21.   ECNs are relatively new inhabitants of Wall Street, the result of changes in the way customer orders to trade NASDAQ stocks are handled by brokerage firms.

22.   Earlier this month Charles Schwab Corp. said it would stop buying and selling customer orders through its Nasdaq market-making unit.

23.   Falconbridge was forced to buy nickel on the commodity market to fill customer orders during the strike.

24.   Fila said it will begin to report the backlog of customer orders, instead of futures orders, in coming seasons as a better measure of sales trends.

25.   For example, customer orders have picked up at aerospace and biotechnology companies but are lagging in the clothing industry, Mozaffari said.

26.   Further, some vendors cook foods like chicken or sausage only partially, then leave them to sit until a customer orders.

27.   From a metal file cabinet strewn with guitar strings and manila folders containing customer orders, Tomas takes out a scrapbook.

28.   He has also set up a backup database for customer order and billing information, in case the first database fizzles.

29.   He said the e-mail was intercepted in the course of trying to determine the source of a computer glitch that was interferring with customer orders.

30.   If Schwab matches two customer orders directly, it could narrow the spread by allowing the customers to split the difference in price.