Quote from dumb_mother:
they push through everyone's stopouts because it then gives them liquidity on the way back. as they are buying markets for example they will just continue to buy until someone new comes along to grab that hot potato hoping to carry it up another price. once they get someone else to come in and buy (ie triggering a lot of stop buys at the top) they are given a lot of liquidity to get out of the stuff they previously bought.
Liquidity is also what I originally had in mind, and that's what I guessed at in asking the question, so I got this part down
Below is the part that confused me
it doesn't matter if you buy it from them or someone else, because so much of what is traded now is blackbox looking for small gains (1-3 tics) even if they don't get the other side of the trade initially when a stop is triggered, as they sell down through it later they'll get those contracts within a couple tics of the high, when whoever really got it takes their quick money and runs- so theoretically they get all of that liquidity that they just forced to come in at the top. hope that makes sense because it is actually what happens. [/B]
Why would they want to take the other side of the trade (sell)? They are aware that driving price up could spawn a rally, but to drive the price up in the first place they will have to BUY.
So, they buy, the price goes up, hits stops on the way creating even more buying, other traders see the breakout and also buy, and we have a mini-rally.
Now, the part where I see the big guy's intent being fulfilled is when he uses the higher price and all the new liquidity composed of all the new stop-buy orders situated between the breakout level and the current price/high put there by traders hoping to get in long on a correction, to OFFSET his long position and make a nice profit.
So, basically, I think I got the basic first steps towards understanding the concept of "stop-hitting" down, which is stops are hit to, in the 1ST SCENARIO - set off a breakout leading to a mini-rally, which can be used as liquidity by the big guy to offset his long positions he accumulated by hitting the stops, and subsequently make a profit. The 2ND scenario is that price doesn't rally and goes back down (or up if its a support) to the swing point, the big guy ends up with a losing position, at which point we can expect him to AGGRESSIVELY SELL and create a steep sell-off in the market.
I think I got the 2nd scenario wrong somehow. Why would he want to aggressively sell and create a loss??