Small Order Execution System - SOES

When we think of Wall Street, we might think of big shots in gleaming skyscrapers, making billion-dollar deals between helicopter trips to the Hamptons. But much of Wall Street business is an aggregate of small transactions...retail customers buying a few hundred shares of this or that stock.

The SOES is part of the process of transacting these more small-time trades on the NASDAQ market. Put in place after the 1987 stock market crash (in part, as a way of preventing that sort of trauma from happening again), the SOES consists of a computer system that executes trades automatically, helping to maintain liquidity and keep the exchange humming.