Automated Bond System - ABS

A movie studio-created algo-rhythm meant to choose the ideal actor to play James Bond in future films. Put into place after the Roger Moore era, when studio executives re-watched Moonraker and said to themselves "what have we done?"
If only...In reality, its a system used by the New York Stock Exchange to facilitate bond trading. The ABS is an electric program that stores trade requests for bonds and holds them until a deal partner is found, or the original person cancels the request.
So if you want to buy or sell a bond, you put a bid or ask into the system. It then sits until someone comes along who either wants to buy what your selling or is willing to sell what you want to buy. If no one comes along, you can choose to cancel the order.
The trading volume for bonds is lower than stocks, so the market is less liquid. That means it sometimes takes longer to find someone on the other side of the transaction. The ABS helps smooth out the process and keep the market moving.