Priice oscillations at MtGox

[JorgeStolfi]

There is apeculiar pattern at Mt Gox / USD that does not occur at Bitstamp ot Btc-China. The price oscillates by 5-10 USD between the lowest ask and the highest bid, with one cycle or more per minute. Volume is very low, less than 10 BTC per minute, or less than 5 BTC per transaction. At each cycle the price at both ends usually increases by a few USD.

This pattern has been going on at least since 2013-12-30, except for a few hours in the early morning of 2013-12-31.  Otherwise MtGox/USD seems to have few transacctions; on some days, less than one per hour.

Curiously Mt Gox seems to have been offline for about 1.5h around 2014-01-01 02:00 UTC, yet the price kept inching up during that time.

Presumably that slow creep upwards of the charted price convinces many traders to revise their bids/offers upwards, so as to remain within a preset distance from the current price.

Does this make sense, or am I allucinating?

[T.Stuart]

There is apeculiar pattern at Mt Gox / USD that does not occur at Bitstamp ot Btc-China. The price oscillates by 5-10 USD between the lowest ask and the highest bid, with one cycle or more per minute. Volume is very low, less than 10 BTC per minute, or less than 5 BTC per transaction. At each cycle the price at both ends usually increases by a few USD.

This pattern has been going on at least since 2013-12-30, except for a few hours in the early morning of 2013-12-31.  Otherwise MtGox/USD seems to have few transacctions; on some days, less than one per hour.

Curiously Mt Gox seems to have been offline for about 1.5h around 2014-01-01 02:00 UTC, yet the price kept inching up during that time.

Presumably that slow creep upwards of the charted price convinces many traders to revise their bids/offers upwards, so as to remain within a preset distance from the current price.

Does this make sense, or am I allucinating?

Robots trading on the general uptrend of bitcoin

[JorgeStolfi]

Robots trading on the general uptrend of bitcoin

Is that so? Robots that buy at the lowest ask and sell to the highest  bid would lose 10 USD at each cycle. If the rbots are posting offers/bids the other way around, for regular traders, the pattern should be more irregular and in larger lumps, no?

It would make sense to me if a single client was buying and selling to himself, say to pretend that the market is active or to push the price up.

[T.Stuart]

Robots trading on the general uptrend of bitcoin

Is that so? Robots that buy at the lowest ask and sell to the highest  bid would lose 10 USD at each cycle. If the rbots are posting offers/bids the other way around, for regular traders, the pattern should be more irregular and in larger lumps, no?

It would make sense to me if a single client was buying and selling to himself, say to pretend that the market is active or to push the price up.

My apologies - I didn't read your post properly and should have been more clear.

IMO in a low volume market like Bitcoin Gox have set up their trade engine to produce at least minimum information per minute to keep the line going if there is no trading. Mostly this never happens at 100%, but is mingled with small trades.

The engine essentially indicates the spread between buy and sell in this case.

The adjustment of asks and bids (in combination with trades) creates the uptrend you are seeing, but this is normal and is caused by a combination of perpetual robotic and regular human adjustments of bids. This is market sentiment - the sum feeling of all investors!

Does that make sense? Please let me know if you think I've got something wrong because I've never actually talked to anyone from Gox about this!  

[JorgeStolfi]

IMO in a low volume market like Bitcoin Gox have set up their trade engine to produce at least minimum information per minute to keep the line going if there is no trading. Mostly this never happens at 100%, but is mingled with small trades.

The engine essentially indicates the spread between buy and sell in this case.

The adjustment of asks and bids (in combination with trades) creates the uptrend you are seeing, but this is normal and is caused by a combination of perpetual robotic and regular human adjustments of bids. This is market sentiment - the sum feeling of all investors!

Does that make sense? Please let me know if you think I've got something wrong because I've never actually talked to anyone from Gox about this!  

Makes sense, yes. Thanks for the posting!