244 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE
certain that his sales will be the last of the day. The only
practice which is just to everyone is, therefore, to execute
orders at the close on the final bid and asked quotations.
Limited Orders in Odd-Lots.—Another set of misunder-
standings is occasioned by limited orders for odd-lot purchases
or sales. A limited order, as we have previously noticed, is one
which fixes a certain price at which a customer will buy or sell
a stock. A buyer may stipulate, for example, that he will not
pay more than 75 for the 25 shares of Pennsylvania Railroad
he wishes to purchase. Similarly, an investor who has 30
shares of Eastman Kodak, may instruct his broker to sell it if
he can get 250. Such limited orders are always executed at the
price limits set, and as soon as the appropriate price for 100-
share lots is reached, that is, as soon as 100 shares of Penn-
sylvania sell as low as 747%, or 100 shares of Eastman Kodak
sell as high as 25014, the execution of these orders—one at 3
and the other at 14 from the 100-share sales—is automatically
effected.
Yet even this uniform rule occasionally leads to misunder-
standings. For example, a customer might give his order to
purchase 20 shares of General Motors at 80. After selling at
81, General Motors might drop on the next 100-share sale to
79, thus moving through So without actually recording a sale
at that price. In such a case the odd-lot dealer would sell the
20 shares to the customer’s broker at 80. The customer might
object that the next sale had really been made at 79, and that
therefore he should get his 20 shares at 7974. Yet he has pur-
chased the stock and received it at the price he himself has
named. If the order to purchase 20 shares of General Motors
at 80 is received by the odd-lot dealer and is therefore “in the
market” before the sale of 100 shares at 81, it is considered a
bid for stock and is therefore executed subsequently at its
limit of 80. But if this 20-share order comes into the market
after the sale of 100 General Motors at 81, it is then executed
14 away from the next sale, or at 7914. In other words,
