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system
why can low volume move a stock price drastically?
user
in a sense, yes. there's a view in yahoo finance that looks like this   for this particular stock, a market order for 3000 shares (not even $4000, this is a reasonably small figure) will move the stock past $1.34, more than a 3% move.  say, on the ask side there are 100,000 shares, all with $10 ask. it would take a lot of orders to purchase all these shares, so for a while, the price may stay right at $10, or a bit lower if there are those willing to sell lower.  but, say that side showed $10 1000, $10.25 500, $10.50 1000. now, the volume is so low that if i decided i wanted shares at any price, my order, a market order will actually drive the market price right up to $10.50 if i buy 2500 shares "market".  you see, however, even though i'm a small trader, i drove the price up. but now that the price is $10.50 when i go to sell all 2500 at $10.50, there are no bids to pay that much, so the price the next trade will occur at isn't known yet. there may be bids at $10, with asking (me) at $10.50. no trades will happen until a seller takes the $10 bid or other buyers and sellers come in.
assistant