      In general, an incoming market order is exposed to the crowd toprovide for a price improvement. Once exposed, the specialist will executethe order at the improved price in the crowd against the posted quote, orthe specialist may "stop" the order. By stopping a market order, thespecialist guarantees execution at the stop price (the current quote) whileattempting to execute the order at a better price for an improvement. Astopped order, therefore, can be described as a guarantee-or-better orderand is different from a stop order or a stop limit order." Recent studieshave shown that 26 percent of post-opening orders were stopped, and 62percent of these stopped orders were executed at a price better than thestopped price.12