Has someone ever tried to manipulate public market prices by placing a small number of items that you need at a very low price?

i.e. I am a casher buying business tech and the current price is $3.5k per pt. I place a hundred or so pts on the market at $2.5k. Stupid techers then undercut eachother based on the $2.5k and all of the sudden tech has dropped in price by 40%.

Depends on the demand. You'd need to place enough so that it wouldn't immediately be bought by SOs for the techers to even see that as the price.

You could certainly do that. You are capable of seeing what the highest standing order price is by "Asking". As long as you are above that you could potentially get some techers to blindly undercut, thus lowering the prices.

That would work until a casher sees your tech at 1k below the price he normally pays for tech and immediately gobbles it up ... in other words, it won't work.

and there are standing orders at low prices.

But wouldn't selling max be more convenient?

yes but some players want to screw others buy selling tech, military, etc much lower than current price.

you may be able to do this for a very brief amount of time, but eventually the market will correct itself and get back up to the equilibrium price.

yea unless some other sellers are dumb and undercut that market screwer.

I think it is all about the timing. If you can get 2 or three dumb techers to undercut it, you will likely create a new base price. But there is always the chance it gets bought up before another techer places it on the market. Early in the set demand for tech is relatively independent of price, as the ROI is always positive.

undercutting matters less than you think. i've tried this before. it doesn't work if the market demand/supply doesn't support the undercutting. eventually, enough people will buy that the price will go back up to the equilibrium level regardless of how many people try to undercut.

if manages to fluff up market for few days it effects other sellers.

This strategium might have worked in the old days, but there is sufficient market news tools now that people can see the max and min for the last 24 hours and individual purchases over the last hour or four.

A small number of techers might be lazy and sell at this temporary low point, but there should be a greater number of active cashers and resellers to consume any reduced price goods. Personally as a non-Demo techer, if I see tech more than 13% below the current market ceiling, I'll buy it and resell it at a higher price.

However, if you were a clan of cashers with a couple techers, you could sell max bus/res tech at a reduced rate depress the market and the techer's income while the cashers increase income disproportionately.

...

Mapleson, I think there are probably fewer people that utilize market news than that do. And reselling the tech market is very risky as over time prices will always decline.

Really? Why would people not use a freely available tool that would increase their income? It'd be like people not using a country search to find LG targets. It's your opinion though, and you are entitled to it.

Yep, there is a risk reselling on the tech market, but there is risk in LGing as well. Without some measure of risk you won't finish at the top.

some people are more dedicated than others.

for example when i sell tech i dont check trends on every single one, but only ~top 3 quantity techs im about to sell.

its an interesting idea actually, market manipulation. im sure there are tons of thoughts on the subject

I only read the OP, but as a techer if I see an unusually low price I'll just buy it myself and put it back on at a reasonable price.