Hi Cedar!

You can play trades long or short and settle for whatever profit the market will give you.  If you book to buy below the bid and get filled, there is no reason why you cannot post the trade 5 minutes later, at a half cent above your purchase price, to book a profit.  Now take the same idea, and stack bids at half-cent intervals, below the market price.  As you get filled, you offer those same shares immediately above the market price.  You essentially build an inventory and then make them available to the market at a profit.  That is exactly what a market maker does.  As long as there is volatility, ie. a shifting price both higher and lower, then you can endlessly flip stock.  I would suspect that a few traders are moving hundreds of thousands of shares a day on a stock like GRW.  Its perfectly legal and a viable trading strategy.

Where things get cloudy is if you are frequently posting on a forum to try and influence other people, to your own personal profit.  For example if you have buy orders stacked up, and then you post that there are problems with the company, you are behaving in a way that is unethical and immoral.  Yet that sort of thing goes on everyday.  And only very rarely are people prosecuted for that type of scam.  Similarly if you are a seller and you go out of your way to hype the hell out of a story, again it is a breach of ethics.

I am not one to censor posts.  I do not mind seeing opposing opinions to my own beliefs.  But I object strongly to those who are working with a hidden agenda to deliberately interfere with open discussion, or to misrepresent the truth.  I levy harsh criticism at what goes on at SH, but you only need to read a couple of posts on any forum at that site to see that kind of behaviour is rampant, and that is why I have decided to no longer contribute to the forums there.  In addition, there is a deliberate agenda on behalf of a handfull of people to attack others who they wish to discredit or prevent from posting.  I would regret if the same malignant personalities try to carry on the same behaviour here at Agora, but it appears to me that the calibre of posts on this website is far superior and that personal attacks are not tolerated here.

cheers!

mike

PS:  As far as the GW debate goes, I am quick to respond to many issues expressed, but I do so with respect for opposing opinions, and have the same passion for my point of view that I expect to see expressed by others.