- Don't think he could be a current employee dis-satisfied as he/she spends to much time at it. Some time would have to dedicated to the current role.
- Ex-employee with the world's largest grudge is possible but with something of that magnitude I suspect the true identity would seep out as there are many posters with informal ties to the company.
- I don't get the re-organization reference unless part of that would entail taking over SNO.
- Competitor - as in someone with interests opposite to the company's normal business progression makes a lot of sense. How that is particularly constituted is the question.
- Lost money kind of falls in the grudge category. The identity would be easier to hide. For some reason this just doesn't sit with me as this has gone on for too, too long and is too, too structured in the attack.
- I just don't buy the short selling angle. Volume too low and margins too narrow. One of those two would have to be varied.
- Related to market making firm falls under competitor
- Paid or in some other form rewarded seems to make the most sense. Again in the competitor group. Butttt who are the backers.
- Swing trading again doesn't seem to work for me. Too narrow margins and too low volumes.

When this first started I too examined lots of possible alternatives. I even thought it could a group of University students bent on proving they could manipulate the market. This has gone on too long for that.

I think it does come down to the broad definition of "competitor".

I hesitate to think it could be any existing corporation as this has simply gotten too big and the secret could not likely be hidden forever. The long term legal implications would just be too great a risk.

The keeping of the secret angle may well be the key. Could in fact be one or two people with a reasonable amount of money and a significant amount of time with a plan to accumulate at low levels feeling all the time assured of eventual substantial gain and given the large total number of investors confident their identity will never be revealed.

The "confidence" aspect is also interesting. Has to be people relatively close to the source but not necessarily within the company. It would take the highest level of confidence in successful outcome to put this much time and effort into it.

The nice part of this is that we are now approaching the home stretch. It the results are as possitive as we all hope then these basher types will have been just so much muddy track we have crossed and no one really cares when you eventually are sitting in the winners circle.

Onward and Upward.