Originally Posted by
JohnnyIrishXM
Yes and no to your Question Tunes.
Think of it as your a client who wants 2 mil shares bought or sold at .40.
you put your order in and the broker or MM's you gave it to has 1 job to do and he's working for you to get your price smartly(which means don't let the price run up or down with large orders).so he will put in 100 share trades in the bid or ask depending on whether your selling or buying trying to drive price up or down to fill all or part of it..now this only works on low vol days like we have now,with no particular pressure to buy or sell,what is commonly called consolidating..It is perfectly legal to do and he will do his best because he wants to keep you as a client for the commissions on the trades,if you fail he;ll get someone else next time...nowsometimes mm's will not really have any orders at market so they will trade back and forth to artificially skew the market to where they think the buys will come or sells ,either one doesn;t matter to mm's.. hope this helps alittle,also they compete against each other too on both sides,ask and bid..