Good morning, traders…
When you buy an options contract, do you know who’s selling it to you?
The answer lies behind the curtain of the options market, where big, shadowy money quietly keeps the market moving.
I’m talking about market makers — individuals (or entities) who professionally buy and sell options contracts.
WARNING: You might be buying options without the slightest clue about who is on the other side of the trade.
There’s a lot of confusion about who market makers are, what they do, and why you should pay close attention to their moves.
But, make no mistake — if you don’t understand these concepts, the market makers will eventually move your money into their accounts.
I want to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.
Let’s Break Down What Market Makers Do, Why They Matter, And How YOU Can Outsmart Them With A Few Simple Steps…
What Market Makers Do
Market makers are a feature (not a bug) of the options market. We need them to trade.
They’re sort of like helpful sales associates in a huge, complex department store.
They provide liquidity and quote prices to buyers and sellers, ensuring that trades can happen smoothly.
Market makers also receive credit for selling contracts to you.
If you buy ten $1.00 options contracts, a market maker somewhere just received a credit of $1000.
And if the contract stays below the strike price for calls (or above the strike price for puts) by expiration, they get to keep that money.
Market makers are typically major financial institutions, trading in massive size and volume.
But there are independent market makers as well (people with big accounts).
They don’t care about making massive trades. It’s all about volume.
The more you trade, the more they make.
If options traders are the casino gamblers of the stock market, then market makers are the house — the casino itself.
They give us a table to play our game on by taking the other side of our bets.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “The house always wins.”
But with the right circumstances, betting strategy, and a bit of luck, gamblers can win big.
The same goes for options traders…
Example: When GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) went parabolic in 2021 and r/WallStreetBets traders bankrupted multiple hedge funds.
In this analogy, trading isn’t roulette or blackjack — it’s poker.
It’s primarily a game of skill where luck plays a role — not the other way around.
Why Market Makers Matter
As traders, you need to follow your rules.
You need to follow the systems and the setups that you trade day in and day out.
You need to know your trading truths.
But you’re always trading against somebody…
Somebody wins, somebody loses. This is especially true when it comes to options.
In the options market, we are trading against the market makers — hidden puppet masters who quite literally “make the market” by selling us options.
Like any other market participant, they want to win. Their goal is to take your money.
So it benefits them to have us question our favorite setups, our strategy, our truths.
When we begin to question what is true, the ground below us destabilizes.
If your core philosophical truth gets shaken, fear and doubt set in.
And when you’re afraid, the part of your brain that makes rational, logical decisions stops working, taken over by the part of your brain that wants you to survive.
This is often referred to as “fight or flight.”
The market makers want to stoke this fear within us and activate our “flight response” as traders.
They’ll be thinking, “Go run away, sell the contract, and let me keep your money.”
If we let our opponents achieve this, we lose. Even worse, it can cause us to question our trading truths.
This is why it’s so important to know your setups, have your rules, and stick to those rules.
When money is on the line, the fear of losing is always in the back of our minds, and that fear can lead us to do things we wouldn’t otherwise do…
How to Outsmart Market Makers
To beat the market makers, we have to be strategic — chess, not checkers.
This means approaching every trade with discipline. For me, it starts with my process.
You’ve probably heard me say this a hundred times: plan your trade and trade your plan.
But I’ll say it again, because it’s the foundation of everything…
When you know your setup like the back of your hand — whether it’s a breakout, a pullback, or another setup you’ve mastered — you take emotion out of the equation.
Emotion is the enemy of good trading. Fear, greed, hope, and doubt — they’re all designed to throw you off your game.
And market makers are counting on that.
They thrive on creating chaos and uncertainty, nudging you to make decisions you wouldn’t otherwise make.
Have you noticed how prices tend to fluctuate wildly around key support and resistance levels? That’s no coincidence.
Market makers are constantly testing your resolve, creating deceptive moves to shake out the weak hands.
Don’t fall for this.
Every time you enter a trade, do it with confidence, knowing you’ve done the work beforehand.
When you follow your rules and trust your setups, you tilt the odds in your favor.
Sure, the options sellers will win some of the time.
They’re “the house,” after all…
But with discipline, strategy, and patience, you can carve out your edge and beat the market makers at their own game.
And speaking of beating the options market…
Blackrock’s $2.4 trillion money manager says “This is the most bullish investing environment EVER”…
Because this week marked the beginning of a brand-new wealth window…
And I’ve finally cracked the code on how retail traders, like YOU, can turn Wall Street’s blind spots into an undeniable trading edge.
I call it The “Dumb Money” Double … a setup that’s generated +57% AVERAGE GAINS and a 93% WIN-RATE this year.*
Join us for a FREE “Dumb Money” WORKSHOP … TODAY, September 22 at 10 a.m. EST
Happy trading,
Ben Sturgill
*Past performance does not indicate future results
