Let us walk through what happens when you place an order to buy a US stock from India.

You open Vested. You tap buy on 10 shares of Apple at the market price. That instruction travels from your device to Vested, and then it is routed into the market.

Now here is where something interesting happens.

In most cases, your order is not matched directly with another investor who happens to want to sell exactly 10 shares of Apple at that exact moment. Instead, it is filled by a market maker.

Think of a market maker the way you might think of a money changer at an airport. They are always ready to buy dollars from you and sell dollars to you. They make money on the spread, the small difference between what they will buy at and what they will sell it at. They do not wait for a perfect match. They are always ready to transact.

Market makers in the US stock market do the same thing with shares. They stand ready to buy and sell continuously throughout the day. Their presence is what allows you to execute a trade almost instantly at any time during market hours. Without them, you would have to wait for someone who wanted to sell exactly as many shares as you wanted to buy, at the same moment, at the same price. That would make markets far slower and more unpredictable.

Your order gets matched. You now legally own 10 shares of Apple.

But the actual transfer of shares and money does not happen at that moment. That comes later, through a process called settlement.