The cake, luckily, made Alice small again. Unluckily, it did the same with her thoughts. She was going to sell her Coke stock, no matter what its merits. And she was going to sell it soon -- the voice told her to. And she had to do it quickly. That was just the way with The Quick.

Beneath the leaves, beside the rabbit's house, she was the size of a girl again.

On a branch, hanging over her head, sat a cat. A grinning cat, from Cheshire.

"Where do I go from here?" she asked the cat.

"Depends on where you want to go."

"Somewhere with a phone."

"Well, in that direction lives a Hatter," said the cat, "and he's got a sweet little portable."

At the Hatter's, first name Mad, a table was laid out for tea. Investors Business Daily sat beside the cups. At three places were three faces, one each belonging to the Doormouse, the March Hare and the host, Mad Hatter.

"Excuse me," she said.

"For what?" asked the Hatter.

"Can I use your phone?"

"Can you?" he asked back.

Oh boy, a grammar freak, she thought. "May I?"

It dialed itself, and quicker than you can say (and you may, if you like), "What a mistake," she sold her Coke stock.

"That's a deal to lose your shirt on," said the Doormouse.

"If it's still on," said the March Hare, using a knife to put grape jelly on a biscuit, "then she hasn't lost it."

The table was littered with spreads -- honey butter, nut butter, strawberry preserves, applejack jelly, and a strange, dark looking jam.

"So many divergent spreads. What's this one?," Alice pointed.

The Hatter thought she was pointing at the newspaper. "Why do Over-TheCounter (OTC) stocks have such divergent spreads in comparison with exchange spreads, you ask?" he asked.

1) OTC stocks are more expensive, therefore creating larger spreads
2) Market Makers for the OTC market don't have rules they have to follow
3) OTC stocks trade too thinly to make a profit for the Market Makers, so they widen the spreads to make up for it
4) OTC stocks trade on a negotiated basis, making for more competition and more latitude in setting spreads

The answer is 4) OTC stocks trade on a negotiated basis, making for more competition and more latitude in setting spreads.

Trading in the OTC market is different from trading on an exchange. For one thing, there's no centralized area for trading, as there is with the exchanges. The specialists in the OTC market are called Market Makers, and there often is only one to a stock, whereas on the exchanges there is generally more than one specialist per stock. Because the trading process in the OTC market is done on a negotiated basis, trading can be more volatile, and the Market Makers s feel more justified in asking for more commission through the spread. On the exchanges, the trades are done on an auction basis, which makes for tighter spreads since there's more competition (and more haggling). These differences are what seems to give the Market Makers a great deal more latitude with the spreads. Now, however, the NASD regulatory board is making headway in tightening the spreads for OTC-traded stocks, making trading more attractive to the individual investor.

Alice's head was spinning. Her brain was in a dervish. She'd sold the Coke stock: lock, stock and barrel. And her investment future was indeed the latter -- over a barrel.

Then, she heard the voice again. The voice of The Quick. Who or what was this voice? Who or what was The Quick?

This time, though, instead of telling her what to do, it was asking a question.

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