A market maker is a company, or an individual, that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a financial instrument or commodity held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the bid-offer spread, or turn. From a market microstructure theory standpoint, market makers are net sellers of an option to be adversely selected at a premium proportional to the trading range at which they are willing to provide liquidity.
Most foreign exchange trading firms are market makers and so are many banks, although not in all currency markets. In foreign exchange (or FX) trading, where most deals are conducted over-the-counter and are, therefore, completely virtual, the market maker sells to and buys from its clients and is compensated by means of price differentials for the service of providing liquidity, reducing transaction costs and facilitating trade. Recent developments in the over-the-counter FX market have permitted even buy-side (non bank participants) virtually to act as market-makers through the advent of high speed/frequency software engines that submit bids and offers outside prices available on other networks or ECN (electronic communication network) where FX is traded.
In Stock Exchange
Most stock exchanges operate on a "matched bargain" or "order driven" basis. In such a system there are no designated or official market makers, but market makers nevertheless exist. When a buyer's bid price meets a seller's offer price or vice versa, the stock exchange's matching system decides that a deal has been executed.
In the United States, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and American Stock Exchange (AMEX), among others, have Designated Market Makers, formerly known as "specialists", who act as the official market maker for a given security. The market makers provide a required amount of liquidity to the security's market, and take the other side of trades when there are short-term buy-and-sell-side imbalances in customer orders. This helps prevent excess volatility, and in return, the specialist is granted various informational and trade execution advantages.
Other U.S. exchanges, most prominently the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, employ several competing official market makers in a security. These market makers are required to maintain two-sided markets during exchange hours and are obligated to buy and sell at their displayed bids and offers. They typically do not receive the trading advantages a specialist does, but they do get some, such as the ability to naked short a stock, i.e., selling it without borrowing it. In most situations, only official market makers are permitted to engage in naked shorting. Recent changes to the rules have explicitly banned naked shorting by options market makers.
There are over two thousand market makers in the USA and over a hundred in Canada.
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