Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[Sogo]

I still could use clarification on sell/buy label. I'm not an expert on the inner mechanics of market transactions. Can someone here please point me to a good resource or link that explains how to tell if a transaction is really more a sell or a buy?

The reason I doubt whether a transaction is really a "buy" or "sell" even when it appears obvious is that market makers exist and can behave in such a way that they are "absorbing" a lot of, say, "sell" orders. Sure, for every transaction there's a buyer and a seller. But if one of those sides, say the buyer, is only the market maker, then that kinda clouds the answer to the question "who's buying?" An entity is buying in that case, yes, but for purposes that are different than a conventional investor's purposes for buying would be. So can we really just look at it and still call it a "buy"? I'm not so sure that makes sense. Is there any way to tell if a transaction was purchased (or sold) by a market maker and not a non-market making investor?