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Message:: [QUOTE="Cloudsweeper99, post: 1478962, member: 3011"]It's perfectly consistent.  If all market players were investing in a manner to determine the fair value of securities, that would be an "honest" market.  When 84% of trading is done by black box programs issuing million share orders faster than I can hit the enter key, it can no longer be said that the markets are honest.  But saying the market is not "honest" is quite different from saying that it is manipulated -- that some invisible cabal is setting prices behind the scenes.  I've adjusted my investing style to cope with the volitility created by the non-human and dishonest players.  In fact, with the withdrawl of human decision making from the market, manipulation is less likely than ever, not more likely.  If in your mind dishonest and manipulation mean the same thing, then so be it.  To me they are different problems.  I see no evidence that prices are manipulated.  I see a lot of evidence that traditional market rules are routinely broken, but not in any organized manner.  It's a total free-for-all. Edit: Put another way, I agree that manipulation is dishonest, and to that extent you are correct.  But not all dishonesty in the market is manipulation.  I think the market players are competing to higher the best and brightest math majors and programmers to outwit each other, not to collude to manipulate prices up or down.[/QUOTE]