Hereās whatās going on, the offer (same word for ask) thatās what T212 shows.
The price is what they actually paid or received. The buy and sell column shows the direction.
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The order book looks like this, so 74.65 bit of a wall. It can be bluffed so take with a pinch of salt.
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So effectively the price difference is shared between t212 and the MM and we buy through at an increased cost? Or is it just executed at a level to allow us to trade with a buy/sell rather than it sitting and not executing
T212 donāt make money from the spread at all, as in they donāt widen the raw spread in Invest /ISA
So the ask you see is the best offer and bid is the best sell price at that moment.
The job of the market markers are to keep trades flowing. They will hold shares at any point to sell to people, and will make an offer to buy them from you. The spread is their profit.
When you see the ask on T212 itās just an indicative value to say this is where the buying is at.
When you make an order, they call IB with your request and then IB calls the exchange.
Theres actually two types TOTV and OTC or offbook trades. So when you buy a fraction thatāll always be OTC and handled by T212. Youāll always receive the same price (or better)
In the order book above you can see the bids and asks stacked up showing whereās the buyers and sellers are located.
For the blue chip stocks that are incredibly liquid the spread might be tiny.
This explains it better than I can:
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Thankyou youāve been most helpful (again)
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No worries also worth looking at
and
and L2 (we see L1 in T212)
@phildawson You are a library of information my friend thankyou, I will begin reading as I think my approach to investing may run out of legs when the market does.
No worries, you could carry on and not ever know about what goes on. I would say most retail including myself never gets to learn it all.
If you are long term investing you donāt really need to know, and things like order book or vwap make sense when youāre day or swing trading.
Ive been investing properly for about at decade but using AJ Bell where you have to pay a tenner ever time you buy or sell which put me off lots of quick trades. So that was a min of Ā£500 each time.
After finding Freetrade and then T212 I havenāt looked back. So Iāve only dabbled in day and swing trades over the last year.
Iāve been drawn into the short term side when I should have probably left more long term. Itās high risk, but high reward.
Either way itās still worth learning about RSI and MACD even if you are long term to get good entries and dips, and avoid chasing. I prefer the Heikin-Ashi candles too. Oh also look at EMA too.
Tradingview is currently my fav, you can turn on the ask and bid lines and see the trade action unfold. You can also see volume which is helpful.
Superb! Iām still reading my way through One question though why doesnāt t212 become the market maker and benefit from the spread?
Well they donāt have to be a market market to cream some off, they could artificially widen the spread and pocket the extra if they wanted to. Luckily the share lending in Invest and the fees and spread from CFD helps pay the bills.
Market makers and brokers are two different roles to be honest. The MMs have serious cash to play with. You really need 100s of millions to play with.
T212 basically has an omnibus account with Interactive Brokers and is piggy backing on that broker.
Another link 
I will keep reading 