what are matching orders 
matching orders is the process by which a securities exchange pairs one or more unsolicited buy orders to one or more sell orders to make trades this can be contrasted with requests for a quote rfq in a security to proceed with a trade if one investor wants to buy a quantity of stock and another wants to sell the same quantity at the same price their orders match and a transaction is effected the work of pairing these orders is the process of order matching whereby exchanges identify buy orders or bids with corresponding sell orders or asks to execute them over the past decade this process has become almost entirely automated 