Question about selling stock.

[CaucasianAsian29]

I don't understand how stock is sold exactly, and am pretty embarrassed to ask this stuff, thanks in advance.

Assume your using Etrade or something like it
*If you have X number of shares of a stock, does one person have to purchase all of those from you?

*If you wanna sell of your stock are you sometimes going to be left w/ like 14 left over shares each worth $10?

*If you only buy a small amount of stock, like under $1500, will people pass up on it because it's not the full amount they want?

[Pokeraddict]

1. As long as you sell at the market price your trade will be executed all at once, regardless of whether it took multiple buyers or prices. You would only be charged one trade.

2. If you make a limit order (meaning you want a specific price) then this could happen. If you sell at the market it cannot happen. This assumes you are talking about a stock that has any sort of volume.

3. Assuming it is a stock that has any kind of volume the market maker will pruchase your stock regardless of the size if there is not a current buyer. Let's say someone put a buy order for 1000 shares it is possible they would buy 200 shares from 5 different people. The buyer would never know as it would only show as one trade provided it all happened on the same day.

[pig4bill]

The easiest way to understand how the market trades is to think of it as a giant craigslist or ebay. People that want to sell advertise what they want to sell, how much of it, and at what price. They might look for WTB ads first, and save some time by taking their bids. Buying is the same way, in reverse.