11. Answer the following questions based on text b:

1. How is the order to buy or sell shares handled?

2. What does the floor of the Exchange look like?

3. What categories of market professionals act on the trading floor?

4. What functions do they fulfill?

5. What is price continuity and how is it preserved?

6. What prompted block-trading?

12. Make up sentences of your own using the following expressions from text b.

A registered representative, the individual's order, to execute the order, a specific post, to place a "market order", to take an order from someone, to maintain price continuity, to narrow the spread, to fill the gap, to take the risk of owning the shares, to absorb the large blocks of stock.

13. Say what is true and what is false. Correct the false sentences.

1. When an individual wants to place an order to buy or sell shares he contacts a real estate firm.

2. The client's order is relayed to the floor broker directly.

3. Every stock trade on the Exchange is assigned to a specific post.

4. On securities exchanges shares are usually traded in round lots.

5. There are seven categories of market professionals on the trading floor.

6. Commission brokers work for member firms.

7. Over the last several years there has been a rapid fall in block trading by large brokerage firms.

8. The round lot is generally 50 shares.

9. The trading stock exchange floor is like a small shop.

10. The process of buying or selling without delay happens in a matter of seconds.

14. Match the expressions listed in column A with the synonymous ones from column B.

A	В
1. stock exchange	a) exchange trading
2. member of the exchange	b) stock listed at the exchange
3. exchange days	c) sale contract
4. exchange hours	d) unquoted securities
5. exchange dealings	e) official quotation list
6. stock exchange securities	f) trading days
7. unlisted securities	g) slump in exchange prices
8. contract note	h) dealings in stocks and shares
9. stock exchange list	i) securities exchange
10. smash on the exchange	j) official hours
11. stock exchange operations	k) floor member
12. stock exchange value	l) market intelligence
13. financial news	m) market value

15. Using the words in brackets as a guide, explain the meaning of the following terms:

securities (income yielding papers, traded on, stock, shares);

government securities (fixed-interest paper);

ordinary shares (rights to assets and dividends, preference shares, paid);

actuary (the calculation of risk and premiums, a person trained in, assurance purposes);

equities (a fixed rate of interest, stock and shares, do not pay);

share (a unit of ownership, a proportion of distributed profits, small denomination);

stock (a unit of ownership, a proportion of distributed profits, units of £100 value);

yield or return (outlay, percentage the investor gets on);

listed company (company, securities, to be traded, an organized exchange).