I had 1-minute charts open for OKCoin, Finex and Stamp, and the latter two definitely followed. Not saying OKCoin necessarily led, but it definitely looked to me like BTC/CNY leading BTC/USD.
It's ridiculous to follow the Chinese exchanges with their tiny walls. Of course the NLC team is going to dump its two coins there and drop the price by ten dollars. How does it work, really?
It's useful if you get a few seconds/minutes advance notice of what's about to happen over on Finex and Stamp...
Yes, but why does it happen? Traders do not follow BTC-e around much, although they have tiny walls too.
Volume (fake or otherwise) is my guess. It's easier to dump into an exchange with high (or at least, consistent) volume.
Because as I just said above its nothing to do with how big or small your walls are.
1) If you look at bid/ask support to base your trade decisions on quit trading right now, yesterday was a perfect example of this. The Finex books have been stuffed with big bids above $270 for a week or so. All of a sudden thousands of btc in bids gets pulled and the price dumps. Happens all the time.
2) OKcoin only shows 5% of its books if it showed it all you would see very large walls.
3) Yes volume and the fact its the market leading exchange, most the time all the other exchanges are being dragged around by China, it's been this way for a long time.
Note, a large majority of western traders also trade on chinese exchanges due to their low fees, higher liquidity and better order options.