Market Maker

AKA: Liquidity Provider.
See: Trade, Stock, Company, Financial Instrument, Commodity, Price Discovery, Bid Price, Asking Price.

References

(Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/market_maker Retrieved:2015-3-9.
- A market maker or liquidity provider 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. ^[1] The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission defines a ‘“market maker’” as a firm that stands ready to buy and sell stock on a regular and continuous basis at a publicly quoted price. A Designated Primary Market Maker (DPM) is a specialized market maker approved by an exchange to guarantee that he or she will take the position in a particular assigned security, option or option index. ^[2]

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketmaker.asp
- QUOTE: A broker-dealer firm that accepts the risk of holding a certain number of shares of a particular security in order to facilitate trading in that security. Each market maker competes for customer order flow by displaying buy and sell quotations for a guaranteed number of shares. Once an order is received, the market maker immediately sells from its own inventory or seeks an offsetting order. This process takes place in mere seconds.
  The Nasdaq is the prime example of an operation of market makers. There are more than 500 member firms that act as Nasdaq market makers, keeping the financial markets running efficiently because they are willing to quote both bid and offer prices for an asset.