248 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
station in succession rather than in precise chronological order 
from all stations at once.’ 
When this key-board operator and the four other operators 
who “fed” him quotations were replaced by a centralized me- 
chanical device, it was thought that this defect of “bunched” 
sales had been at last eliminated. But the vastly increased 
volume of dealings in recent years has overburdened even the 
mechanical electrical interrupter which has replaced the old 
key-board operator, with the result that “bunched” sales on the 
tape still occur, although less frequently than formerly. The 
new stock ticker instrument, by enabling speedier dispatch of 
quotations, has, however, further obviated this problem. 
When sales are “bunched” on the tape, it is naturally very 
difficult for the odd-lot investor to determine which of these 
sales is the basis of his odd-lot transactions. Sometimes, too, 
he jumps to the conclusion that many sales in the given security 
have suddenly occurred, and that the odd-lot dealer has taken 
advantage of this fact to select the highest of them as a basis 
for selling and the lowest for the basis of buying, to and from 
the brokers who represent the public. To anyone familiar with 
the mechanism of reporting sales on the tape, the fallacy of 
such a conclusion should be apparent. Although the stock 
ticker system of the New York Stock Exchange is by all means 
the most efficient price reporting mechanism in the world, and 
although the Exchange has spared neither pains nor expense to 
improve it as rapidly as science and invention have permitted, 
it is still true that the system fails of perfection and that occa- 
sionally allowances must be made for its limitations. 
In addition, it is unfair to blame the ticker for all the delays 
between the giving of an odd-lot order and the appearance on 
the tape of the next 100-share sale upon which its execution is 
based. In active markets, especially at the opening, consider- 
able delays have sometimes occurred in the transmission of an 
TT 9 See Appendix VId.