Bids and offers: First in, first served?

[5haretrader]

Hi,

I have always wondered how the order of bids and offers is determined for trading shares? Is it based on first in, first served? Is it random? I would appreciate it if something could shed light on this for me.

Cheers.

 

[nulla nulla]

Hi,

I have always wondered how the order of bids and offers is determined for trading shares? Is it based on first in, first served? Is it random? I would appreciate it if something could shed light on this for me.

Cheers.

Buyers queue up to buy and sellers queue up to to sell. Generally it is first in first served and the buyers/sellers are listed in the depth screens in accordance with the time they lodged their bids.

Then there is the matter of cross trades where the broker matches clients that are buyers with clients that are sellers (at the same price) but the party waiting in the queue is not at the head of the queue.