 Hello everyone. Welcome to Options with Doug. Streaming Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1.30 p.m. Eastern time on Bookmap Discord and the Bookmap YouTube channel. Before I get started, I need to go through the Disclosures. General Disclosure, all bookmap limited materials, information, and presentations are for educational purposes only and should not be considered specific investment advice nor recommendations. Risk Disclosure, training futures, equities, and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Here's my contact information. The best way to get in touch with me is through Discord. My name on Discord is Doug P. Also on Bookmap Discord, there's an Options-Dash-Doug chat channel. That's a great place to post questions, comments, and content related to the topics of my presentation and the topics of the channel that I'll go through in just a moment. And I'm also on X, formerly known as Twitter. My name there is at Doug Plus. Here are the key tenets to my approach for trading. This is the basis of my approach to trading. First of all, I believe that Options Trades and Market Maker hedging activity are key drivers of price in many stocks and futures and certainly in the equity index futures that I follow as well as the large cap tech stocks, the Mag7 stocks. And for the SB500, SPX is the underlying index. SPY is the ETF version of that and the ES futures, that's a derivative of SPX. And when traders buy and sell puts and calls in SPX and SPY, market makers take the opposite side of those trades and they hedge their delta exposure with ES futures. And for the NASDAQ 100, NDX is the underlying index. QQQ is the ETF version of that index. And NDX, NQ, is a derivative of NDX. So the NQ futures are derivative of NDX. And what traders buy and sell puts and calls in QQQ and NDX, market makers take the opposite side of those trades and they hedge their delta exposure with NQ futures. The focus of my presentation today and the focus of the options dash Doug chat channel is options order flow, the impact of options markets and stocks and futures and the influence of market maker hedging flow on price action. I have a two step process for trading and the first is planning. And I use positional analysis. I look at how traders and market makers are positioned in the options market and how those positions change from day to day to develop a thesis regarding the expected trading range and volatility for the day as well as the directional bias. And the second step in my process is execution. I look at real-time order flow and book map and real-time market maker hedging flow and spot gamma hero to confirm my thesis and for setups. And when I talk about setups today, I will be focusing on an underlying asset. For example, setups in the SB500 can be taken with ES futures, spy shares, spy options, SPX options or even ES options. So the setups that I talk about today will be suitable for any of those instruments. Questions and comments are welcome. And I will be watching both the options dash jug chat channel and discord as well as the chat and YouTube for your questions and comments. Please feel free to post. I'll do my best to answer your questions. Hello, Stephen. Welcome. Glad you're here. Hello, Mark, using training price time method. Hello. Welcome. Glad you're here as well. Here's my agenda for today. First of all, agenda for today, Wednesday, April 10th. First of all, I want to go over news items, economic data and events for today, as well as the rest of the week. And today has certainly been a big day so far. Still not over. Then I want to go through my positional analysis for today. Then I'll review some setups from earlier today. Then I'll take a look at the live market. And when I get to the live market, if anyone has any stocks they want me to take a look at, please let me know and I'll be glad to do that. All right, let's start with economic data. Excuse me. And I forgot to bring this over. Give me just a moment. All right, so today, of course, CPI data came out at 830 a.m. Eastern time. This is from financial juice showing that the CPI data was greater than expected. Looks like it was most of it was in line with the previous number, but higher than expected. And there was quite a bearish reaction. We'll take a look at that in just a minute. So CPI data out at 830 a.m. Eastern time greater than expected and a pretty big drop in the markets and the futures market based on those numbers. Right today, there was a 10 year note auction at 1pm. There was also initial bearish reaction to that. We'll take a look at that. And then today at 2pm, the FOMC minutes come out. So wherever I am, I will stop and we'll watch the SB 500 and NASDAQ to see if there's any reaction to the FOMC minutes. Then tomorrow, Thursday at 830 a.m. Eastern time, PPI data comes out. Could be another market mover. And then on Friday, 10am, Michigan consumer sentiment to wrap up the week. All right, let's move on to the SB 500 to positional analysis. And of course, this is the reaction to the CPI data. A huge drop from right around 52.70 to maybe 51.80. So a huge drop in the SB 500 after the CPI data release, assuming just a little bit. So this is the reaction to the 10 year note auction at 1pm. We'll talk more about setups in a few minutes. All right, so this is the SB 500. We've seen the reactions to the data so far bearish both to the CPI data and the 10 year note auction. All right, let's take a look now at the larger time frame. We'll take a look at the SPX before we get started with a closer look at this chart. So let's go to SPX, start with a one day so we can go to a higher time frame. SPX, the underlying index. Hello, Caesar. Welcome. Glad you're here. The current trend began last year, October 30th. Maybe this looks like the biggest threat to that uptrend so far the last few days. All right, so this is the SPX one day chart and think or swim. All right, so let's take a look at the top of this rally now. Let's go to a one hour chart. So this is the top of that green trend line. And note that since that top SPX has been gradually making a series of lower highs. All right, let's take a look at the levels on this chart. First of all, the dash purple lines are showing the lower and upper weekly expected move. This is based on the options market based on the closing price for SPX last Friday. These lines remain in place for the entire week. The dash blue lines are showing the lower and upper daily expected move. Also based on the previous closing price, that's from yesterday. Note there was a very large expected move due to the CPI data that came out today. SPX is trading well below the lower daily expected move. So the expected move for SPX for today was plus or minus 46 points. SPX trading well below that level. And do note I do post those levels in discord every day. All right, the dark, the red lines, the red horizontal lines are showing these are spot gamma levels. These are provided to spot gamma subscribers. They're very available on a variety of trading platforms. This is thinkorswim. I'm going to point out the key data levels. These are based on gamma weighted open interest. So first of all, 5000. That's the absolute gamma strike. That was the put wall yesterday. The put wall did move up. So 5000 is the absolute gamma strike. That's a strike with the largest absolute positive and negative gamma. And above that is the put wall at 5100. And that's a strike with large net negative gamma that can be expected to act as support. And again, that level did move up from yesterday. It was at 5000 yesterday, moved up to 5100. The next level up is the volatility trigger at 5195. That is spot gamma's proprietary volatility level. Below that level, market makers position on the gamma curve is negative. In a negative gamma environment, market makers have to trade with price to achieve their delta exposure. That tends to enhance or increase volatility. And note that SPX is trading well below that level now. Now above that level, market makers position on the gamma curve is positive. In a positive gamma environment, market makers have to trade against price to hedge their delta exposure. That tends to subdue or decrease volatility. And then finally, the call wall is up at 5300. And that's a strike with the largest net positive gamma that can be expected to act as resistance. So this is the first time in a while that the put wall has really been more in play than the call wall. All right, potential floor at 5100, the put wall potential ceiling for price at 5300, the call wall. All right, let's wrap up our view of SPX with a one minute chart so we can see the levels in play for today. SPX, one minute chart. For today, the spot gamma level in play is the 5179 zero gamma level that acted as resistance earlier today. Here's the lower daily expected move now acting as resistance. And SPX, it looks like right after the node auction put in a low of the day right around 5138. All right, so again remember the next level below is the put wall at 5100. Let's just go check that. All right, so lower weekly expected move right around 5130 and then there's the put wall at 5100. So SPX still so far today above the lower weekly expected move. All right, let's go back to book map now. All right, so let's take a look at the levels on the book map chart. All right, so in book map I have my own cloud notes. So I can show SPX levels and the label you can't see it there but that's the 5179 zero gamma level that did act as resistance earlier today. Hello, Katina. Welcome glad you're here. I'm going to tone down the heat map just a bit so we can see the volume dots better. All right, so I have SPX levels on this chart and I also have spy levels on this chart. Here's the spy 512 level and around that level did act as support earlier today and this is the lower weekly expected move for ES. I calculate that separately than the lower weekly expected move for SPX. All right, so here's the spy 515 level acting as resistance after the impulse move up after the move down for the note auction. So levels in play after the move down cash open 514 and again the 516 level and the 5179 zero gamma level. All right, note there is a difference in price between ES and SPX and earlier today it was right around 47 points so that's about what it is. Now somewhere between 46 and 47 I'm using 47 so I'm showing SPX 5150 at ES 5197 and I do post those index relationships and discord every day so if you want to show the SPX and spy levels on your chart again I do post the index relationships. All right, let's zoom in on this just a little bit so we're showing from the cash open on 5147 level that was noted as support in the spot game I am Founder's note and again the 5179 zero gamma level. All right, shifts and levels I mentioned. Putwall shifted higher for SPX and spy as well so you can see the spy put wall down below at 510. All right, let's move on to NASDAQ. These are the NQ futures and book map and I do want to take a look at the underlying index charts. Most important level is this QQQ 434 435 put wall definitely in play for today acting as support so let's take a look at the QQQ chart. Here's that put wall at 435 acting as support so again it's been a while since a put wall has been in play rather than a call wall. So price that was support before the cash open shown in this light gray area then the dark area is after the cash open and since then NASDAQ is traded in a fairly narrow range and this there are a couple of combo levels in play here. This 43650 that's a combo to level combining QQQ and NDX gamma weighted open interest into one combined level here shown in terms of a QQQ price acting as support and then the 439 level acting as resistance and that's not a spot gamma level that's just a round number in QQQ so really the range has been from this 43650 combo to level up to the round number level 439 for today after the big move down for the reaction to the CPI data and you can see this narrow range in NASDAQ after the cash open. Let's take a quick look at NDX zoom in just a bit so again pretty narrow range after the big drop and the gap down in the case of NDX levels in play 17988 zero gamma level and the 18,000 level not really acting as support or resistance. Alright so just like yes I have my own cloud notes here so I can show QQQ levels. There's the put wall again acting as support key support for today. There's that 43650 C2 level acting as support after the cash open and then the 439 acting as resistance. Alright there were no shifts in levels for NDX or QQQ so just based on that a pretty neutral outlook of course that was based on data from open interest yesterday and that was before the data release this morning. Alright let's take a look at Gamma Notional to see how market makers were positioned on the Gamma curve at the beginning of the day then we'll take a look at the Vana model. Alright so this is Gamma Notional market makers position on the Gamma curve at the beginning of the day for the SB500 and NASDAQ. Note these numbers all shift at higher from yesterday and slightly positive for SPX and still negative for SPI and QQQ so in a positive Gamma environment again market makers have to trade against price to hedge their delta exposure. The assumption is that traders are short calls market makers are long calls in a positive Gamma environment then a negative Gamma environment the assumption is that traders are long puts market makers are short puts hence the negative Gamma and they have to trade with price to hedge their delta exposure so that's at the beginning of the day again before the data release at 8 30 a.m. Eastern time. Alright so let's take a look at the Vana model now in any time there's a data release it or I look at this every day so let's check this is for SPX the Vana model what this chart is showing is market makers delta notional on the vertical axis spot price for SPX on the horizontal axis there are two curves on this chart like gray curve shows how market makers delta notional may change with changes in price only and the purple curve adds implied volatility to the equation that shows how market makers delta notional may change with changes in price and applied volatility and that change in change in delta with a change in implied volatility is the Vana effect Vana is a second-order Greek so one thing that we can gather from this is if price drops and implied volatility increases just alone that will increase market makers delta notional on the other hand if price increases implied volatility drops that alone will decrease market makers delta notional alright so let's take a look at so far the low of the day let me check on prices so for SPX we know the low of the day was right around 51 38 so that's right around here let's go back and check our SPX chart again one minute chart high of the day right around the zero gamma level at 51 79 so 51 38 somewhere around here low of the day 51 79 right here so what we know is price drop today and applied volatility increased market makers delta notional increased delta notional increases market makers want to remain delta neutral so they had to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure now this does work the other way so this is typical in a very negative gamma environment remember SPX is well below its volatility trigger at 51 95 price drops implied volatility increases market makers have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure if price increases market and implied volatility drops market makers can buy back short futures so this shows how market makers are trading in the direction of price in this negative gamma environment below the volatility trigger all right so let's move on and take a look at some setups now and I've got about five or six minutes before the FOMC minutes so I'm gonna take just a minute to take a look at some setups all right so the reason I'm doing this and this is the attitude that I take when I'm reviewing setups I want to see what I could have done better how can how could I improve what did I miss I'll look at some some trades today some I took some I didn't again I'm looking at this from a review point looking at how I can approve what I did wrong what I did well and what I could what what can I do better next time all right so I'm gonna start by taking a look at what options traders have been doing today so everything that we've looked at so far other than the book map is based on static data those levels that I was showing that on my charts that's based on static data spot gamma takes open interest data that's updated once a day sometime during the night they apply their algorithms to that data to come up with those levels and those levels do change every day that's why I keep track of those but now let's move on to execution we're going to take a look at real-time data so first of all this is hero hedging impact real-time options H I R O this is available to spot gamma subscribers what this chart is showing this particular chart for the SB 500 that's showing a combined signal of SB X by XSP and ES options options trades and market maker hedging activity so again that's a combined signal for all those forms of the SB 500 sorry about that I have complained to spot gamma about that banner that keeps popping up I don't know what the deal is with that alright so let's take a closer look at this chart alright so the white line on this chart is price for SP X and the purple line is the hero signal again hedging impact real-time options a rising hero signal indicates traders are taking positive delta positions a fall that would be buying calls and or selling puts and a falling hero signal indicates traders taking negative delta positions that is buying puts and or selling calls alright so let's take a look look at the morning I'm gonna zoom in a bit alright so right at the cash open there was a flow alert you can only see the just a little bit of it but heroes started to rise and again indicating traders are taking positive delta positions and note the flow alert that comes in right right around 1038 signaling the high point traders start taking negative delta positions the SB 500 moves lower so a set up long set up from the open up to 1040 and then a reversal lower so let's go take a look at book map go back to ES zoom in alright so we'll do this quickly I've got about a minute before the FOMC minutes so traders were taking positive delta positions from the open and there was a lot of chop and then finally an entry that took again right around the 41 51 47 and the spy 513 level in the SB 500 made a series of higher lows up to the 51 79 zero gamma level then traders that flow alert came in traders started taking negative delta positions and price move lower you can see the shift and cumulative volume delta a lot of aggressive sellers come in shown by the magenta volume dots alright let's zoom out let's zoom out FOMC minutes eminent see if there's any reaction alright we'll watch this of for a few minutes then we'll take a look and see what what options traders are doing so far not really much of a reaction they'll now you know another bearish reaction zoom in just a bit alright let's see if options traders are doing anything let's go back to hero zoom out I'm gonna zoom in to the alright so really no no special reaction so far hero is moving higher let's take a look and see what traders are doing with puts and calls so today they are buying calls that show them by the positive notion of value for the orange line and they're also buying puts that show them by the negative notional value for the blue line and note the the balance is pretty close to even for the day that's a very low number 158 million so call by are slightly more aggressive alright let's move back take a look at this short setup this one was a little bit more clear the flow alert coming in right at the top there hero shifted shiftly sharply lower and let's go back to the SB 500 ES futures alright so there's that move lower the magenta dots again the volume dots are showing market buy minus sell green volume dots indicate more buyers than sellers magenta dots indicate more sellers than buyers note the stop run up to the 5179 level that shown by the rising yellow line as well as the on-chart indicators buyers are exhausted aggressive sellers start to come in and price moves lower all right let's take a look at NASDAQ now hello trading for a living welcome glad you're here right NASDAQ I'm gonna go back to hero we zoom out the signal that I look at for the NASDAQ is this mag 7 signal what this is this is another combined signal showing options trades and market maker hedging activities about that man that is irritating I don't know if I can I'll be able to mark this or not so this is a combined signal options trades market maker hedging activity for a combined signal of the stocks known as the magnificent 7 Apple Amazon Google Meta Microsoft Nvidia and Tesla note this signal has been bullish all day let's zoom in on this chart traders have been taking positive Delta positions in the mag 7 stocks all day taking advantage of the dip buying the dip in the mag 7 stocks let's take a look and see what they're doing so they're buying calls and sort and or and selling puts calls shown by the rising orange line hello can you hear me can you hear me now all right how about YouTube right can you can you hear me on YouTube all right I'm not sure what happened I just I just had to unplug my microphone and then plug it back in so sorry about that looks like I lost a lot of people I'm so sorry had no idea that my audio was out right so again sorry apologies I'm back now alright so we're looking at Nasdaq again remember we're looking at the mag 7 hero signal traders taking positive Delta positions and not really much of a reaction on the Nasdaq slight grind higher all right let's take a look at some stocks there were some better trades and stocks all right the first AMD so this was a short today and otherwise all the setups that I'll take a look at were long so let's go take a look at hero for AMD so AMD initially let's zoom in a bit traders were buying calls shown by the rising orange line and they were also buying put shown by the falling blue line then right around just before 10 a.m. maybe 955 traders started selling calls blue line orange line moving in the same direction and price moves lower so it took some patience to wait for this but as the call signal shifted shifted down that was the time to take a short and that was just below the 170 hedgewall right so let's go take a look at AMD take a look at book map 170 hedgewall and price of reverse is lower just before 10 a.m. as traders started selling calls alright so short set up and in AMD initial entry right around 10 a.m. kind of a head and shoulder set head and shoulder entry there head and shoulders and then pullbacks to VWAP for secondary entries so continuation or pullback entries for the short to VWAP that's this light blue line so again it took some patience waiting for that call signal to shift lower all right so the next setup is coinbase just the opposite here opposite great long from the open let's take a look and see what options traders are doing let's go to coinbase so initially in coinbase traders were selling puts shown by the rising blue line they were also buying calls note the flow alert right around 945 signaling significant options activity and also note the call buyers take their foot off the gas right around 1040 and price consolidates so the initial move up was from about 932 1040 call buyers took their foot off the gas they continued to sell puts but that fuel from the call buyers stopped right around 1040 and price started to consolidate still grinding hires traders continue to sell puts so let's go back to book map coinbase the zoom in a bit there's an initial thrust lower this is the absorption indicator showing that buyers limit buy orders absorb those aggressive sellers price started to make higher lows pull back to VWAP this time did not make it quite to VWAP more pullbacks then right around 1040 call buyers take the foot off the gas and coinbase consolidates stop stops making higher highs then now traders have they're starting to sell puts again price moved up to the 250 key gamma strike let's go back to hero I'm gonna shift back to the total signal so coinbase has been grinding higher even though the hero signal is is flat looks like maybe finding some resistance at the 250 key gamma strike all right the next is meta know the long today dip buyers flow alerts come in right after the open then another one around 940 let's see what traders are doing so they're selling puts and buying calls it looks like the put sellers were the were the driving factor in the morning let's go back to the total signal I'm gonna have to jump again go back to meta just to avoid that auto zoom flow alerts traders taking positive delta positions selling puts and buying calls take the foot off the gas around 1110 now the hero signal is starting to rise again just a little bit right so this is very typical price action aggressive options traders in the morning take their foot off the gas mid to late morning and price consolidates let's go back to book map go to meta this is very typical for meta too much quick thrust higher then deep pullbacks so if you miss that initial long deep pullbacks to get long as traders continue to take positive delta options positions then price consolidating around 1110 1115 as options traders took their foot off the gas all right let's go back to hero all right so we saw with coinbase there were alerts hero rising long entries pullback entries meta the same alerts traders taking positive delta positions pullback entries and then the last one I want to take a look at is Nvidia aggressive options traders in the morning let's take a look at Nvidia see what they were doing I'm gonna shift to puts and calls then we'll go to Nvidia traders buying calls and and selling puts note that 865 is the hedge wall 825 is the put wall flow alert just a few minutes after the cash open traders aggressively buying calls that slows down a bit they're also selling puts that shown by the rising blue line and then finally right around 1130 they take the foot off the gas and Nvidia consolidates and Katina wants to take a look at Amazon let's do that all right so the hero signal pretty choppy several flow alerts spot gamma has indicated that when there are several flow alerts in a look in a row this can often indicate shop so overall though the trend is higher positive notion of value traders taking positive delta positions let's go take a look at a book map we'll go to Amazon so initial drop lower and Amazon this was before the cash open then the cash open this is the opening print Amazon grinding higher pullback to VWAP note the following cumulative on Delta looks like options traders definitely driving price in Amazon today all right any other stocks so anyone have any other stocks they want me take a look at so again Amazon pullback to VWAP for the pullback pullback let's take a look at the SB 500 see what it's done since the FOMC minutes not much chopping up and down around 514 let's go back to hero the SB 500 both the hero signal and the SB 500 moving sideways let's check check the mag 7 that hero signal continues to move higher I'm just scanning some charts seeing if I see anything for a setup let's take a look at Tesla it's looking looking somewhat weak just chopping so Tesla good short in the morning hero signal flow alert hero signal moving lower and traders options traders took the foot off the gas pretty quickly right around 950 and looks like Tesla has chopped around since then so let's go take a look at book map looks like the SB 500 are moving lower now look at all the magenta volume dots there's definitely some aggressive sellers here and in Tesla there's the initial move lower as traders were taking negative Delta positions and then chop pretty much ever since then again that's a lot of magenta volume dots a lot of aggressive sellers all right WRB there you go there's Tesla good move lower in the morning hero signal falling heroes falling hero signal flow alert and then chopping up and down between 171 and 73 all right let's let's take a look at something else see if we see any setups one thing that I like to do and in the morning is watch for these alerts so I pointed out the alerts in Coinbase meta Nvidia and in Tesla but now looks like some buyers are coming in and Tesla let's see what they're doing looks like they may be selling puts rising hero signal and you're welcome WRB let's see if there's any response in Tesla to that hero signal so far it looks like there's no response we'll go to book map go to Tesla and so far no response still a lot of magenta volume dots aggressive sellers so Tesla still making a series of lower highs down below VWAP if I were interested in a long I would look for Tesla to move up above VWAP and to start making a series of higher lows and higher highs and so far that's not happening let's go back to hero no alerts coming in so let's go back to the full screen maybe take a look at AMD KP wants to take a look at ACB not sure what that is I certainly I don't have a CBN book map we can take a look at hero are you sure that's the correct ticker there's nothing in nothing in hero so sorry KP all right AMD not much take a look at Google Google trying to move higher let's go take a let's do a quick scan all right Microsoft hero signal moving higher looks like it's Microsoft is up near recent highs let's go take a look at book map go to Microsoft right so Microsoft up near the upper end of its range during the regular trading hours right of round 422 so big move down like everything else then then a narrow range 420 to 422 after that mostly aggressive sellers shown by the falling cumulative volume Delta which really started to move down right around 1145 let's go back and take a look at the hero right now this is this can happen with Microsoft these big block orders institutional orders up up down moving a hero signal up and down all right let's do a quick scan through Tesla still flat Nvidia hero signal flat to rising Nvidia flat Meta still consolidating and Google also up near the highs of the cash session Amazon hero signal continues to rise let's go back to book map take a look at Amazon all right so maybe potential long on a pullback looks like there would not be much range in that maybe at 185 let's go check Nasdaq a lot of lines on the chart sorry about that Nasdaq still stuck in a range let's see what the mag 7 traders are doing so this is shown price shown in terms of QQQ so maybe if there's a pullback to this previous low maybe along so that would be that 436 50 that is active to support several times today all right everyone I want to thank you for watching thank you for your questions and comments and I will see you on Friday remember PPI data tomorrow out tomorrow at 8 30 a.m. Eastern time and then Michigan consumer sentiment 10 a.m. on Friday so we'll talk about on on Friday everyone have a great afternoon thank you very much for watching thanks for your questions and comments and I will see you on Friday bye