ask a stock questionStock bid and ask question?

okay when i buy a share i have to pay the ask price. when i sell i get to sell at the bid. i am curious who gets to buy the shares from me at the bid and sell them to me at the ask price? Who get all those pennies (well in most cases)?
<<<okay when i buy a share i have to pay the ask price. when i sell i get to sell at the bid.>>>

If you use a "market order" that is true, but if you use a limit order you specify the price at which you are willing to make the trade. The price you specify may be the bid price, the ask price, or any other price you want.

<<<i am curious who gets to buy the shares from me at the bid>>>

It will be someone who has entered a buy limit order with an amount equal to the highest bid.

<<<and sell them to me at the ask price?>>>

ask a stock questionIt will be someone who has entered a sell limit order with an amount equal to the lowest ask.

<<<Who get all those pennies (well in most cases)?>>>

With liquid stocks, you usually do not see one individual buying at the bid then immediately selling at the ask, pocketing a penny or two per share.

However, when you get into some of the thinly traded (low volume) stocks, there is usually a "liquidity provider" (formerly known as a market maker or a specialist) who frequently will "get those pennies" because he will fill a lot of the trades.
When I am working with stocks that have small numbers of shares being traded, I will have both a buy (bid) order and a sell (ask) order on the board. I set a buy bid below the current market by a couple percentage points and a sell ask about 2 % above cask a stock questionurrent market.

If you put in an order to sell at market I may buy your stock, or someone more eager may pay you more. If you want to buy and put in a market order, most often you will buy some of my stock at that 2% premium price.

To do this I have to be watching closely what is happening in the market. or I have to set my premiums even higher in both directions.

See, I am not trying to buy or sell so much as to make money by selling on blips and buying on dips. But if the market gets a solid trend going, I may sell all of my stock too early or buy into a falling market.
The market maker makes their profits from difference between the bid and the ask.
1. other investors
2. the brokers.
brokers and the exchanges for their salary and to keep the computers running