In the speculation and securities world, there is something called emotion...this plays a very HUGE factor in determining "investor sentiment". If you are new to this "sport" and you
don't understand behavioral science and how mind games work, you are very vulnerable to manipulation. Yes, you can manipulate prices directly by pump and dumps, TA intervention if you can
forecast what the majority of traders may do and preempt it...or indirectly by monkeying with individual "investor's" mindset. This can work to either to raise or drop prices. Do not underestimate
the power of "opinion shaping". I have noticed certain posters (there is more than one and some with more than one account) on this forum who are very much practicing this "art". When
you've been in this game long enough, you can easily smell most of them like stink on shit...however, there are a smaller number of them who are very good at it and hard to detect. They can goose and subvert the
overall sentiment quite easily on the forums. One of the simplest method and there are several, is the ruse that they are a "believer" so suspicion is lifted. They will then subtly inject negative "information" while they are simultaneously posting positive "information" but using the least relevant ones. Once their infiltration is complete and reinforced, subversion is magnitudes simpler.