In the NYSE Market Maker model, there are 2 types of market makers: designated liquidity providers and supplemental liquidity providers. Designated liquidity providers always have to be there, while supplemental liquidity providers do not (but are incentivized to).

As such, designated market makers are likely better informed than most other traders including large institutional investors and definitely better than retail. They have some level of knowledge of the future trajectories of price through special orderflow and liquidity analysis tools as well as advance insider information.

On the other hand, the supplemental liquidity providers do not have access to this information. As such, to get it, they conduct exploratory trading (see Exploratory Trading by Adam D. Clark-Joseph) by placing losing orders at random areas to gauge the level of liquidity at different points.

After gauging this liquidity, these liquidity providers then conduct momentum ignition: creating a false breakout to lure breakout traders into a false sentiment causing them to buy high and sell back at a discount, after which they allow the expansion to continue.