| abstract |
A method of providing orders to a virtual trading crowd in an exchange prior to automatically linking the order to an away market includes receiving a marketable order at the exchange, wherein the exchange price differs from a national best bid or offer (NBBO) price, routing the order to a trade engine, disseminating a request for price message, the request for price message including a price equal to the NBBO price, receiving a response message, initiating a quote trigger, wherein the quote trigger occurs for a period of N seconds, allocating at least a portion of the order according to an allocation algorithm, wherein an order size of each market maker is capped to prevent inflation of an allocated portion of the order, and allocating any remaining portion of the order to at least one predetermined market maker guarantor for execution at the NBBO price. |