Step-Out/Step-In Trade

In a step-out trade, one brokerage firm executes an entire order, and then gives other firms a credit, or commission, for a specified piece of the trade. For example, an order to Big Brokerage for action on 500,000 shares could be stepped out to, say, three other firms in blocks. Let's say Firm A gets a block of 100,000, Firm B gets a block of 30,000, and Firm C gets a block of 10,000, and all get 6 cents per share commission. Firms A, B and C -- the recipients of the stepped-out trade -- are executing the other side of the equation, the step-in trade.