You're making far too much sense robjb5, can you really imagine a bot buying or selling a whole $500 a throw, and paying the full $21.90 brokerage that i have to pay with comsec ? No, they can do far more damage buying/selling in $20/$30/$40 lots (aided and abetted by ASX and ASIC), and sometimes much much less...like $11.00 for 1000 ARO shares on Feb 19th at 1.1 cents, next trade after that was 3,200,000 at ONE CENT like it traded at all day bar for the 4.10pm rort of 100 shares at 1.1 cents to fictionalize the end of day chart/closing price, and to force any unsuspecting punter the next day with an "at market" order to stump up 1.1 cents for say 1 million shares...costing them an extra $1,000.00 or the one enth of a cent price manipulation. But ASX responded to me (read ARO thread "ASX response to manipulation and fake orders") I hope that one day a large group of hot copperites/genuine traders beat a path right to the top, no less than the door of the ASIC chairman, clutching in their hands a BST (Bot Speeding Ticket)and let's see how good their new whiz bang scanning system is to weed out corrupt trading, why wait until July 1st when ASIC take over, no time like the present...DO IT NOW ! I want to see prosecutions BEFORE July 1st, lets see if ASIC have real teeth and not just cotton fangs. You bet i'm angry, i'm very close to being wiped out, fire-sold most of my stocks last week and a few more to do Tuesday, will have 3 stocks left, i'll just hope for the best with those by years end. You have to ask yourself the question, seeing it doesn't matter what size trades the bots do (no difference in brokerage cost) then why do they choose to do $20 trades instead of $500 which is the minimum trading parcel ? It's ALL about price control.