Who is buying all these shares which are being panic sold?

Primrose

If millions of investors are panic selling their shares, who on earth is buying them? Somebody must be, otherwise it would have been impossible for them to have been unloaded? So are there thousands of closet millionaires who are going to make a killing when the market eventually turns round? I'm finding "tumbling stock market" concept a little difficult to understand because surely, for every share sold by by investor, it has to be bought by somebody else for the transaction to have taken place?

chopperharris

Large funds and some individuals will buy up decent shares as a miniscule part of their holdiing , ie risky small losses are acceptable with views to long term gains.

funds run for very long times , markets as the health warning on thier products say "go down as well as up".

NumbersGuy_2

Some funds have to be invested in equities regardless of if the market is going down (e.g. unit trusts, tracker funds, pension funds). They cannot just convert all their holdings to cash. So if they believe in a stock long term they will be willing to buy more when it goes below a certain level. As they take big positions (X% of a company), they have to build these holdings over time (buying over a period of weeks/months) and cannot go out one day and at a snap buy all the shares they need.

There are always some people in the market who think a stock will go up and some who will think it will go down, and the balance of these views sets the market price. The prices have been tumbling - signalling most people think the stocks will go down/are worth less and a preponderance of sellers vs buyers. But as the prices aren't zero, people think it is worth something (and some think it's worth more than others, these would be the people buying).

tradetime

As already stated, not everybody believes the end of the world has arrived, also there are ongoing share repurchase schemes by companies themselves, though I suspect many are being canceled to preserve capital, also there are short sellers who must buy to cover their positions.

Scrilla

I was doing some reading about shares last night and stumbled upon this on the bbc website which may be of interest to you.

Caudle

Put simply, if people want to sell shares and nobody wants to buy them, the price will fall lower and lower until the shares to find a buyer.

Other companies may buy shares of their competitors when they fall to a low price with a view to making a takeover bid in due course. Such companies will not be interested in the capital growth potential or the dividend yield. Their motives for purchase are quite different.

StevieJ

Me, well at least some of them.

Caudle

Brave or...........................???? :rotfl:

chopperharris

Caudle wrote: »

Put simply, if people want to sell shares and nobody wants to buy them, the price will fall lower and lower until the shares to find a buyer.

Other companies may buy shares of their competitors when they fall to a low price with a view to making a takeover bid in due course. Such companies will not be interested in the capital growth potential or the dividend yield. Their motives for purchase are quite different.

theres different kinds of shares , not all will give a buyout ability.

HankMcSpank

Who's buying?

Suckers that think there's going to be a quick recovery (or massive intraday bounce)...sure there'll inevitably be mini spikes, but rather than a V shape recovery, at best it'll be a U or more likely a L recovery (where the letter represents the indice chart).

Buying shares amid all this panic is akin to picking up pennies in the path of a steam roller.

chopperharris

HankMcSpank wrote: »

Who's? buying?

Suckers that think there's going to be a quick recovery (or massive intraday bounce)...sure there'll inevitably be mini spikes, but rather than a V shape recovery, at best it'll be a U or more likely a L recovery (where the letter represent the chart).

Buying shares amid all this panic is akin to picking up pennies in the path of a steam roller.

yes but is the thing actually moving?