Qu. re: Market Makers bidding for stock

[johntherevelato]

As I understanding it, with Level 2 access, one is able to see the price formation for a stock with asks and bids shown on both sides of the order book.

As I understand it, both sides of the order book are anonymous.

However, I have read that it's possible to know when the big market makers are pursuing stock as the stock appears on the MM window.

Is this the case for all big market makers? On the NAS and for the specialists on the NYSE?

[DuaneG]

Hi John,

This is definitely the case for the NASDAQ marketplace. With the NYOB (New York Open Book) the MMID's are all represented with NYSE. In the case of the NASDAQ market, we can use Total View, which is a more comprehensive look at the depth for a particular instrument. In the image below, we can see how a Market Maker is setting up multiple orders to buy and sell at various price levels. In this example, we can see that the MM SIZE has several buy orders in place at various price levels.