Big money makes big money.
- wack the ask price with multiple small lots of shares and drive down the price by repeatedly dropping the ask
- buy larger lots of shares from the people that you shook out of the tree once the price looks desirable
IE: sell $300,000 worth in small lots, drive the price down then snap up $3,000,000 at reduced price.
Evidence of this can be seen by studying Level 2, when the price is dropping quick for no reason.
(all controlled by large brokerage firms and computerized trading programs)