Stockjobbers were institutions that acted as

market maker A market maker or liquidity provider is a company or an individual that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the '' bid–ask spread'', or ''turn.'' The benefit to the firm is that ...

s in the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pa ...

. The business of stockjobbing emerged in the 1690s during England's

Financial Revolution The Financial Revolution was a set of economic and financial reforms in Britain after the Glorious Revolution in 1688 when William III invaded England. The reforms were based in part on Dutch economic and financial innovations that were brought ...

. During the 18th century the jobbers attracted numerous critiques from Thomas Mortimer, Daniel Defoe and others. These writers denounced the use of

market manipulation In economics and finance, market manipulation is a type of market abuse where there is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market; the most blatant of cases involve creating false or misleading appearan ...

and

front running Front running, also known as tailgating, is the prohibited practice of entering into an equity (stock) trade, option, futures contract, derivative, or security-based swap to capitalize on advance, nonpublic knowledge of a large ("block") pending ...

and regarded it as unethical that the jobbers made money without any interest in the stocks involved. The business survived repeated legislation to ban it and became institutionalised. Prior to the "Big Bang" deregulation of 1986, every stock traded on the Exchange passed through a 'jobber's book', that is, they acted as the ultimate purchasers of shares sold and the source of shares purchased, by

stockbrokers A stockbroker is a regulated broker, broker-dealer, or registered investment adviser (in the United States) who may provide financial advisory and investment management services and execute transactions such as the purchase or sale of stocks ...

on behalf of the latters' clients. Stockbrokers in turn were not permitted to be market makers. In the final years of stockjobbing, the leading firms were Akroyd & Smithers,

Wedd Durlacher Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

, Pinchin Denny, Smith Brothers, Bisgood Bishop and Charles Pulley. All of these firms were acquired by

investment bank Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing is ...

s and other financial institutions.

References

Economy of the City of London Stock market History of the City of London {{stockexchange-stub