Patent ID: 7676424

Claim:
A computer readable memory medium containing computer readable instructions that when executed by a computer perform the following steps for conducting an auction for a plurality of financially settled contracts: receiving by the computer a plurality of first participant bids from a first participant; receiving by the computer a plurality of second participant bids from a second participant; and simultaneously matching by the computer a batch of bids to create a plurality of awarded bids, wherein the batch of bids comprises the plurality of bids from all the participants, wherein each bid of the batch of bids relates to at least a portion of the plurality of financially settled contracts, and wherein the matching comprises matching at least one leg of at least one non-outright bid, wherein a non-outright bid is a bid for a position that does not have a one-to-one correlation to a contract, and has at least one of: (i) multiple legs, where each leg represents a long or short position in a particular contract, and, (ii) one or more legs each representing a single position that is less than all of a contract; wherein the non-outright bid comprises a price and an indication of each contract corresponding to a leg of the non-outright bid, the indication comprising, a quantity, a settlement period, and a contract code, and an indication of which leg or legs are short and which leg or legs are long, and wherein the matching does not match any of the legs of a non-outright bid unless it matches all of the legs of the non-outright bid, such that a participant making a non-outright bid has no risk that less than all of the non-outright bid will be awarded.