Stock broker

A stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers or Agency Only Firms on behalf of investors.

Requirements:
In order to become a stockbroker in the United States, a candidate must pass the General Securities Representative Examination (also known as the "Series 7 exam").
In the UK, brokers are required to pass the SII (Securities and Investment Institute) Certificate in Securities, this qualification is achieved by passing two exams: Either Unit 1: FSA Financial regulations or Unit 6 Principles of Financial Regulation for MiFID compliant retail trading, and either Unit 2: Securities, Unit 3: Derivatives or Unit 4: for both Securities and Derivatives. Passing Unit 1 or Unit 6 identifies individuals as having attained FSA Approved Person Status.

Services provided:
A transaction on a stock exchange must be made between two members of the exchange — an ordinary person may not walk into the New York Stock Exchange (for example), and ask to trade stock. Such an exchange must be done through a broker.
There are three types of stockbroking service.
Execution-only, which means that the broker will only carry out the client's instructions to buy or sell.
Advisory dealing, where the broker advises the client on which shares to buy and sell, but leaves the final decision to the investor.
Discretionary dealing, where the stockbroker ascertains the client's investment objectives and then makes all dealing decisions on the client's behalf.
Stock broker: A stock broker would deal with shares. Shares and stocks have the same definition; a share is a unitized ownership stake in a company's equity. A stock is a piece of money – a share of a company – that a few years ago were represented on a document, and nowadays records are kept electronically. A stockbroker possesses a number of shares; however he or she can choose how many of these he or she wishes to trade, so that perhaps some can be kept for him or her. Keeping an amount is understandable, because stock-broking is a risky business. This is because the prices that shares are worth are constantly increasing and decreasing, depending on how much money the company you are dealing with, is producing. For example, say a stockbroker buys a share from a dealer, for $1, and then sells it to a client for x sum of money. The next day, the price for that same share value, decreases (the company is not producing as much money), so that it's now worth 50p. The stockbroker had spent $1, however, which was 50p too much: he or she has just lost 50p. That's how stockbrokers lose money. They then continue trading at what they think are suitable times – when it is unlikely for the price of a share to alter (to start with he or she could buy that share back for 50p and sell it again, to another client).
Foreign Exchange Members: These city traders deal with currencies. Their clients are usually called "market makers" (literally makers of markets: shopkeepers are a common example) and are the people they use to earn money. Currencies are traded, for example: the stock broker can give his/her client $1, and the client can give him/her £1 in return, as long as such a deal was discussed and agreed to (as mentioned previously, the person who makes the final decision as to what the deal is going to be depends on the position of the stockbroker - in Advisory dealing, for example, the investor makes the concluding decision.) In this case the city trader gains profit (because he/she gains £1, that is worth more than what he/she gave [$1]), but indeed often the market maker does too (that's how they earn their money). For example, it would be perfectly possible for the city trader to hand over £1 and let his/her client give back only $1. N.B: You have to bear in mind that very large sums of money - not the example of $1 and £1 above - are exchanged.
Bond-dealers:A bond-dealer is a city trader who lends a sum of money to a stock (section of a company). If a company owns £1,000,000, and this was due to a million bondholders each lending £1 to the stock, than each bondholder lends a bond of £1.
Traders at hedge funds and on banks' proprietary trading desks trade via market makers (the banks).
You have to bear in mind that these city traders do not have clients at their desk(s) to perform the deal - the Foreign Exchange (for example) keep aware of the various money-exchanges through software on the computer, a particular and more popular one being known as "CREST". Other methods of dealing include using the phone. There are other occupations within the title of being a "city trader", but these are the main three, in which the first is most common.