Buying and selling drives price movement. Figure out what's causing the preponderance of one over the other and you'll know which one to do At 4 PM, the B/A spread for most 3 letter stocks and inactive NAZ stocks widens. Here's an extreme example. SNS closed at $343.43 which was the high for the day with a B/A of $342.12 x 343.41 Right now, it's $336.02 x 378.48 If someone hit the ask, the print would be $378.48 yet barring anything special news in the AM, it would open near $343. It's not a gap, just dumb money getting ripped. Chances are , your MGM $10.72 print at 4:02 PM was no more than this happening.
from the hermit No you won't, market orders (or stop orders) don't work in AH. u are a professional.....? mr. woody
I often see latent prints in after hours, which can seriously skew the numbers. A stock might close @ 55.65 and then suddenly 35600 shares prints after hours @ 54.20, which was actually a trade that occurred earlier in the day.
Many trade due to ASIA and Europe move. some hoping to be in a right side if gap develops to be a running gap in the morning , typically 7+ S&P gap will make a running gap. some others trade due to be synched with the forex moves, since Forex is 24hrs, specifically if EUR jumps big, equities will move with it too...
if you look back the last 6 - 9 months on the ES, you will note,that big up moves happened overnight. FED is buying. (or some agency)
Combination of stupid people who don't understand how illiquid the afterhours market is plus smart people who have insider knowledge or get upgrade/downgrade news in advance or frontrun Cramer's picks before he spouts them on television. They all drive the price in afterhours.