Systems and methods for bid/offer liquidity spread trading

Abstract

Apparatus and methods for automatically executing a trade of an item between a market participant who issues a request for a quote for an item and a market participant who responds to the request are provided. In some embodiments, an automatic trade may be conditioned upon the acknowledgement, by the participant who issues the request, of an obligation to execute the trade. In some embodiments, the invention may include one or more modules for receiving the request, receiving a quote, receiving a responsive number of units of the item to be traded, decrementing a time interval in which the participant who issues the request is required to trade, and, if that participant does not trade within the time interval, trading on behalf of that participant.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A trading system comprising:
 a software quote request reception module operative to receive from a requesting participant a request for a quote for at least one item;   a software quote reception module operative to receive from at least one of a first responsive participant and a second responsive participant a quote for said item; and   a software trade supervision module operative to impose a penalty on said requesting participant if said requesting participant does not execute a trade, said trade exchanging said item between said requesting participant and at least one of said responsive participants.