From: ThatWouldBeTelling@thevillage.com   
      
   Anton Ertl wrote:   
   > anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:   
   >> For multiplication, one common operation is to multiply a price with a   
   >> number of pieces resulting in a price, and no rescaling is necessary   
   >> there.  Another common operation is to compute a percentage; you do   
   >> have rescaling there.   
   >   
   > One interesting aspect is that the interest rates I have seen are   
   > multiples of 1/800 (e.g., 1 3/4%=7/4%=14/8%=14/800).  One can also   
   > represent these through decimal scales, but the decimal scale that   
   > allows to represent them is 1/100000 (1/800=125/100000).  It may be   
   > more economical in bits to scale with 1/800 (or maybe 1/1600 to be   
   > prepared the next innovation in finance).   
   >   
   > For tax rates, IIRC I have also seen half percentages, so using a   
   > 1/800 or 1/1600 scale factor may be a good idea for them, too.   
   >   
   > - anton   
      
   I don't know about the 800 but stock and bond prices used to be   
   published with fractions like 17 1/8. I can't remember when they   
   switched to publishing in decimal.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)