Step-Out/Step-In Trade

In a step-out trade, one brokerage firm executes a whole order, and afterward gives different firms a credit, or commission, for a predefined piece of the trade. For instance, an order to Big Brokerage for action on 500,000 shares could be stepped out to, say, three different firms in blocks. Suppose 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 pennies for each share commission. Firms A, B and C - - the beneficiaries of the stepped-out trade - - are executing the opposite side of the equation, the step-in trade.