Market Manipulation

Categories: Stocks, Managed Funds

Manipulating a market is a nasty thing to do—and it's is illegal to boot in the United States.

There are a lot of different schemes. A popular one is to deflate the price of a stock by making lots of sales at below market value. That makes it look like lots of investors are getting rid of their stock, which might make some investors think the stock is about to tank. They sell their stock, pushing the value of the stock down for realsies. 

Another common method of manipulating the market is to buy and sell lots of stock at matching prices. So sell a bunch of stock for $50 a share and then buy it for $50 a share. Repeat over and over. The idea is to make it look like lots of people are snapping up the stock and there's a lot of interest, which can push the price up. 

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