Quote a bid and an ask around a moving fair price. Capture the spread when the market trades against your quote — but quote too wide and you'll miss every fill.
Reference price (last print)
A market maker is the trader who's always willing to deal — quoting a price to buy (the bid) and a price to sell (the ask) at the same time. They earn the tiny spread in between, thousands of times a day, in exchange for providing liquidity to everyone else.
The catch: the fair price keeps moving. Quote too wide and nobody trades with you. Quote too tight around a stale price and you get "picked off." This drill compresses that whole balancing act into one decision per round.
Want the bigger picture? See where bids and asks fit in how the stock market works, then manage a full book in the simulator.
A market maker continuously quotes both a price to buy (bid) and a price to sell (ask), profiting from the small spread between them while keeping the market liquid.
Quote a tight spread that still brackets the hidden fair value. The tighter and more accurate your quote, the more spread you capture each round.
It's a simplified drill, but it captures the core tension every market maker faces: quote too wide and you win no trades; quote too tight and you get run over.