Well, today AMZN volume is “only” 2000-4000 per minute, while testing market making on AMZN seems pretty daring
Having personally done my fair share of professional market making, RM's chart proves nothing about Market Maker core positions.
That's fine. My curiosity is more about how market participants interact. If they are truly doing the same thing day in and day out it should be readable on a chart.
Big speculators take liquidity. Big specs who, for example, are consistently lifting offers show themselves as a bullish bias on the chart. Market Makers make liquidity and they are not apparent on any chart. In a perfect world for Market Makers - the market wouldn't move.
%% Exactly; funny 1 minute chart/AMZN but i seldom use a one minute chart; mainly because my screen only giVes only about one day on that time frame................................ I did wonder why IBKR put AMZN in thier ad, but i neVer let that kind of ad worry me .
By taking liquidity, big specs fill resting orders. And big specs are the primary motivation behind price discovery. For example, if Amazon opens at $1891.77, and a big pension fund puts in an order to sell a block of 30K shares at $1893.00 thirty minutes before the open - it's almost certainly going to be another big spec who buys them; but almost certainly NOT a Market Maker. Market Makers buy at the bid and sell at the offer. They make liquidity. And in the equity space they will buy order flow to further facilitate that aim. They collect the bid/ask spread. That is what they do. MM's have no idea where the market is going. Hint: look at Robin Hood's business model. (and Schwab and ETrade, etc. etc.) Its business model is entirely dependent upon revenue from order flow sales to Market Makers.