Welcome to the Investors Trading Academy talking glossary of financial terms and events.
Our word of the day is “Market Maker”
A broker-dealer who is prepared to buy or sell a specific security — such as a bond or at least one round lot of a stock — at a publicly quoted price, is called a market maker in that security. Other brokers buy or sell specific securities through market makers, who may maintain inventories of those securities. There is often more than one market maker in a particular security, and they bid against each other, helping to keep the marketplace liquid. The Stock Market and the corporate and municipal bond markets are market maker markets. In contrast, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange there’s a single specialist to handle transactions in each security.
Market Makers must be compensated for the risk they take; what if he buys your shares in IBM then IBM’s stock price begins to fall before a willing buyer has purchased the shares? To prevent this, the market maker maintains a spread on each stock he covers. The market maker may purchase your shares of IBM from you for $100 each the ask price and then offer to sell them to a buyer at $100.05 the bid price. The difference between the ask and bid price is only $.05, but by trading millions of shares a day, he’s managed to pocket a significant chunk of change to offset his risk.
In contrast to conventional brokers, marker makers assume a high level of risk because of the high number of units they hold their inventory. Market makers are entrusted with promoting market efficiency by keeping markets liquid. To ensure impartiality for the benefit of their clients, brokerage houses who act as market makers are legally required to separate their market making activities from their brokerage sales operations.
By Barry Norman, Investors Trading Academy – ITA
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