Patent ID: 8626636

Claim:
A method comprising: (a) entering, at a first computer, an order to purchase or sell exchange-traded shares on behalf of an investor on a secondary market, wherein the exchange-traded shares are associated with a single investment company that has issued: (i) one or more classes of shares that are bought from and redeemed with the single investment company at a net asset value, and (ii) one or more classes of shares that are listed for trading on a national securities exchange and that are bought and sold at negotiated market prices, wherein shares that are bought and sold at negotiated market prices are the exchange traded shares, and wherein an owner of any share of any class of shares has an undivided interest in the single investment company; (b) executing the order on the secondary market via the first computer, wherein executing the order comprises communicating the purchase or sell order of the exchange-traded shares to a second computer on behalf of the investor to fulfill the investor's purchase or sell order, and wherein the second computer maintains firm bid and offer prices in the exchange-traded shares by automatically buying or selling exchange-traded shares at publically quoted prices; and (c) updating account data of the investor in the first computer to reflect a new number of exchange-traded shares held by the investor, wherein the single investment company does not receive data reflecting the purchase or sell order of the exchange traded shares.