THE ODD-LOT BUSINESS 
4/ 
closing hour of 3 p.m. Naturally, too, the stock tape is more 
apt to be delayed in printing quotations for active than for 
inactive securities. Owing to such occasional delays the cus- 
tomer who has just sent in a market order for 10 shares of 
Bethlehem Steel may see on the tape some minutes later a 
record of the sale of 100 shares of Bethlehem at 93. He will 
naturally suppose that he must pay 9314 for his stock, yet 
because of the slowness of the ticker the 100-share transaction 
at 93 may have occurred long before the odd-lot dealer on the 
Exchange has even received the customer’s order. Thus, while 
the dealer is waiting for the next sale the customer imagines 
that the whole transaction has been concluded. If the next sale 
should be at 9374, the customer must, of course, pay 933% for 
his stock, and unless he realizes that the ticker was behind the 
sales, he will be apt to conclude hastily that he is paying 14 too 
much. If, on the other hand, the next sale is at 9215 and he 
gets his stock for 9254, he may wonder whether a mistake has 
been made, but—at least according to the general run of 
human nature—he probably will say nothing about it. 
Misunderstandings Regarding “Bunched Sales.”—Some- 
times, too, a number of sales of one security are run off on the 
tape together, although in reality sales of other stocks have 
occurred between them. This occasional “bunching” of sales 
of one stock on the tape not only creates the illusion that stock 
market activity proceeds in violent outbursts of dealings in one 
after another issue, but it also is apt to mislead the odd-lot 
investor as to the exact 100-share quotation upon which the 
price of his odd-lot transaction has been based. 
Originally this “bunching” of sales on the tape arose from 
the fact that sales were reported to an operator of an electrical 
key-board who printed them on the ticker, from several dif- 
ferent stations on the floor; being after all flesh and blood, this 
operator in an active market would be compelled by the system 
under which he worked to print reports on the tape from each