Block Trade

A block trade is the sale or purchase of a large number of securities. A block trade involves a significantly large number of equities or bonds being traded at an arranged price between two parties. Block trades are sometimes done outside of the open markets to lessen the impact on the security price. In general, a block trade involves at least 10,000 shares of stock, not including penny stocks, or $200,000 worth of bonds. In practice, block trades are much larger than 10,000 shares.