Market Manipulation ... highly unlikely
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 08:33
Doing a little CE trading today and looking at how fast the market is moving, it seems to me that (assuming the player base stays the same or grows) it's unlikely that the market is ever going to be moved around by a single actor again. Of course, it was never a problem in the first place... a single actor can only push the market within a narrow range around equilibrium, and probably buys or sells 100 blocks of CE or more in the process. That means you need to be buying or selling thousands of blocks (100s of thousands of CE) for it to be profitable. Most market manipulation was probably unprofitable or marginally profitable attempts to expand the per-transaction profit... although there may have been (and may still be) people who try to move the market -permanently- which is simply not possible. (Unless you keep pouring crowns or CE into it, but then it's not really manipulation, you're just being a market force.)
As fast as the market is moving now with this many players, market manipulation is steamrolled by market forces without any chance to cash in.
Of course, this isn't stopping -somebody- from trying to walk the market up with 10-up bids, but that sort of thing gets undone in seconds when someone wants to bid on a shiny UV and sees that the gap between buy and sell offers is very small and spams buy-crowns-now.
Maybe it's a cash player who still believes that market manipulation can create anything other than a temporary anomaly. A lot of people seem to believe that's possible despite all evidence to the contrary.
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 08:40
#2
i see those 300 offers to buy
i see those 300 offers to buy CE, i help make a wall on the opposing Sell CE. there is no clear manipulation, so I dont think we will get anywhere unless everybody wants the same thing.
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 08:43
#3
Walls...
Honestly, the only way to really affect the market is either to increase supply or to reduce demand.
So, buy more CE with dollars, or live your life on mist.
(I opt for the second, mostly. It's a pleasingly ascetic existence.)
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 09:23
#4
Well if it works or not, I
Well if it works or not, I can't say, but I've seen numbers like this since yesterday:
Always on round values like 3700, 3500... maybe it's a coincidence, though.
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 10:09
#5
Next time you think about
Next time you think about posting a thread about CE, just stop yourself. There is already 20 threads with people complaining about CE price.
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 10:15
#6
Walls can develop naturally
Walls can develop naturally on round numbers like 3500 because of several players deciding they'll put an offer up just before they logoff and see if it sells overnight. It's a little less effort to type in a "simple" amount like 3500 than to type in a less-round number like 3427. So the round numbers are magnets for "overnight buyers," and thus a wall develops on its own. Market offers take 10 days to expire on their own, so they can even leave it up for over a week.
Market manipulation was a lot more likely (and actually has happened a number of times) before the influx of Steam players. The limited playerbase meant there were far fewer regular buyers and sellers counterbalancing manipulation: when a CE transaction happens every few minutes rather than every few seconds, one person can quickly and easily scroll off the old, genuine-value offers, wait a few days for a natural wall to develop behind his inflated prices, and then cancel the unsold offers. It'll cost him a bit, but it's doable.
If someone tried that TODAY, the inflated offers would sell nigh-instantly, bringing prices back to regular levels before the wall can appear-- and the would-be manipulator would just end up ripping himself off. It also requires a significant gap between the buying and selling prices, which hasn't been the case at least up through the weekend.
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 10:36
#7
@codemister13
I'm not complaining about CE prices at all, I'm discussing the effect that a higher trading volume has on market behaviour. To some extent, I'm mentioning it in the (vain, I'm sure) hope of forestalling the complaints about market manipulation as CE prices rise to wherever they'll go up to as steam players stop being newbies with a container overflowing with starter-pack ce.
Of course, blaming manipulation for market rise was misguided in the first place as its effects are transitory and relatively small.
Mon, 06/20/2011 - 10:39
#8
There's No Conspiracy
There's no one person or consortium putting 20k CE up in one shot in an effort to build a "wall" and manipulate the market. The market window compiles offers with the same price into one item and cuts out the user names attached. No one seems to care who they buy their energy from anyway if it's all the same.
Round numbers appear to have walls more often because people like round numbers, and there's a much higher chance of people who have never spoken "randomly" coming up with a number like that. The scattered offers around them also do not represent one individual's offers, but again, the total number of offers at that one price.
Please stop panicking about CE prices and sinister motives.
CE Prices are too high!
I wouldn't be surprised that a large group of players with high levels of strict coordination could manipulate CE prices up or down - at least for a short amount of time.