# What's so special about 5000 shares? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 16, 2001, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-special-about-5000-shares/72713 "2001-07-16T18:49:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2001, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-special-about-5000-shares/72713/1 "2001-07-16T18:49:16Z")
Pretty much all brokerage firms restrict individual trades to 5000 shares of stock. What’s significant about 5000? Was it just an arbitrary number, or does the SEC require some sort of monitoring of all trades above a certain size (kind of like the way the IRS needs to be informed of all bank transactions \>= $10k)? ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2001, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-special-about-5000-shares/72713/2 "2001-07-16T18:52:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by frogstein \* > Pretty much all brokerage firms restrict individual trades to 5000 shares of stock. This is not true, AFAIK. Certainly mine doesn’t. But they do charge a higher commission at that point. ---
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2001, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-special-about-5000-shares/72713/3 "2001-07-17T14:29:49Z")
I stand corrected. Actually, I knew that some brokers would handle larger trades with much larger commissions, but I was lazy… Anyway, nobody knows the answer to this?