[unknown_apostle]

Yes it's sometimes called a stink bid.

Lots of contexts where this kind of bidding is a good idea. E.g. after a really bad year you can expect big price swings around tax loss selling season (nov-dec), where people take out their frustration on their worst performers. Doesn't always work but if you've already identified a couple of trainwreck stocks that you think deserve a second chance, getting a stink bid filled for one or more of those stocks can make a very big difference later on.

Of course, the Ethereum flash crash is on a different level :-)

[lordlimecat]

>>Timing the market

>Doesn't always work

Thats putting it lightly, you're describing some form of survivorship bias. If it were that reliable and simple the major active fund managers could score reliable index-beating returns just off of Nov-Dec.

As it turns out, rules like that don't work, which is why passive index funds inevitably win out over attempts to time the market.

[unknown_apostle]

"survivorship bias". Bullshit.

In the specific example I gave, I talked about putting in stink bids for burned down companies you already wanted anyway, during the 1 or 2 month window when its stock has a big chance of getting another kick in the teeth for simple fiscal reasons.

The cost for trying this is pretty much zero. The worst that can happen is that the price never hits the bid and then you have to be content with the regular price. If it does work, you may get an additional 30% or whatever discount on the company.

If the rest of the story doesn't work out, it won't be caused by the extra discount. So stink bids literally do help performance and active investors do put them in and a lot of them do suck for a lot of reasons and these tax loss selling waves do happen despite everyone knowing about it because they are caused by regulations.

"passive index funds inevitably win out over attempts to time the market" This is a totally different discussion, not about the chance and impact of getting a low bid filled, but about efficiency of markets and whether people who beat some chosen benchmark are lucky or skilled.

But maybe there is a relationship. Let me ask you this: do you think Wall Street has ever had a good idea (like ETFs) and didn't take it way too far? Like 3x inverse Venezuelan Beaver Cheese ETFs? If there is a demand for passive index funds, Wall Street will indulge. But to make a passive index fund you need an index. And so they have been puking up a whole circus of indexes. With some of these indexes, especially ones that involve small companies, I wonder what will happen during the next serious drawdown. And so we can get back to the subject of stink bids.