Sunday, June 30, 2013

A Time to Remember


TimeCome started at RM3.49 when the market opened in the morning on Friday, 28.6.2013. It had a gradual uptrend,  and by 4.45 pm the stock was traded at  RM3.65.

 At 4.49 pm, the stock suddenly turned very active. On the sale side were selling of more than 30,000 lots,  and on the buy side were buying of about the same volume. The bid and offer price was at RM3.84. The sudden jump in the price from RM3.65 to RM3.84 was a great surprise to me. I quickly joined in the queue to sell. I keyed in at 4.49 pm to sell 100 lots,  4.50pm to sell 200 lots, and 4.51pm to sell 100 lots at RM3.84. 

When the market eventually closed, I managed to sell only 200 lots. I immediately called my remiser to enquire why the 200 lots I keyed in to sell at 4.50 pm were not sold. 

After some checking, I was told that because at 4.50 pm the computer was in the process of matching the orders, and so some entries to trade at that time were rejected. 

This taught me a valuable lesson. You should not key in at 4.50 pm to either buy or sell if you do want your orders to be rejected.

I was puzzled as to why the price jumped so much at 4.49 pm. Who was the buyer, and who were the sellers? The sellers were probably the small timers while the buyer was probably an institution that wanted to take a substantial take in the stock. 

Nowadays,  one must be extra vigilant at 4.45pm until the market closes on any trading day to make good use of any opportunity to make a fast buck.