It is true that large players push averages around to suit their needs. When it started decades ago, they existed almost solely to cause me to lose money, but I understand they are now doing it to other traders as well.
how do you know this to be true? is there "smart money" in this group that would be willing to just confirm this?
This kind of thing is probably more common with options expiration - pinning to certain strikes or trying to push the market just above/below strikes in the last seconds. I doubt that there are many strategies deliberately conceived as “gunning stops” etc. or that any individual players are committing capital to create such runs. It’s just that winning traders naturally buy low and sell high, and the locally extreme capitulative thrusts which often appear on a chart as “running stops/levels” are logical moments to do so.
It's a simplified concept much more complex and nuanced. If it were as true as the claim, we'd see the opposite of thin tails prior to moves in the opposite direction. Intraday, SLPs would be the closest fit and are required to trade when 'no one else wants to' and/also run their own proprietary book. Markets are continuous dual-auction, therefore always seeking trading volume by design. Other than HFTs, larger players work with higher timeframes and build their own data models inclusive of FA parameters.
libor rigging, physical pit trading in smaller markets (ie. lumber), platts pricing window, otc barrier options, ...
Most of systems I have designed take advantage of incompetent uneducated traders, grab 4-5 ticks few times a day, do size and done for the day. If you watch volume on tick charts, you can see where larger traders get in, then you design systems based on the why's. This been going on decades.