What is Decimalization?
Up until the year 2000, security prices were always given in the form of fractions. While this was an effective way of pricing, and though most investors had no trouble understanding what the price was in real dollars, a decision was made to standardize the pricing of securities in the format of all other pricing. This conversion from fractions to decimals is known as decimalization. Though the process of decimalization seems fairly simple, it is more complicated than what most may have learned in schools about converting decimals to fractions. Software and other applications written specifically for securities were designed to accommodate fractions, not decimals. Therefore, decimalization was a process that could not take place overnight. One of the first to start its decimalization conversion was the NASDAQ stock market. It received an order to do so on 8 June 2000 and had concluded its transition by 9 April 2001. Due to the time allowed to make the conversion, Laura Unger, the actin
