short ladder attack

A situation where extremely large numbers (thousands) of very tiny trades (100 shares or less) are done at approximately the same share price (within a penny or two) for a short period of time (typically <30 minutes) that causes the tools, software, and websites that retail investors use to buy/sell stocks to fail. Examples of failure include graphs that were showing the activity of the stock while the markets are open suddenly disappearing and showing "Data Not Available". Where multiple attempts are made to view the graph and continue to fail for a period of time. Inability to view the current stock price, current volume, current translations in progress, or other details due to server failure or sever overload. Inability to log in to investment websites to change buy or sell stocks because the websites do not respond or do not load. Server error messages when submitting a buy or sell order that prevents it from being registered with the market. It is rumored that these types of attacks are done to prevent retail investors from being able to buy the stock so that the hedge funds can drive down the price and purchase it at a lower price using tools, software, and websites that are not available to retail investors.