Astra Zeneca shares are overpriced rubbish anyways and you will lose a small fortune if you buy them. Just look for shares that don't have the silly 0.1 at the end and are only whole pennies.
Because the smaller the gap between pricing (i.e., half pennies in UK, tenths of a cent in the US [or even less]) allow for tighter bid/ask spreads.
Also, it is really irrelevant whether they use coinage that no longer exists or even never did exist - no one pays actual cash for a share - all money is transmitted electronically and rounded to the nearest unit. They could technically price AZ at 3937.1 if they so desired.
The answer is the same as to your previous question. It comes into use when you buy or sell a large number of shares. Some holders have hundreds/ thousands of shares; then the price is rounded up or down to the nearest penny. As the previous answer states; as with petrol pricing.
It's a bit like buying petrol. The price is shown as say 135.9 pence per litre, but you would never buy exactly 1 litre. If you did they would round it up to 136 pence. If you bought 10 litres it would then come to exactly 1359 pence with no rounding up necessary.
further to my question yesterday, which on reflection I did not make it clear but I will try now and ask again.
The quoted price for astra zenica shares today showed a price of 3937.5p.
In pounds and pence that would be ￡39.37and a half pence for 1 share
what my question is trying to find out why do they still have half pennies shown in the price quoted for 1 share when half pennies in coinage terms do not exist.
