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Automating 'Market Making Scalping Manual" by Gary Norden or "NoBSDayTrading"
This all seems to have spiralled out of control a little - well a lot.
1. We signed an NDA when we purchased Gary Norden's Market Making manual regards not sharing the content. That seems perfectly reasonable and I am not about to share the content.
2. Gary/Peter have said the NDA doesn't prevent manual owners from reviewing the book in terms of value for money; but as above, don't give away specifics of the method. For sure that limits the information available to prospective buyers but presumably 'good value' v 'poor value' is telling. Email Gary and Peter yourselves - they may tell you a little more.
3. Currently, I am not convinced that the manual is good value for money but then for me currently it isn't working and I am not sure what to fix. Having read the Elite Trader thread I am left wondering if the method is valid for today's market. I'd like to hear from Gary that he is trading these markets with this method and some proof would be good. And I think that is not too much to ask. We are operating here on a leap of faith, a leap of trust.
I am frustrated that Gary will not provide real trading examples and disagree with him and Peter that there would be little to learn from sharing real examples - others I think would agree. I think real examples would help enormously - copying good practice is a perfectly valid way to learn initially. I hope there is more help Gary can give before overlapping with the service he offers on a 1:1 basis. I am conscious that he needs to keep the two services different since they are priced very differently.
4. Because, I think the manual falls short currently, I like the idea of a private group for those of us that bought the manual to help each other. Gary doesn't think a private group is a good idea since he believes we need to hear only his opinion - and I understand his point. But I suspect a group could stay on track with the method outlined, yet still benefit from collaboration.
I shall keeping practising, keep analysing each trade but I am wondering if what I have been given is enough. It is still early days but I don't want to find out I have been wasting my time with a method that is past its time. Some evidence, would I am sure fill this speculative vacuum.
Big Mike's integrity and the integrity of this site didn't need to come into this at all. I am not at all sure why it has; apologies for that Mike.
It was never my intention to bring the integrity of this forum as a whole into question. The point I was trying to make is Jigsaw is a trusted vendor, he makes a great DOM that I once trialed a few years ago. Whether you can make money just trading the DOM or not, is not for me to decide. A trusted vendor that vouches for another vendor who is pushing a very expensive manual, and wont show any evidence that he uses this "system" profitably, is what personally bothers me.
But we all know that what something cost and its value are not the same thing. Especially in trading where the whole point is that the current price is above or below it's fair value.
So a beginner might start with free information online, and using that information not make any money trading. The cost of the info was 0, and the value they derived was 0. So they think that they got what they paid for, and the next step is to pay for information. So they buy a manual, like the one discussed this thread, trade using that information and again do not make money. This time there was a cost to the information, but the value they derived from it is still 0.
Not knowing before the purchase of information, whether that information will have a value greater than 0, is the whole problem with costly manuals.
Is there any info vendor out there that does not charge upfront? Instead they charge as a percentage of say your quarterly returns? This way the incentives are aligned. Cost of the info is aligned with the derived value.
They are already contractually enforcing NDAs, so they can also enforce profit splitting schemes.
My guess is that they've done the math, and they've concluded that charging up front is much more lucrative, than profit splitting.
The long answer assuming the sincerity of your question.
No because I haven't tried trading what I have learnt on a live account yet. Very soon after buying the manual the stock markets went in to their Covid meltdown/ bounce back and we all saw the orderbook thin out dramatically and the daily range and volatility increase hugely.
Not conditions I had seen before and also sim trading because I am not ready to go live with a method I am still getting to grips with. Jigsaw daytradr is supposed to be relatively accurate for fills and seeing the trades in real time (and being able to check on screen recordings if in doubt), I am confident enough about the representational accuracy of the fills and trade results as a large sample. This week so far has been a sim profit each day so I feel I am making progress.
Like Rupkali I also would have liked to see a few pictures and more general examples. The manual is admittedly 'thin' at roughly the same page count as the NoBS Day Trading basic manual, but that is a fraction of the price. I don't though in any way regret having bought it as there are a number of points in the manual that really made me rethink my approach to trading.
On first reading it is quite general but there is enough there to have given me a setup to work with. It does require some reading between the lines and screen time to help emphasise which bits I have found really important and require from me the most focus.
One example is that at some point Gary Norden talks about some days being good trading days and others not, but doesn't expand on that. For the next quarterly session video I will send in a question asking if he can expand on that topic.
Back to my experience, I spent a lot of time at the beginning trying a few different products and felt a little like Goldilocks, some products were too thin, some too thick, then trying to work out which I liked best. And trying and experimenting with different variables of the trade.
But my main focus since then has changed from trying to work out how and when to get good profitable trades, and now switched mostly to letting those take care of themselves and concentrating on how to filter out some of the trades from when the market conditions temporarily aren't optimal. Not of course trying to prevent loss, but trying to reduce the number of trades by keeping as many of the good ones when the conditions are right and sitting out for the periods that over the past few months I have observed trades have a lower probability of success. Not trying to define rules of thumb for entries and exits, but coming up with logical filters for when the market is likely to provide the best risk/reward, and conversely which market states are more risky with a collectively worse R/R ratio and in fact are better times for me to pause for those minutes or how ever long required.
Regarding Rupkali's point about a group, I also wholeheartedly agree with the NDA as said in an earlier post, and like minded people could easily Direct Message somebody they think might be worth talking to and confirm they actually have the manual with a simple proof of ownership check, such as "Send me a screenshot of the first sentence only of the fifth paragraph of the second page" or something similar. Just a thought and this reply has dragged on longer than I intended.
You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
I also have went through all grady's material. From beginner to advanced. I personally think it just another way to skin a cat. I respect the fact the he does trade live sometimes, albeit one lot, but never the less he trades live.
We learn over the years as traders, that there is no holy grail, or there is never that one mentor that will hold your hand to profitability. I have a general disdain for people who sell trading systems or educations. You always have to ask yourself what motivation people have. Why sell an ebook, why sell your knowledge? The only reason I can think of is to make a profit, regardless of what they say. He was a floor trader, but floor trading is dead. If you trade for an institution as a market maker, then that's a whole different ballgame than trading your own account.
The point I am trying to make is, we as traders should have 0 shame in asking about proof of profitability before spending money on any education. Show me that you are using what you are preaching to turn a profit and I will gladly pay for your time.
Norden laughs about TA levels, but I use them to pay my bills. But hey, maybe I should sell an ebook.
Have you changed your techniques? I use to watch you trade a bit, and I have not seen anything from you that is similar to Norden. Do you mean you read The End of The Bull and incorporated the non-scalping bits of the book?
The End of the Bull taught me things that I largely knew from watching the industry, but helped me realize that's the real strategy. I still watch the DOM carefully, but I don't believe any action I see there can truly help me predict price. I'm trying to watch the entire system and make decisions based on the specific situation. Particularly changes in the expectations of market participants based on fundamental information.
Basically, I rely a lot more on news and read as much macro analysis as I can.
My takeaway from the book was a bit different:
(1) Use macro and micro watch-lists
(2) Put together the story of how liquidity is/has being shifted from session-to-session and product-to-product
(3) Be mindful of what is being priced in (this could be macro/fundamental), but it could also be easily observable stat arb action
Answer number two, following on from my first answer in post #44. (Just for the sake of completeness if you are still around, or interested).
No I didn't make back the $1k, or $949 to be exact.
After trying the ES and the NQ I preferred the NQ as with the ES I found I missed a lot of trades not getting filled, but obviously got filled on the losses going through me. I preferred the volatility of the NQ. Other markets could be used I just was more used to those two. Covid volatility didn't help but that did slow down eventually.
I still favour Topstep over my own account as I have a fixed monthly cost when I want it rather than a likely larger loss in a personal account.
I did pass Step1 and Step2 but Step2 was a reset which I hadn't wanted as I don't see much point in passing if I am not consistently profitable.
Step1
Step2
Pro Account (sim account option when eligible for funding)
The results at first glance look good but the average winning day in Step2 is about half that of Step1 and I found that as market volatility slowly decreased I struggled as price could quickly push through me.
Generally I found I was good for the initially market opening volatility but then after the first fifteen minutes to half an hour I would start taking losses that could quickly spiral out of control for larger losses than gains. Gary Norden does advocate taking small loses, he does at all suggest an inverse R/R as some people talk about with scalping, but with the NQ things can move against you very quickly.
I do use the Jigsaw DOM and was careful to consider whether I was getting optimistic sim fills but with the thin NQ my fills didn't appear to be unrealistic. The Pro account is a sim account so the same as Step1 and Step2 so no reason why my trade results would be different except for the user, me.
I did find with Norden's requirements for a high win rate that it required a high degree of focus, not a problem, for a short while, but if the session started badly it could go very bad very quickly (also not recommended in the Manual which advocates keeping losing days smaller than winning days as much as possible). Therefore the difference in the Pro account can only really have been my slight anxiety about loss putting me off my game which turned me from positive to flat-lining with step down losing days.
I did continue for a while but as markets slowed down I found I was losing instead of winning and the period of time I could potentially make a profit was getting less and less, and the profitable days (still with Topstep), were getting smaller and smaller. So I gave it about a year but decided that the methodology, or my interpretation of it isn't a realistic way to be profitable for me.
As said, I am only posting for completeness because the Market Making Manual is no longer available to purchase on the Jigsaw site. Which is a shame because although as purchasers we still have access to the Manual and videos, and the scalping style hasn't worked for me, the information is very useful and the live sessions were interesting.
Gary Norden is launching a futures education site shortly ( https://nordenmethod.com/preview ), in two weeks according to a countdown timer on the webpage, so information will be available there.
Edit: Deleting my my guessing on why Jigsaw no longer sell the Manual, and added final paragraph details on where it will be available instead.
You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
