Sales and trading

Sales and trading is one of the primary front-office divisions of major investment banks. The term is typically reserved for the trading activities done by sell-side investment banks who are primarily engaged in making markets for institutional clients in various forms of securities.^[1] The trading floor of these banks will contain dedicated desks who generally focus exclusively on trading one form of security. These desks will more generally fall within the categories of fixed income, currencies, commodities, or equities.^[2]

In market making, traders will buy and sell financial products primarily to facilitate the investment and trading activities of its clients with the goal of making an incremental amount of money on each trade.