Odd Lots

[Pavel Svinchnik]

When the riots started in Hong Kong, I noticed that Cathay Pacific stock dropped substantially. Assuming that it would go back up some day, I bought 300 shares as a speculative buy. It started back up and yesterday it reached a point where I decided to cash in. I put up my 300 shares for sale and someone bought 107 of them just before the price dropped again, leaving me with 193 shares. I've had both purchases and sales transact in partial lots before, but usually it's in multiples of 50 or 100 shares. I thought 107 was an unusual quantity to purchase. Maybe the buyer had some numerological reason for that number.

 

[MarathonMike]

Yeah that's annoying. I've been stuck with goofy odd lots like that. My guess is some people want to buy as many shares as they can with the money they have so they end up buying funny numbers of shares. But I'm not a broker, just a guess.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Mining nickel is gonna pay off, gare awn teed.

 

[Mac1958]

I've always liked the "Odd Lot Theory", which essentially recommends to look at what small investors are doing and do the opposite.