Odd Lot Trading: The Buyer's Trap

I never felt cowered or even cheated when I first faced this situation.

I was then trading odd-lots in DRB-Hicom through my remisier. My remisier contacted me shortly after I gave the order to buy. She told me only one unit of the share was sold to me out of the number of shares I ordered. This put me into a fix as what could I do with one share. I needed more. So, I had no choice but to take the seller at his price which was at least 50 sen higher. It did not really have much effect in the absolute sense to me as I was buying only a small number of units.

I am now on my own doing e-trading; keying in my own quotes. As such, I could see the way the stock has been traded on this odd-lot counter with the seller having the upper hand to manipulate the price of the share.

When the market opened,I put in a competitive bid for BIMB. My bid was RM2.17 while the seller's bid was RM2.83. The next time I looked at my trade pending status,I saw only one share was matched. This went on until the market break off for lunch.If I do not buy any more shares of this counter; I will be saddled with RM28 as brokerage charge, RM1 for stamp duty and a couple of sens for clearing fees. This will make this one share,one of the most expensive to date.

I had to get out of this trap. So, I placed a small number of units to be priced at RM2.83-the seller's price. To my consternation,some seller gave their shares to me at RM2.50. That saved me some money- about 30 sen more for each unit.

Then, I took a buy position ahead of the bargain-hunting herd at RM2.19. Again this seller gave me one unit at RM2.19; hoping I will buy all that I wanted at RM2.83.

For me, I thought that he will give in to me at the dying minutes of the day if he is desperate to unload, as he would have to pay high brokerage for such a small trade if he didn't. Strangely, he did not budge. Apparently,if he had sold the same counter on the main board, he need not pay much brokerage when he trades additionally on the odd-lot counter for the same share. That must be the explanation for his reluctance to surrender to the buyer's price.

For me, my quick thinking has saved the day and I did not have to pay a higher price for the shares bought. This was my sense of consolation.

So, if you are trading on the odd lot counter, beware of this trap that sellers set up to bait you to buy their shares at their bidding prices!