Can someone please explain what happens to the prices / % change shown on the stockwatch at the end of the day? They are obviously showing something completely different to what they are during the day.

Cheers

B2B

Also guessing, but I put it down to the institutions doing out of hours trading?

SETS and SETSMM stocks close with an auction.

During the auction, traders enter buy orders with a 'buy up to' price, and sellers enter sell orders with a 'sell down to price'. Traders can also enter orders 'at market' in other words, buy or sell at any price.

The auction runs for 5 minutes plus a short random period, closing at rughly 4.35, after which, the buy side is matched to the sell side, and, usually, a large 'UT' trade goes through. The UT trade is the closing trade for the stock, and its price is that price at which the most orders in the auction get filled and becomes the closing price for the day.

You can see all this happening live with Level 2, and you can trade the auctions using a direct access platform such as etrade, GNI or IG. A lot of traders use the auction to close out all positions at the end of the day or the week.

Hope that helps.

Gausie

Many thanks for that.
Two more questions that spring to mind following on from your replies

Is there any value in watching these auctions to gain some insight as to what the MM and institutions believe will happen to the price of a share in the near future?

What do we read into a share like Top Tiles which has finished with a share price which lies outside (higher) the bid/ offer range? Is it an indication that shares are in demand and therefore the price might open higher on the next trading day?


B2B

B2B: The answer is yes and no.

An example of a yes is the action in auction and after hours of MNU with Glazier's buying patterns. But no generally the auction action does not accurately indicate the next mornings opening, the DOW still carries too much sway .

Looking at Topps Tiles the last trades were at 186.25 and the mid closed at that point. However the bid/off show lower as on close a number of market makers pulled their price hence the anomaly