The Facebook Martin Armstrong and Socrates Traders Group

Before I proceed with the main topic, I need to mention that this group is a successor of The reddit Armstrong Economics Fan Forum that has now effectively been retired. I recommend that you study that retired group which is described in the page linked above..

The Facebook Martin Armstrong and Socrates Traders Group was created in 2020 as a private group by a shill paid by exposed scammer and unrepentant convicted felon Martin A. Armstrong . This shill is still administrator. Content of that group can only be viewed by Facebook users who are subscribed to that group, subject to approval by that administrator.

According to group rules, content is restricted to trading with Martin Armstrong and Socrates. This is a big problem because of the following glaring conflicts:

1) According to the disclaimer of the Socrates service, it must not be used for trading (quote, emphasis added):

Further, the Company does not warrant or make any representations concerning the accuracy, likely results, or reliability of the use of the Services or any information, materials and/or links to other web sites – all of which are for informational, educational, and/or entertainment purposes only.

2) According to (emphasis added)

 SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION In the Matter of MARTIN A. ARMSTRONG

...

Injunction

Former associated person with an investment adviser was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and commodities fraud and permanently enjoined from violating antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. Held, it is in the public interest to bar Respondent from association with any investment adviser
...
Based on a consideration of the relevant factors, and all of the circumstances in this case, we find that barring Armstrong from association with any investment adviser serves the public interest and is remedial because, as discussed, it will protect the investing public from the likelihood that Armstrong will commit future violations of the federal securities laws.

3) All of the above is extremely important and relevant because the Socrates System has the potential for illegal transactions. 

Another important group rule:

1) No Promotions or Spam

Give more than you take to this group. Self-promotion, spam and irrelevant links aren't allowed.

If I give then I implicitly promote myself (Self-promotion). Therefore the rule is contradictory. It allows the moderator to evict a member who promotes own relevant beneficial ideas that are NOT promoting the interests of Martin Armstrong. Such ideas might even be in line with the ideas of Martin Armstrong. This rule is in conflict with the Facebook principle of operation which is to attract users who expose themselves to communicate and to promote themselves in many various ways.

Another 2 important group rules:
3) Posts must be related to trading
5) Nothing is financial advice

This creates a conflict. How can trading not be in a financial context? A member could be kicked off the group by merely questioning any trading rules published by shills, on the grounds that it is against rule 3).

In other words, it is quite apparent that the rules are designed to silence members who do not walk the fine line of promoting the Armstrong Economics interests without giving "financial advice".

In fact the whole disclaimer is a big lie which is always repeated whenever someone complains about the business in this group. Here it is verbatim:



Especially that "We are not financial advisors, we are not affiliated with Martin Armstrong or Socrates" is worth noting. I will prove later that these are complete lies.

 

The Group Administrator

Now let me give you some background of the administrator of this group. Alex OriginAl (link requires group membership to view)

He has his own channel DJ OriginAl on YouTube which he used to promote this group in at least 30 messages that I found on Armstrong videos as in the following examples:

We have a Socrates Facebook community focused on trading. Traders come join!

Check out the Socrates Facebook community! 

We have a community on Facebook for traders that follow Martin Armstrong and Socrates.

It is highly likely that he is paid by Martin Armstrong as I have proven in this other case:

 

Notable reddit Group Administrator LateralusYellow joins as Lateralus Smith

On 16 April 2022, the notorious LateralusYellow of The reddit Armstrong Economics Fan Forum, also a shill paid by Martin Armstrong joins the group. This is significant because the Facebook group now has two major characters controlled by Martin Armstrong whose roles are certainly as police men to keep any critical voices out of these criminal echo chambers.

But the worst is still to come.

Martin Armstrong  Shill Club and Professional Front Running Operation on Facebook

Here is a list of the major promoters in this group as of December 26 2022 to August 2024:
 
David Isham Main shill, invites members to his private slack trading group.and runs a campaign on Twitter as David. He is effectively Lateralus Smith's successor.
 
Paolo Di Domenico Shill claims he is a professional trader making money with reversals and forecast arrays that "work perfectly". Claims he bought the US stock market 2022 low using Socrates signals.

Victoria Wagner
 
Victoria Rich Claims she does not know Armstrong but then says the trusts him and that she is his special agent

Maik Kunde, main account: Maik Kunde on Facebook,  on Twitter as Kiam Ednuk @Maik_Kunde claims everywhere that Socrates works perfectly down to the day. Nice to put a face to a name of an  Armstrong paid shill.

 
Alex OriginAl the Dictator Moderator who deletes non-conforming members and their posts
 
Lateralus Smith inactive since Jul 31 2022 after I outed him as a paid liar (shill), and perhaps because he was too expensive for Martin Armstrong.
 
Dumitru Popovici an interesting character who has his own business, a subscription service. He uses the group as an advertising platform for his business. 
 
Spike Francis certainly a member of Armstrong's Inner Circle.who shamelessly tries to sell the Pro Socrates subscription at every opportunity.
 
Daniel Balogun certainly a shill paid by Armstrong.
 
The way they operate is complex. Some of them are building up their own base of followers while they set up their own front running operations or to promote a competing service in private messages. Others are paid by Martin Armstrong to keep the show running by posting occasionally and asking fake questions. Some perhaps both. Some are posting Armstrong blog pages and advertising on their profiles. And some are giving trading advice illegally as follows:
 
Let me use use the professional member Victoria Wagner in Group Profile as an example. Her general profile is: Victoria Wagner General Profile.
 
"If it holds until close ... "BUY" 🛎".
This is clearly the execution of a reversal trading signal which is a breakout signal designed for THEM to trade against. See::
 
 
So they have an additional potential income stream that sweetens the deal for them.
This is a front running operation without a license!

and she sells Socrates here as well:
 
hello can anyone tell , how much does cost one click per market in pro membership
Quote:
Victoria Wagner
150 USD with one market + every extra +25 USD / month
She is cheap because she always shoots from the hip, even uses direct German translations. But she follows the simple Armstrong up-selling script faithfully:
SOCRATES without the Pro Version is jokeless

... u need reversals and arrays
... Jon Quist and then trade the reversals
 
 and here (it's unbelievable):
 
Hi Guys & Girls, I want to give you a nice short term trading advise: It is the EURO... EUR/USD ... there should come a drop into next week to 1.046 Hope you can make some xmas dollars with this - or recover some bad trades of this year. All the best - Victoria Wagner
Nonsense. Price moved  sideways. Would have been a loss to trade it.

With 85 posts in a total of 2.5 months of participation, her activity is more than one post every 2 days on average, many with fairly meaningless charts. Clearly a professional activity! This person alone makes this group feel like a pump and dump channel on reddit or stocktwits. I suggest you analyze her suggested trades - they are knee jerk reaction trades across dozens of different markets, most with no time frame given, most of them losers. Reckless nonsense. There is no way that this person actually trades this stuff as she claims. But:
 
Socrates intraday numbers especially for the DOW-daytraders are like a Trading ATM 😅🤭💸
who of you is really trading with socrates here?
let's make some money together ... its fun ... hands up
SOCRATES PRO can change definetly your (traders) life ...
Don't believe me? Think I am paranoid? Look at this guy Ben Skala who is definitely an Armstrong fan:


Ben Skala (replying to Victoria Wagner)
Who do you work for anyhow? Are you attempting to set up people for a front running operation? You've given some advice that requires a license so I've got to wonder.

 
And regarding the success rate of these trades, I am not alone with my observations, either:

Preston Galarneau (replying to Victoria Wagner)
Oops. I do wonder when I see these posts if it’s Martin Armstrong’s product or the people who use it that are often wrong.

Advanced Marketing Evolution with Slack Group

While the Socrates scam business is constantly evolving, the following structured approach has emerged as a novelty: 

David Isham, see also David Isham Main Facebook profile has out-smarted Lateralus Smith and has taken over his role as main promoter due to an innovation. He has created an additional level in the scheme.

He has organized a private slack.com discussion group where mainly paying Socrates subscribers are invited. This group has 3 purposes:
  1. To provide an accounting of members that David Isham may have recruited.
  2. As members like to share paid for content (reversals, forecast arrays etc.), the slack group reduces the amount of uncontrolled shared information in the Facebook group whose members are mainly not subscribed, thereby reducing the number of freeloaders.
  3. The slack group is neatly organized into trading instruments where each instrument can be monitored separately in a time line. This provides David Isham with a free valuable pool of technical information that he can cherry-pick from for his own filtered promotions in the Facebook group AND on Twitter.
This is BIG. Because with point 3. above alone, David Isham has a large pool of trading scenarios to pick from. A pool that he would not be able to manage on his own, something that has certainly caused Lateralus Yellow a serious headache. Please don't misunderstand me. This pool is NOT useful for making profitable trades! It is only useful as a pool to pick after the event the best trade that would have been profitable.His idea is to publish in advance some trades, none of which he will actually make, and then later pick the best one to brag about, thereby creating the illusion that Socrates can be used as a profitable trading tool.
 
He also uses the data collected from paying subscribers and copies it as click bait into responses to Twitter posts of other traders, promoting Socrates subscription in the context of the instruments of these other traders. It is a cheap way to seek attention which would not be possible without 3) above because he cannot afford to pay the subscriptions for these instruments, and because he does not have the time to manage the data without the subscribers doing it for him free of charge.
 
Here is an example:
 
David Isham promoting Socrates on Twitter with Forecast Array Data gleaned from a subscriber on Feb 10, 2023 (emphasis added)
GDX shows a top on Feb 14. You must also subscribe to Socrates :)
He hopes to create a pyramid scheme that sustains itself.

The General Strategy

What is Martin Armstrong paying for here?

These shills, and he does not need many of them, need to create an ongoing artificial conversation, some kind of buzz, with the repeated advertising and hyping of the Socrates subscription software. They are creating the illusion that it is fun to trade with Socrates, without having to invest much into expensive charting of the Reversals and Forecast Arrays the way as it was practiced by Lateralus Yellow in the now defunct reddit group, defunct after I outed that guy. This Facebook group is a logical conclusion of that disaster, a progression or adaptation that I forced Martin Armstrong to do. The basic trick is that this Facebook group has about 1,600 members, with a number of new members joining every day. These are watching the show. It's pure advertising. More importantly, the group is more private and less prone to hijacking by disenfranchised Socrates clients who are banned more quickly and permanently - without any trace of them left behind.

The Next Level / Progression

There is a sense amongst some members that this group might be taken down in the future. To avoid this, there are suggestions like this one:
Vi Ktor
Dumitru Popovici There is a group on Telegram where things can be discussed more freely so that this group isn’t taken down and can be focused on more pure trading. Telegram has more of a chat friendly format also. Join group chat on Telegram T.ME
Join group chat on Telegram
T.ME

The relevant Facebook Dilemma

I was very pleased to read that researchers confirm my observation that Facebook's architecture creates structures with cracks for cockroaches like Martin Armstrong to hide in. By trial and error, he has found the ideal place where he can promote his scam at no cost and zero risk. I am referring to an article that summarizes this research:
 

Proven Criminal Tactics

All of the above is no surprise after the full exposure of Martin Armstrong's recent violent threat:

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