Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/461

PURCHASE AND SALE. 445 or sold, it is taken to mean that they shall be contracted to be bought or sold for "regular" delivery. With regard to the statement of the amount and kind of the securities to be bought or sold, the following customs have been established. 1. If an order in the regular form simply states a number before the name of a corporation, as, " Sell for my account and risk lOO Union Pacific Ry.," the number in question is taken to mean the number of shares of the capital stock of the corporation named which shall be contracted to be bought or sold. 2. There are in common use among stockbrokers a large number of abbreviations of the full names of corporations and for various kinds of securities. If any of these abbreviations are used in an order in the regular form, they are taken for what they stand for to stockbrokers. With regard to the statement of the price for which securities are ordered to be bought or sold, the following customs have been established. 1. If an order in the regular form simply states a number at which a number of bonds or shares of stock is to be bought or sold, as, " Sell for my account and risk lOO Erie at 13," the number in question is taken to mean the number of dollars for which each hundred dollars' worth of the par value of the bonds or stock shall be contracted to be bought or sold.^ 2. If an order in the regular form does not state the price for which securities are (to be contracted) to be bought or sold, the order is taken to mean that the securities shall be contracted to be bought or sold at the " market price." ^ All the customs according to which what is expressed in an order in the regular form is interpreted have now been stated. But for them an order Hke, " Buy for my account and risk 100 1 The reason for this custom is that stocks and bonds are contracted to be bought and sold on the floor of a Stock Exchange for so much for each hundred dollars' worth of the par value. 2 Dos Passos, 1 19, 182. The " market price " is understood to be the best price (/. e. highest in case of a sale, lowest in case of a purchase) which the stockbroker can obtain as soon as possible after the order is given. This custom is in accordance with the usual rules of law for interpreting an authority to buy or to sell where no price at which the agent shall buy or sell is fixed. See Mechem on Agency, §§ 946, 362 ; also Bigelow V. Walker, 24 Vt. 149.