How Sell Side Institutions Move Price: BuybacksThere are Buy Side Institutions, aka Dark Pools, and there are Sell Side Institutions, the Money Center Banks and Giant Financial Services companies. These two groups dominate the market activity and move price in entirely different ways and for entirely different reasons.
Sell Side Institutions are short-term TRADERS. They are not allowed, nor do they wish, to hold stocks for the long term. The Sell Side trades stocks and has the most experienced, most talented, and most sophisticated floor traders in the world.
Buy Side Dark Pools have floor traders as well but they are strictly long-term investment companies managing the 401ks, pension funds, ETF long-term investments on behalf of the Middle Class of America and, in some instances, other nations.
Sell Side Institutions may buy a stock and hold for a few weeks or months but strictly for the short-term profits.
The Sell Side are also the Banks of Record who do the BUYBACKS on behalf of the Corporation which has made the decision by the Corporation's Board of Directors to do a buyback program, which tend to last many months or longer. Corporations do not have stock traders on staff. So the Bank of Record does the actual buying of the shares of stock.
The reasons for doing a Buyback:
To lower the outstanding shares which can create some momentum runs during high buying demand from retail groups and other investors.
Buybacks are intended to move price UPWARD in runs. The price range is established by the corporation. The runs are created by the Bank of Record.
Buybacks also increase dividend yields for long term investors, including pension fund investors.
NASDAQ:AAPL has a mega buyback that was approved in May but has just started now.
Buybacks can be a great strategy for trading stocks this year as many corporations will be doing buybacks due to the reduction of their taxes and more benefits to corporations.
Now is the time to start watching for buyback runs.
Relationaltechnicalanalysis
Buybacks vs. Dark Pool RotationThis lesson is about understanding the dynamics behind corporate buybacks. Sell-Side Institutions, aka the Banks of Record, have their floor traders do the actual buying of shares on behalf of the corporation. However, the Dark Pools, meaning the Buy-Side Institutions, start selling as the buybacks are going on.
This training will help you enter a buyback sooner and exit with higher profits for swing trading. We'll study the NASDAQ:AAPL chart to identify buyback candlestick patterns and how to see when the Dark Pools are selling to lower inventory, which is called "rotation." You will also see how the TTAccum/Dist indicator works, and how I use this excellent, leading Hybrid Indicator to aid in my analysis.
HFTs gaps: Learn how to enter a stock before a huge gap up.High Frequency Trading companies are market makers/takers that provide liquidity for the public exchanges, and they now use AI. HFTs have a huge impact on your profitability. You can make higher profits from trading ahead of the HFT gaps and riding the momentum upward or downward.
In this short video, you'll learn some basics on how to identify the patterns that precede HFT gaps, which I call Pro Trader Nudges . Learn what to look for in Volume patterns and pre-gap price action.
Make sure you are not chasing HFTs but riding the wave of momentum they create, just like professional traders do.
Study of Dark Pool Buy Zones: CRWDNASDAQ:CRWD reports out of season, June 4th. When outlined to eliminate the extreme price action, there is a clear sideways trend. This is a Dark Pool Buy Zone. When the stock moves outside of that zone, it recovers quickly back into the zone.
The huge Black candle was a gap up by HFTs on the last earnings report, followed by pros taking profits. Along with a lack of accumulation at that level, the stock whipsawed back down. The black candles thereafter were smaller funds selling on each bounce. Notice the tiny white candles that follow the black candles (see the orange arrows), patterns that reveal controlled, incremental buying against the selling.
This is a longer sideways trend with stronger support and more definition of the buy zone despite heavy interference from small funds selling in the past couple of months.
Understanding the Role of HFTs and Dark Pools for Day TradingNASDAQ:TSLA reports on Wednesday of this week, October 18th. Last quarter, it had a gap down on its earnings news based on Year over Year comparisons which triggered High Frequency Trading (HFTs) to gap the stock down. Quarter over Quarter, however, NASDAQ:TSLA has shown consistent growth this year.
The problem with determining if the HFT gaps are likely to gap down or up on the next earnings report is the very low Percentage of Shares Held by Giant Buy-Side Institutions (PSHI). TSLA’s CEO has lost the necessary confidence of the largest Buy-Side Institutions in the world. So it's institutional interest is extremely low for such an important US company. The Buy-Side Institutions want the Board of Directors to replace Musk with someone who is more focused on TSLA to help it grow. The PSHI is likely to remain low until a new CEO is chosen.
The highest the PSHI has ever been was in July 2020 when it reached a high of 71%. It dropped to a low of 43% in November of 2021 and the stock has been sideways with very low PSHI ever since. It is very rare to see such low PSHI in a young new technology company with such high growth potential.
With less support from largest most influential institutions, the HFTs, which use retail news as one of their 6 primary algorithm triggers for automated orders as Maker/Takers, often gap a stock down on earnings news that was actually not negative.
Smaller Fund Managers, who have a special SEC classification with lower reporting requirements, often have VWAP automated orders trigger on high volume surges. This is often mistaken by smaller funds and retail investors or traders as “Dark Pool high volume activity,” when it is not.
High PSHI creates a natural liquidity draw and thus more momentum and speculative price action. This is missing much of the time for NASDAQ:TSLA stock price movement.
The current sideways trend has existed since 2021, best seen on a Weekly Chart. The dimensions of the sideways trend and the irregularity of the price range determines whether the sideways trend is a Long Term Wide Trading Range, a Short Term Trading Range, a Wide Sideways Trend, or a Platform-Building Sideways Trend. This is a Long Term Trading Range due to the inconsistent highs and lows.
This is common in a stock that has PSHI below 60%.
On a Daily Chart, the fundamentals currently are within the rectangular shape outlined below. This area of price can be problematic for retail day traders as there are always portfolio adjustments going on by the Buy-Side Institutions who have ETFs and Index funds with TSLA as a component.
When the stock drops below that Buy Zone range, it quickly reverses and runs up into the lows of that fundamental range. This becomes a price range where there is conflict between retail day traders trying to trade on news and the Buy-Side Institutions accumulating inventory shares of TSLA for the Indexes or ETF Trust accounts that must maintain a value close to the ETF or index value upon which that ETF is based.
What happens intraday is a very choppy and indecisive price action up and down that causes whipsaw losses for day trading.
In order to successfully day-trade TSLA, these factors must be understood to use to one's advantage. This requires an understanding of how to identify a Dark Pool Sell Zone or a Dark Pool Buy Zone within the daily charts. It also requires an understanding of how HFTs trigger and how VWAP orders often cause whipsaw action as well.
Remember that Dark Pool data is not available during the trading day. That data is on Over-the-Counter Alternative Transaction Systems. Those orders are filled off the exchanges and are not transmitted to the National Clearing Houses until after the market closes.
Hence, ALL retail day traders are trading against an invisible entity whose orders they can’t see even on Level 2 screens. The art of day trading in harmony with Dark Pool activity requires what I call "Relational Technical Analysis."