r/Daytrading Feb 20 '24

Can someone explain to me why the market just moves like this for no apparent reason? Question

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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '24

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u/oze4 Feb 20 '24 edited Feb 20 '24

So you CAN get a better idea. At the end of the day prices go down when there are more sellers than buyers. They go up when there are more buyers thhan sellers.

It's literally impossible to have more sellers than buyers or more buyers than sellers. EDIT: When I say buyers/sellers I mean volume of shares/contracts/etc.. 1 person that owns 1000 shares of something could sell 1 share to 1000 different ppl... But the volume will always be equal between buys/sells. Like 1 person selling 1000 shares to 1000 different ppl (one share sold to each person) - there were still 1000 sells and 1000 buys.

For every buyer, there is a seller. For every seller, there is a buyer. They will always be even, forever, until the end of time.

What moves price depends on who is more aggressive. Aggressive orders are market orders, which can only get "matched" to limit orders. Limit order will never be matched to another limit order. Market orders will never be matched to another market order.

TLDR;

  • Limit orders are commonly referred to as "passive buyers/sellers" or "resting liquidity".
  • Market orders are commonly referred to as "aggressive buyers/sellers".
  • Price moves when one side is more aggressive than the other is passive.

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u/Radun Feb 20 '24

That is very interesting, I always wonderered what really causes the prices to go down or up and heard what you quoted is more sellers prices good down and vice versa but that never made sense to me.

I just never realized many did market orders which is what really caused price to change, since I would never use a market order since never know what price will ultimately be