What is the History of ECN?
During the 1987 stock market crash, thousands of individual investors had difficulty liquidating their stocks due to the unavailability of their brokers to take orders. In an effort to create a fairer playing field for smaller investors, NASD instituted SOES (Small Order Execution System) to ensure that small investors can buy and sell up to 1000 shares of widely held stocks by themselves. Since then, many other ECNs (Electronic Communications Networks) were created to give retail customers a way to trade stocks without direct broker assistance.
