That the Committee is aware of the importance of the issue of a prospectus, which places the shares of a company without the process of market-making, is shown by its requiring the production of the document before the securities can be quoted in the Official List. When they are so quoted, the list gives not only the latest price of the stocks or shares, but provides an adequate description of the security, states the total amount of the authorised issue, the amount which has actually been issued, the rate of the last interest or dividend payment, and the date when those payments are due. It also gives the nominal amount or the amount paid up on the stock or share, and by comparing this with the market price it can at once be seen whether the security stands at a premium, or at a discount, or at par. Ten-pound shares quoted at 13-1/2-14-1/2 are at 4 premium, 14 being the middle price between the selling price and the buying price, both given. One-pound shares quoted at 13/16-15/16 are at 1/8 discount; when the market quotation is exactly equal to the denomination of the share, the price is at par. Immediately against the quotation there often appear the letters _x d_, an abbreviation for ex dividend, which means that the price of the security does not include the dividend which the company has just paid or is about to pay upon it. The name of one who sells the security after the dividend is declared may be on the books of the company, and he will receive the dividend warrant; but if at the time of sale the stock was not quoted ex dividend, he has to hand over the amount of the dividend to the buyer of the stock. The buyer's broker will demand it. Thus when a stock is quoted ex dividend the price immediately falls, other things being the same, by the amount of dividend payable. The dividend in the case just mentioned is sent to the seller of the stock, because from the point of view of the company he is its holder--the transaction occurred after the books of the company had been closed in order to prepare the dividend. The stock is not, of course, quoted ex dividend before the books of the company have been closed, nor before the dividend is actually declared, but the guiding principle is to quote it ex dividend as soon after these events as possible. In the case of the Funds, however, where the closing of the books is on a fixed date, the settlement is made to synchronise with the closing of the books, and the quotation becomes ex dividend practically simultaneously.