Patent ID: 7882010

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of determining an opening price for a financial product traded in an electronic marketplace, the method comprising: using a computer system in the electronic marketplace to detect a locked or crossed condition in a market served by the electronic marketplace prior to opening of the market; and at a time prior to an official opening time for opening regular trading, the time prior to an official opening time for opening regular trading, being about 30 seconds prior to the official opening time for regular trading, the computer system automatically removing the locked or crossed condition to allow opening of trading in the particular product by: pairing by the computer either the highest bid against the lowest offer(s) against which the highest bid is marketable, if the bid is the oldest in time of that pair or, the lowest offer against the highest bid(s) against which the offer is marketable, if the offer is the oldest in time of that pair; identifying an oldest order of this pair as an incoming order; matching the incoming order against contra side interest, with contra side interest comprising quotes and/or orders that are displayable with matching occurring according to a priority; disseminating, over a distributed computer system network, prices of the interest that remain at the top of each side of the market as opening bid and offer prices; and queuing any remaining quotes and/or orders (quotes/orders) submitted after the removing of the locked or crossed condition has commenced in a time-priority queue.