Traders have long been haunted by the idea that there is someone else on the market, apart from them – a much larger and a more powerful player, who knows what they don’t. How can they safely trade knowing this? Perhaps, they can do this if only they learn to look at the market as a market maker.
Can one give a more precise answer to the question: “who’s a market maker, and what’s it like? Is there just one or are there many market makers?”
Unfortunately, ordinary traders like you and us will never be able to answer these questions, since they are simply beyond the reach of the organisations that can hypothetically be the market makers. It’s like when humankind allows a possibility of the existence of other civilisations, but cannot tell exactly how many of them there really are and what they’re like – and it might never even find out.
Plausible answer. All the market participants that have sufficient capital to somehow influence the price movement in their favour fall into the category of “market makers”. It could be various corporations, funds, banks or even individuals from, for example, the Forbes rating. The national government can also act as a market maker on behalf of a central bank.
All the above mentioned participants create an image of a “market maker”, but their actions are not coordinated, i.e. they are motivated by personal interests and rarely cooperate, either by agreement or by a sheer chance. The only thing they have in common is the need for a financial or political benefit from the market.
Conspiracy answer. There is also an idea of a single market maker or an organisation that has such a powerful influence that even central banks are only small fish to it.
There’s a lot of talk about a secret society which consists of the most powerful people, and there are also mentions of the Masons. In addition, the role of such a market maker is not only to take money from citizens, there’s also a higher purpose that we cannot understand.