CHAPTER 7
How Is Proprietary Trading Different from Market Making?
This chapter will differentiate between the two main roles a trader can play on a trading floor: proprietary trader and market maker. One popular definition of proprietary trading is playing with the bank’s capital. But what most people don’t understand is that market makers also “play with the bank’s capital.” So what is the difference between a proprietary trader and a market maker? The answer to that is pretty simple: the market maker must be prepared to buy or sell whenever a client needs to buy or sell. In other words, he must be prepared to put a price on a trade even if he doesn’t want to. Hence, he makes markets. The proprietary trader, on the other hand, gets to decide ...
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