254 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
Similarly, in a wild bull market when the price structure is 
becoming top-heavy and dangerous, the odd-lot investor tends 
to liquidate his small lots of stock and take his profit. The 
aggregate effect of this tendency is to restrain the rising ten- 
dency of the market at times when such restraint is most 
salutary from the economic standpoint. 
Thus, by extending the facilities of the Stock Exchange 
securities market in this way to millions of small investors 
throughout the United States and even beyond its borders, the 
odd-lot dealer not only makes it a better wholesale market than 
it could otherwise be, but also renders it a constant force in 
forwarding the democratization of both American finance and 
American society.