NYSE specialist
A specialist was the individual assigned to oversee trading in a specific at a designated post on the New York floor, responsible for keeping an orderly market by matching buy and sell orders and stepping in with their own capital when the two sides of the market did not line up. For most of the twentieth century, this specialist system was how the NYSE ensured that a always had someone actively managing its trading.
The specialist's job combined matchmaking with . They kept the for their assigned , set opening prices each day, and were obligated to buy or sell from their own when needed to smooth out temporary imbalances between buyers and sellers, in exchange for the that role could generate.
The specialist system has largely been replaced by , a role built for a market that now trades primarily through electronic systems rather than human floor traders shouting orders. The core function specialists performed, keeping a 's trading fair and orderly, continues today, just carried out with far more automation and far fewer humans physically standing at a trading post.