Buying and Selling at Securities Exchanges

Dealer Markets

Unlike broker markets, dealer markets do not operate on centralized trading floors but instead use sophisticated telecommunications networks that link dealers throughout the United States. Buyers and sellers do not trade securities directly, as they do in broker markets. They work through securities dealers called market makers, who make markets in one or more securities and offer to buy or sell securities at stated prices. A security transaction in the dealer market has two parts: the selling investor sells his or her securities to one dealer, and the buyer purchases the securities from another dealer (or in some cases, the same dealer).

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) named Stacy Cunningham the first female head of the exchange in its 226-year history. Outside the exchange, the statue "Fearless Girl" by Kristen Virbal stared down the "bull" statue and represented the need for more female representation on the world's most important exchange. How does the naming of Stacy Cunningham as head of the NYSE demonstrate that the glass ceiling has been shattered?