Over-the-Counter Markets
本章介绍场外交易市场的制度安排，分析市场不透明带来的关键概念问题，对理解交易商和经纪商的作用有帮助。
This chapter introduces the institutional setting of over-the-counter (OTC) markets and raises some of the key conceptual issues associated with market opaqueness. An OTC market does not use a centralized trading mechanism, such as an auction, specialist, or limit-order book, to aggregate bids and offers and to allocate trades. Instead, buyers and sellers negotiate terms privately, often in ignorance of the prices currently available from other potential counterparties and with limited knowledge of trades recently negotiated elsewhere in the market. OTC markets are thus said to be relatively opaque; investors are somewhat in the dark about the most attractive available terms and about whom to contact for attractive terms. Prices and allocations in OTC markets are, to varying extents, influenced by opaqueness and by the role of intermediating brokers and dealers.