This is one of the lessor traded equities. I have noticed this...

This is one of the lessor traded equities. I have noticed this practice of a few shares at a time in another share that has low tradeability. When I asked on that one it was stated that brokers obviously do not pay brokerage so in fact they can trade small parcels all day up and down. If they have someone accumulating they can keep dropping the price back to just above the buyers if they have paid up for a larger parcel. Very often you can see a trend one way or the other in these shares that do not trade in the volumes that others trade at. Look at AHD and you will see the same trend.

Is it manipulation I cannot comment but certainly often it seems to bring the last SP back as someone can jump these shares by 20c just to get the volume they want and the next trade is to bring it back by 18c on 1 to 5 shares. Or if they want it the other way it trades back up to near the last SP if it has been sold down.

My comfort is that when I started accumulating it was around $9.60 and over the period of roughly 4 months its generally kept moving up.

I dont think given the defensive and conservative nature of the company its going to have the ability to be as volatile as the market. For that reason I like it as it does not have traders playing all the time.