In determining a winning allocation in a forward auction, reverse auction or an exchange, a plurality of allocations are defined wherein each allocation defines a trade between one or more potential buyers and one or more potential sellers. At least one potential buyer is queried regarding at least one preference of the buyer about at least one allocation or a bundle associated therewith. The buyer's reply or intimation to the query is received and, based on the reply or intimation, each allocation that is either not feasible or not optimal is eliminated from consideration as the winning allocation. This process is repeated until a predetermined criteria is met whereupon one of the remaining allocations is selected as the winning allocation.
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