Out Today Market Making Scalping Manual

I love the "logic" behind this offer.

So first, right from the website.... "There are no videos or trade examples in the manual. This is a manual explaining market making techniques so that you can apply them to the market of your choice."

So this means you really have no idea how this system is supposed to be applied. Then there is also this line. "You have to figure out which markets you want to apply this to and at what time of day."

Essentially, this guide, although sold as being comprehensive, will actually only discuss theories and ideas and its up to you to make it into a system. There is no way to evaluate the value really. Its like asking a trader to comment on how his trading day went without adding up the ticks lost or gained.

My god Peter. At least with your other offers, you were cherry picking the amazing trading days to show from these "world class" traders at Axia. But now you're actually supporting a trader that will show no trades? I guess you don't have to worry about accusations of SIM trading with this dude. LOL....

This guy's book belongs on Amazon for 99 cents. Clearly whatever edge he had, if he had it, is long gone. He isn't trading it himself anymore, and is only doing consulting work, which means he can't trade. The hedge fund he is trying to start up is simply to make money on the fees before it closes down when investors realize he can't beat the indexes after a few years. When you go from trading your own money to asking $999 for a book, you are clearly doing something wrong. And by not showing examples, you're removing yourself from any responsibility. Its kind of hard to argue the book didn't work when there are no trade examples to reference.

 

One of the traders at Axia broke their record again a couple of weeks ago with a million-dollar day. You would consider this cherry-picking, where others would see it as someone pushing their edge more and more with a backer and the risk management to support it. The dude is on top of his game. If he was losing his shirt the rest of the time, he wouldn't be given the capital to make $1m in a day. Yet still, retail traders come along and say "yeah but that was his good day".

So yes - amazing days are discussed because - well, they are amazing. To see a guy bust $100k days, then $500k days, then $1M days is amazing, these are the people we need to learn from.

Just like Gary. Who has been a professional trader since he was 18. I am not sure of your own credentials but I would hazard a guess at 0 days of professional trading experience.

People can draw their own conclusions as to who has the edge in the market and who doesn't. If you want to argue that this edge has gone, then provide an actual argument. For example, I could say you were a fat balding gibbon with an IQ of 15. But to make that accusation stick, I would need to provide some evidence to back that up. Like photo's and IQ test results.

It is so easy and so common for people on the trading interweb to slate stuff they know nothing about. There is scant knowledge of market-making techniques out there. This is one of very few resources. We tell people exactly what it does and doesn't include to the point of putting them off buynig it.

We do that because it's a niche product aimed at a small audience. An audience of which you are not a member. That is not a personal insult, just a comment on the fact that you believe an educational product has to be a certain way and when one comes out that clearly describes itself as being in a specific format, you think it's not legit.

 

https://futures.io/trading-reviews-vendors/42333-gary-norden.html

 

You said in a post above that this manual is not geared towards NQ/CL scalping, but we also have to include ES in this. The way it moves today, order flow trading in my opinion is simply not conducive to doing it manually. Perhaps with the help of charts, if you're looking for turning points, but on its own, using just the DOM, I don't see how a human trader will beat the algos.

Gary mentions that one of the things you will learn is "Utilizing Queue Position". But this is exactly what doesn't work these days in either CL or NQ or ES, and of course YM as well. Now what's left. Maybe the bonds? I don't know because I don't watch them and I have no idea how thick the levels are anymore. ES used to be much thicker, meaning way more resting orders, but that is now gone. Even resting orders don't really mean anything anymore. Who on earth needs to have an order sitting there if its legit? And since its nothing for 4 or 5 price levels to clear in a second, watching the bids and offers of the inside 3-5 levels doesn't in my opinion provide an edge. Perhaps what's the tape is a bit more telling, but just the bids and offers, I don't think so.

Now if Gary means that this manual is only for the bonds, then he should say that and not be so elusive by being afraid to even mention the market that this will work best on.

Another thing you will learn, as he states, is using the spread. Are you kidding me? If your strategy relies on you buying at the bid or selling at the offer, then you're gonna get killed because a retail trader cannot compete on making the spread. Any time I get filled on the bid, its because price is dropping even lower. When my bid is sitting there and not getting filled, its because I got the direction right and nobody is gonna let me have it at that price so I better be prepared to pay the offer.

Its very obvious to me that what Gary will teach you is what he used to use 10 or 15 years ago to make money. But because it no longer works, he feels justified in "giving" it away for the low price of $999.

Now I could of course be 100% won over with some real, live trading examples. But alas, its very clear this will never happen. So once you're done studying this material and wondering how to make it work, you can't blame the vendor since he never actually was planning to tell you what to do with it in any tangible way.

I also very much doubt this line from his Bio. "Now consults to Investment banks, Hedge Funds and Exchanges."

These are all different players in the game. The exchanges set the rules so what kind of consulting do they need? The hedge funds, ya, they probably would love a consultant, meaning a guy on the inside of the exchanges to get special treatment, but I doubt Gary is the guy. And if Gary is the guy who has an "in" with the exchanges and investment banks and hedge funds, then he is not the guy selling a scalping manual to the retail trader. Next you're gonna tell me that Jerome Powell offers credit counseling on the weekends as a side gig to his little FED position.

Oh, and since its February, do you have any idea about what Baron was saying with regards to Axia coming out to visit him this month for some sort of collaborative work? I got the impression that Baron was going to act like some sort of intermediary in order to validate the legitimacy of Axia.

 

What is his average profit per contract. I believe the person said " scalping is not a reasonable strategy for retail." Which I would believe to be true but also be willing to convinced otherwise. Professional scalping strats average around .50 per contract. Making them completely useless for retail.

It also seems you have no understanding of HFT in the futures market. The hft folks are not the sitting ducks trying to earn the spread. As hft has risen, book depth has decreased. Coincidence? Not likely.

 

One more point, and I'm not sure how I missed this before. Clearly I wasn't reading the link too deeply, but I went over it again.

Gary states that "Many people are under the impression that what HFTs do is market making but that is not really the case. Certainly in Futures markets, HFT participation is now quite low, you only have to look at the small amount of depth in the Order Book to figure that out."

He is saying that HFT participation in Futures is low because of the small amount of depth in the Order Book. Are you kidding me? This really goes with my previous comment of why anyone needs to advertise their intention to buy at a particular level. With HFT, you don't need to advertise shit. You go in there 1 millisecond in advance and put your order in, or simply take all that is offered at a particular level. The order book getting thinner is exactly a result of HFT if you ask me. So if we start with, what I assume to be a failed premise on his part, then what are we to think of the rest of the info he will present for $999?

I have this daily chart of the ES here going back 12 years. Its actually 2 days per bar, just so it can all fit on chart, but all we really want to look at is volume. Now tell me, do the past few years look any different than if we go back to 2008? I'm not exactly sure when the HFT's really hit big time, but I do believe I read it was after 2010 or after 2013. Either way, volume actually hasn't been that drastically affected.

So if the depth levels are much smaller, and they are, then how else is roughly the same amount of volume getting traded? If the orders are sitting at the exchange waiting to be filled, then there are participants coming in and grabbing contracts in micro seconds. And these are not retail traders.

Gary simply wants us to assume that HFT participation in the futures market is low so that we don't think we are up against a computer because, with scalping, going against a computer would be to most people intuitively difficult. But this is, in my opinion, completely inaccurate. I don't know what he considers scalping, but since one of his bullet points is about using the spread, I can only guess that 1-4 ticks is roughly the amount he aims for. This is precisely the type of trading that a retail trader cannot do. If you're trying to get less than 4 ticks in the ES over and over again, good luck.

 

Will there be finger-sandwiches at the meeting? Insist on that. I miss those days meeting in a conference room with a finger-sandwich tray.

 

Yes please ask what edge a scalper has these days against hft algo trained on tons of data with colocation at the exchanges.

 

This is a rare case where both sides are probably right.

Much of the 'edge' scalpers used to enjoy is long gone. Long gone.

In fact, the edge has morphed into a snake pit. That's why this guy is selling stuff and not trading . Easy.

BUT , a good scalper with experience, and a feel for markets, along with world class money management skills, can still make money.

How many like that are there? I don't know. Very few I suspect, and probably near zero that learned from a $999 book.

Nice price though, its LESS than a grand!