Regarding the large orders sitting away from the offer and then disappearing, that's prima facie indication of "spoofing" and there's a rule against it. Basically, placing an order without an intent for it to be filled is a breach of the CA. It is difficult to prove the intent behind an order that is unfilled, but according to ASIC's semi-annual enforcement reports, there's usually one or two prosecutions. Prosecutions for manipulation (and spoofing in particular) are less common than prosecutions for other breaches of the CA, but that may reflect the combination of the priorities of the organisation, costs and the likelihood of success as well as the frequency of misconduct. In this week's example, it appears suspicious enough to investigate imho. If anyone is particularly interested in doing so, then lodge a suspicious activity report and make it easier for them by noting the exact times, quantities and prices of when the quotes appeared and then disappeared from the queue. If you have any supporting data on the actual (not the imagined) effects, then put their times, quantities and prices as well. One of the effects of spoofing is that other participants pull their orders (from the opposite side of the market if they are afraid of being run over) or join the inflated side of the queue. The spoofer on the other hand, is more likely to place a smaller order on the opposite side, hoping to get an execution at a more favourable price than otherwise would occur. So if you have the full quote history and can point to activity around the times of the large quotes arrival and departure, that helps the investigator to narrow down the search. Asic has access to the trader IDs, so if the spoofer places their small buy order at a similar time to their large unrealistic sell order, then they will have awkward questions to answer.
If I had the full quote recap, that is, the place, amend cancel history, even without the trader IDs, it would be fun to run some analytical work to estimate the likelihood of bogus orders. I'm reasonably sure that the HFT researchers/programmers would build their models knowing that some of the order book could be bogus and that those orders should be be ignored (at least I would do that). It appears many of you here were quite immune from any manipulative intent from alleged spoofing, but the rules don't care if it was ineffective, if it's spoofing, it's a breach.
Ps, I'm not a bot lol
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