Mixed Lot
Categories: Trading
Think of those math story problems from sixth grade that went something like this:
A bag of hot dogs contains 8 wieners. You need 20 hot dogs for a barbecue. How many bags do you need?
The trick of the problem comes from the fact that you need a partial bag to get the 20 dogs. The real answer is 2.5 bags, but you need to purchase three bags to get all the dogs you need.
In other words: it’s a mixed lot. You need two full lots (the full bags) and a partial one. A mixture of full and parts.
It comes up on Wall Street in stock trading. Stocks usually get sold in 100-count lots. So purchasing 200 shares would consist of two 100-share lots.
A mixed lot includes any non-100 divisible number. So a transaction of 530 shares would entail five 100-share lots and a partial lot of 30 shares.