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1. Orders are routed from the investment firms (one is a buyer, the other is a seller) to their respective Executing Brokers.
2. The Executing Brokers send the orders to the appropriate Marketplace for the security being traded. The Marketplaces respond with executions ("fills").
3. The Executing Brokers send the fills to the Clearing Broker that was designated by the investment firms. Many Executing Brokers are themselves Clearing Brokers, a term which is called "self-clearing".
4. The Marketplace(s) and the Clearing Brokers compare their shares/money to make sure that they match. This is referred to as "Street-Side matching".
5. The Investment Managers inform their respective Custodians what they should expect to receive from/deliver to the Clearing Brokers, and the Custodians perform this comparison. This is referred to as "Customer-Side matching". This occurs the day of the trade (T+0).

Financial market participants includes both the financial markets which operate in countries around the globe, as well as the different categories of people who use and/or work in such markets. This article does not attempt to address such a large number of subjects in a single piece. Rather this article provides brief descriptions of each, with links to the many other articles which delve in much greater detail into each one.