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- Orders are routed from the investment firms (one is a buyer, the other is a seller) to their respective Executing Brokers.
- The Executing Brokers send the orders to the appropriate Marketplace for the security being traded. The Marketplaces respond with executions ("fills").
- The Executing Brokers send the fills to the Clearing Broker that was designated by the investment firms. Many Executing Brokers are themselves Clearing Brokers, a term which is called "self-clearing".
- The Marketplace(s) and the Clearing Brokers compare their shares/money to make sure that they match. This is referred to as "Street-Side matching".
- The Investment Managers inform their respective Custodians what they should expect to receive from/deliver to the Clearing Brokers, and the Custodians perform this comparison. This is referred to as "Customer-Side matching". This occurs the day of the trade (T+0).
Financial market participants includes both the financial markets which operate in countries around the globe, as well as the different categories of people who use and/or work in such markets. This article does not attempt to address such a large number of subjects in a single piece. Rather this article provides brief descriptions of each, with links to the many other articles which delve in much greater detail into each one.