Great detail of how Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod are managing the SP:

as far as recent trading goes, it was sell the news and wait for the dip before the next results are due. if someone with large pockets and time to work wants more shares, they can use several brokerage houses to sell a few shares into any rally and cap the price. do it for a few days and you have discourage sellers gradually capitulating the positions they bought when the news came out.

if you are a smart group, you can sell a few shares into a weak market and kill any rally or breakout. you actually pick up a lot more cheap shares relative to the quantity you sold. this is an axiom of the markets. it is powered by the fact that under a lack of good news or positive markets, high beta stocks tend to fall under the force of stock gravity. use of chart resistance and support points is also helpful to the purveyors of this tactic. market makers are very good at it, but then again, they see order flow in advance and have an advantage over the rest of us. ever wonder why some great movers get all of their gains in 7 to 15 great days in a year. what happens the rest of the time? have to be pretty good to catch those moves.