Hi All, I am a beginner investor. I started diving into deep research about the stock market. We all know market makers control the market. As a retail investor in your brokerage app , you won't be able to see all the ask and bid prices. I always had a doubt. If apple has 1 billion shares in float why do I see only 10 million buy and sell orders.
1. I found out that brokerage apps have different levels of depth . As a retail investor we are limited to level 1 and 2 . We can't view all the orders only premium institutions have access to it . So some of the buy and sell orders are missed out.
2. Payment for Order flow: In the US , market makers pay commission to the stock broker to make their orders match with the retail investors, by giving them the highest priority.
They make a profit with spread.
3. Hedge funds don't buy and sell in huge quantities as retail investors can easily indicate it . They break into chunks and process orders . There are apps to track even that.
I was flabbergasted by these findings. If you guys have any findings to share which retail investors are unaware of please do .
Stock market is like an ocean , I found only three fishes.
Thanks in advance