.e. such as brokerage costs. The document I've linked to there explains it better than I can.