I was just wondering, say I had a ton of money, could I hypothetically manipulate the market by opening up two separate brokerage accounts and then buying and selling the same stock essentially to and from myself? Like say I want to move the price of a stock down, I just hit buy on the bid in account A and sell on the bid in account B with large enough volume to move the price down. I get that I would be out the commissions and fees, so it's not like I would make any money doing this, but I wouldn't lose much either, just the fees. Then, when other trader's stops get triggered and the stock starts to gain downward (or upward) momentum on it's own and thus moves even further than where I drove it to by my buy/sell transaction, then I come in and buy more (or sell more) to increase (or decrease) my position at a lower (or higher) price. Does this question make sense? Does this happen in the real world? Is this one possible way people can manipulate the market? Or are there laws or anything stopping this practice? Maybe I am missing something and this just isn't really possible anyway. Just curious.

Haha, OK, I just realized the error of my own thinking, maybe I should just delete the post. I don't know, who knows maybe someone else out there will have the same question (probably not lol). Anyway, I think my question actually does not make any sense, because if I bought and sold to myself, I would not move the price since in order to move the price down or up, I have to buy up the liquidity or sell to down the ladder of existing bids. If I am buying and selling to myself on the bid, then it would just be a net zero change in liquidity and thus not move the price at all. In other words, I wouldn't eat up any existing liquidity because I would be adding to liquidity at the same time and by the same amount, I am taking it away. So, anyway, just had a bit of a light bulb go off in my head right after I posted that question. and yes, btw, I am a doofus haha!

Hey @miked and @James00trades it might help if you attach some screenshots, but here is what is supposed to happen: This is an example of when you are trying to go long On QCOM I want my stop to be 164.13. So I double click on the chart at that price and hit the first hotkey: StopPrice=Price You will not see anything on the chart at this point. The price is currently at 164.25 and I want my entry to be from 164.29. So I double click on the chart at that price and hit the second hotkey: DefShare=BP*0.97;Price=Price-StopPrice;SShare=30/Price;Share=DefShare-SShare;DefShare=DefShare+SShare;SShare=Share;Sshare=DefShare-SShare;Share=0.5*SShare; SShare=Share;Share=Price*100; Price=StopPrice; DefShare=Price*100; Price=Share/100; Price=Price+StopPrice; StopPrice=Price; Share=SShare; TogSShare; Price=Price+.05;TIF=DAY+;Route=Stop;StopType=Limit; Buy=Send; Share=DefShare;Price=Share/100; StopPrice=Price; DefShare=400;TriggerOrder=RT:STOP STOPTYPE:MARKET PX:StopPrice-0 ACT:SELL STOPPRICE:StopPrice QTY:Pos TIF:DAY+; This will show on the chart (below) as a range order, as the hotkey is set to do a 5 cent range (Price=Price+.05) - you can change this to whatever you're comfortable with. You will not see the stop loss on your chart until the price comes up and this range order is triggered. As you can now see (below), the price has come up and entered me at 164.30 (as that price was in the 5 cent range of 164.29 - 164.34). You will also see that the stop loss has triggered upon entering the position at the original price I clicked on the chart - 164.13. Does this explanation help a bit? I think it might be seeing the range order that is confusing.