There are market makers, and there are Market Makers.  In practice, the registration may simply be a formalization of an existing trading system, or a very light obligation on top of the existing system.<p>From the document that you listed, it looks like NYSE Arca has a requirement for 100% continuous quoting, but the quotes can be 8% away from the current market price (section 7.23.a.1).  This is basically a free pass; nobody wants to trade against a quote that wide.  For reference, take the most liquid ETF: SPY trades above $150 and regularly has a $0.02 spread, one THOUSAND times tighter than the 8% requirement.<p>On other exchanges, there are requirements for tight quotes, but they usually come with relaxed requirements on quoted time.  For instance, maybe a market maker could be required to quote &quot;90% of the time within a 0.5% spread&quot;.  In such a scenario, allowing market makers to pull quotes for 10% of the day is basically giving them a free pass on the most volatile points of a day.<p>I have seen very few situations where registered&#x2F;designated Market Makers are obligated to suicide themselves to provide liquidity; there&#x27;s usually an &quot;out&quot;.  In practice, the top-tier HFT market makers (de-facto) are already exceeding the obligations required of Market Makers (registered).