Market Intermediaries

Market intermediaries are firms or people that stand between issuers, investors, trading venues, information sources, and liquidity. This branch groups intermediary, adviser, information-intermediary, liquidity-provider, hedge-fund-manager, and commission-based advising terms used in market-structure and client-service discussions.

Use these pages when the relevant question is not the trade venue itself but the role of a party that provides access, information, liquidity, advice, management, or transaction support.

What This Branch Covers

Decision Lens

Start with the intermediary’s function and compensation. A liquidity provider, adviser, information intermediary, and fund manager can all influence market outcomes, but they affect decisions through different records and duties.

Evaluation Checklist

• Identify the intermediary, role, compensation source, client relationship, and market function.
• Separate information provision, advice, liquidity provision, trade execution, and asset management.
• Check conflicts, access controls, disclosure, and service agreements before interpreting the role.
• Use broker-dealer pages when the issue is transaction execution or dealer capacity.
• Treat adviser registration, fiduciary, and compensation questions as professional-advice areas.

Common Mistakes

• Treating every intermediary as a broker.
• Ignoring compensation model when evaluating advice or access.
• Confusing information intermediaries with investment advisers.
• Assuming liquidity provision, market making, and asset management are the same function.

In this section

Choose a subsection first. Deeper term pages live inside each subsection, which keeps large topic hubs readable.