Computer system for virtual share dealing

摘要

A computer system (1) buys and sells virtual shares on behalf of investors, usually investing small sums, in order to reduce the dealing costs for small transactions. The system thus maintains a notional level of shares held on behalf of all the investors who participate in the system. A monitoring process (8) runs continually checking exposure on individual shares, and the system buys and sells blocks of real shares in the market to keep the exposure to individual companies at an acceptable level. By buying and selling larger blocks of real shares on a more infrequent basis than the virtual share transactions, the smaller transactions are effectively consolidated together, with associated cost savings. <IMAGE>