U.S. equities exchanges and regulators have agreed to begin reporting stock orders of less than 100 shares, common in high-priced popular names like Apple Inc and Google Inc, on a feed of real-time stock data, in an effort to boost market transparency. Members of the exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority voted on Oct. 24 to include the orders - known as odd lots - in the data, said Colin Clark, a senior vice president at NYSE Euronext. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was also represented at the meeting, he said. While investors can place orders for any number of shares, odd lots are not currently displayed on the consolidated feed of stock transactions, adding opacity to the market, said Maureen O'Hara, a Cornell University professor who co-authored a paper on the subject. "Post-trade transparency, that is, the ability to know what has happened in the market, is something that is important and hiding the odd lots has ended up dramatically
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