Jobbers

Jobbers were specialist market intermediaries in the traditional open-outcry stock exchange system — particularly in the pre-electronic era of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the London Stock Exchange — who acted as market makers by continuously quoting both buy and sell prices for securities from their own account, providing liquidity to the market without executing trades on behalf of clients. Unlike brokers (who transacted on behalf of clients and charged a commission), jobbers operated as principals — buying and selling for their own inventory — profiting from the bid-ask spread between the prices at which they bought and sold shares throughout the trading session. The jobbing system required traders to physically execute transactions on the exchange floor, with jobbers holding inventory positions across multiple securities and managing their exposure throughout the day. In India, the traditional jobbing system at the BSE was replaced by screen-based electronic trading when NSE introduced its fully computerised platform in 1994 — making jobbers obsolete as the electronic limit order book replaced the need for physical market makers in liquid equity markets. The role of jobbers has effectively been replaced by algorithmic market makers and high-frequency trading firms in modern electronic markets. In the contemporary mutual fund context, the term is occasionally referenced historically when discussing the evolution of Indian capital market infrastructure from the open-outcry trading pit to the current electronically matched, transparent, exchange-operated order book system.