I agree, I would be better off seeing the source of the trade. I speak of prints OUTSIDE the posted NBBO by a dime or more. Mostly small trades but not always. I guess its possible these are tickling the dark pools, but somehow I doubt it.
Tape painting in stocks is EXTREMELY insignificant imo and nothing to even consider....now futures on the other hand is a different animal. "Painted" size on the bid or ask CAN and WILL attract price movement FREQUENTLY....price will trade to size, it did it all day long today.
Size orders that cancel is orderbook faking which is a different (and legal) subject than someone hitting his own paper. If you look at the data (esignal might be worth paying for to get it) you'll understand how trades throughs work. Basically you can't trade through the NBBO, but if the NBBO can't fill the whole order it will just sweep one book (the book for whomever you send the order to) not all books, so you can get inefficient prices/trades throughs. I've explained this concept a few times in previous posts. If arca is offered 50.50 showing 100 with a reserve of 5000, and NYSE best offer is 50.60 1000 and you send a 1000 share market order on NYSE you'll print 100 arca at 50.50 and the other 900 on NYSE at 50.60 even though Arca hasn't been filled.
Tape painting occurs all the time in the less liquid names -- it's the only logical explanation for some of the price action that you see. Btw, how much easier would trading be if you could hit your own bids or offers to induce panic, then push the market in the opposite direction of whichever side got hit by some trader who got suckered in. Seems routine, and I'm sure there are funds set up to do precisely that in a manner which is difficult to trace.
When you see a dime tick small you can catorgize it as a sloppy order. If you see it for size when a broker gets an order it has to hit the tape. IE customer calls to buy or sell stock that doesn't have to show in the level II. The firm can take the order or third party the order. If you see a 30k bid step up and just print on a third party that is the firm executing the order. Auto X was big years back and a lot went on with no prints. They have to print all orders now, some days if the firm forgets the order they will print it at the close here are some orders in FSLR that got printed late. http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/E...Page=NasdaqLastsale&symbol=FSLR&selected=FSLR There are a lot of things that happen that are Illegal in this business. One firm wanting a 100k sell order that just came in so he calls his buddy at MLCO to execute. Only three things to look for in the TOS that give away a direction of a stock. Anyway a lot of the wacky prints you see you need to understand how the game works on the other end most are just nothing but a few are free money.
Jesus guys, get a life, learn how algo's work. That would answer your question. And just ignore late prints - they are completely useless.
Here's a picture Oh, sorry, I thought you said Al Gore. Why don't you wise us up. Since there are probably 1000 different algo's to consider, which one did you have in mind?