Their incentive is thus to grow your assets as quickly and safely as possible. They therefore will use the lowest cost trade executions and use much more of a buy and hold strategy, which lowers the tax bite on you. Stock exchanges act as auction houses. They are places to match buyers and sellers. The exchanges do not actually purchase or sell the securities.
Specialists match buy and sell orders.
There is only one specialist firm for each stock traded at the exchanges. Stocks listed on the NYSE and AMEX may also be traded on one of the five regional exchanges. In addition, thousands of stocks are traded electronically on the Nasdaq stock market. To be traded on a particular market, companies must meet size and earnings requirements. In contrast to the NYSE, all trades on the Nasdaq are done electronically, so traders do not need to be present on the actual trading floor to execute their trades.