thoughts on looking at the charts

[bornloser]

http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/

looking at the trade data on this site for mt gox just doesnt add up? I see huge volume to the down side(sells) and there are hardly any volume on the buy side? how can this price $95ish atm be supported? Mt gox has to be selling and manipulating the price to the upside. there is way too much of an imbalance to be legit.

[Foxpup]

http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/

looking at the trade data on this site for mt gox just doesnt add up? I see huge volume to the down side(sells) and there are hardly any volume on the buy side? how can this price $95ish atm be supported? Mt gox has to be selling and manipulating the price to the upside. there is way too much of an imbalance to be legit.

You seem to have a misunderstanding about how markets work. For every buyer, there has to be a seller, other who are they buying from? Likewise for sellers. The volume is the number of trades that took place, and each trade consists of a buyer and a seller. You can't have a trade without at least one of each, and the number of coins sold is always exactly equal to the number of coins bought.

When the price goes down, that doesn't mean everyone is selling. Obviously there's just as many people buying. What it means is that buyers are not willing to buy at the present price, so sellers can't sell unless they lower their prices. Price rises are caused by the reverse situation: sellers aren't willing to sell at the present price, so buyers have to bid higher prices to convince them.

[jlspartz]

There are ways to manipulate the price if you have capital though. Putting up a large chunk for buying or selling acts as a wall to not pass. The number stays constant for quite a while and then others want to buy before that large order is entirely satisfied so they put it in an order for slightly more to be in front of it in the queue and so on. They could fix the price to be pretty constant by putting in large orders on either side, corraling those in the middle.

[zzz321]

You just simply cannot manipulate the price if you have a large amount of capital....Sure you could in theory have a large percentage and hold it. But that is the theory used to fear mongering against all real currencies. Such as Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, etc.

What gives an added value to these entities is that some people hold them, not to mention intrinsic values and that there will always be a limite amount in existence.

There's just something remarkable about this world and the limited amount of unique things.

[bornloser]

http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/

looking at the trade data on this site for mt gox just doesnt add up? I see huge volume to the down side(sells) and there are hardly any volume on the buy side? how can this price $95ish atm be supported? Mt gox has to be selling and manipulating the price to the upside. there is way too much of an imbalance to be legit.

You seem to have a misunderstanding about how markets work. For every buyer, there has to be a seller, other who are they buying from? Likewise for sellers. The volume is the number of trades that took place, and each trade consists of a buyer and a seller. You can't have a trade without at least one of each, and the number of coins sold is always exactly equal to the number of coins bought.

When the price goes down, that doesn't mean everyone is selling. Obviously there's just as many people buying. What it means is that buyers are not willing to buy at the present price, so sellers can't sell unless they lower their prices. Price rises are caused by the reverse situation: sellers aren't willing to sell at the present price, so buyers have to bid higher prices to convince them.

I understand what you are saying. What I am saying is Mt gox most likely is acting as an exchange and a market maker. If you look at a 4 hour chart and see nothing but large sells going through and you dont see any big buys how can the price stay relatively flat?

[bitleif]

I understand what you are saying. What I am saying is Mt gox most likely is acting as an exchange and a market maker. If you look at a 4 hour chart and see nothing but large sells going through and you dont see any big buys how can the price stay relatively flat?

You clearly did not understand what he was saying. How can there be large sells going through and no big buys? There are no 'sells' and 'buys'. There are only 'trades'. The color of the volume spike just reflects if the net total price went up or down in that period.

[bornloser]

ok. if you look at the chart over a 4 hr period and all you see is red and the price does not move. how can this be explained?

[bitleif]

ok. if you look at the chart over a 4 hr period and all you see is red and the price does not move. how can this be explained?

Could you take a screenshot and circle what you mean, just so we're sure we're talking about the same thing? It's easy to misunderstand one another.

[bornloser]

ok. if you look at the chart over a 4 hr period and all you see is red and the price does not move. how can this be explained?

Could you take a screenshot and circle what you mean, just so we're sure we're talking about the same thing? It's easy to misunderstand one another.

bitleif
 real quick example. say a company misses earnings and the price plummets $20. through observation, you can watch level 2 trades go through and see the stock is selling off, yet the price is not goin down past the initial $20 loss, even though there is a huge imbalance of sellers and buyers. what I am saying is mt gox absolutely has to be a market maker and is stepping in to be the buyer of last resort. Mt gox doesnt want the price to go down because they make more commisions at higher btc prices, so it would be in their best interest to keep the price artificially high.

[bitleif]

Lots of people have made similar accusations, but so far I haven't seen much proof. If what you are referring to about the red in the charts without price movement is the proof, then I'm not understanding the argument.

[lysr]

Here is another good btc chart website:
http://bitcoinity.org/markets?theme=dark

you can easily see the position of the walls

[Foxpup]

real quick example. say a company misses earnings and the price plummets $20. through observation, you can watch level 2 trades go through and see the stock is selling off, yet the price is not goin down past the initial $20 loss, even though there is a huge imbalance of sellers and buyers.

Did you actually read what I wrote? When the stock is "selling off", somebody is buying it. If you want to sell, you need a buyer. If you can't find a buyer, you need to lower your price until someone is willing to pay it, or else you can't sell at all. There can never be an imbalance of buyers and sellers.

what I am saying is mt gox absolutely has to be a market maker and is stepping in to be the buyer of last resort. Mt gox doesnt want the price to go down because they make more commisions at higher btc prices, so it would be in their best interest to keep the price artificially high.

No, they don't. They make their commission on volume. If the price of bitcoins is twice as high, people can only buy half as many (they've only got so much cash to spend, after all). They're still trading the same amount of money, so Mt. Gox makes the same commission, and all the money they spent buying up bitcoins to keep the price artificially high is completely wasted.

[palmcoins]

Interesting discussion