 Hello everyone welcome to options with Doug streaming live daily on book map discord and the book map YouTube channel at 1 30 p.m. Eastern time before I get started I need to go through the disclosures general disclosure all book map limited materials information and presentations are for educational purposes only and should not be considered specific investment advice nor recommendations risk disclosure trading futures equities and options involve substantial risk of loss and it's not suitable for all investors past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results here's my contact information the best way to contact me is in discord my name is Doug P also in book map discord there's an option stash dug chat channel that's a great place for questions and comments content related to my presentation as well as options in order flow the the topics of the channel which I'll cover in just a moment so again especially for those of you watching in YouTube if you have questions after the webinar the best way to get in touch with me is through discord and everyone feel free to join book map discord is free for all whether you subscribe to book map or not and then finally I'm also on X formerly known as Twitter my name there is at Doug plus the focus of my presentation and the focus of the options stash dug chat channel is options order flow the impact of options markets on stocks and futures and the influence of market maker hedging flow on price action have a two-step process for trading in 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 a directional bias and the second step of my process is execution and 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 for entries and exits and when I talk about setups today I will be talking about setups in another lying asset that can be taken any number of ways for example when I look at the SB 500 today setups can be taken with with futures or spy shares spy options or SPX options my analysis again is based on the options market order flow and hedging flow setups can be taken any number of ways questions and comments are welcome and I will be watching both the options stash dug chat channel and discord as well as the chat and YouTube for your questions comments please feel free to post and I'll do my best to answer your questions my agenda for today what I want to cover is news items economic data events and earnings and then I'll go through my positional analysis then I'll review some setups from this morning and then finally I'll take a look at the live market 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 news items pretty light week today jobless claims did come out at 8 30 a.m. Eastern time this morning and jobless claims were lower than expected and lower than previous and the market had a negative reaction to that let's go ahead and take a look at that this is the SAP 500 futures ES futures and book map here's the data release at 8 30 a.m. Eastern time you know just anything this week can can move the market yesterday the POS ISM services PMI 10 a.m. had a very that came out better than expected and in a good news is bad news scenario which is what happened today that's at the market sharply lower same for today so that was the jobless claims as far as I know that is the last last data release for this week and then it'll pick up next week right so that's the data economic data events earnings for the week very light week right let's get to positional analysis now so this is again the SAP 500 futures and book map before I take a closer look at this chart I want to take a look at a larger time frame I'm going to start with the SPX in a 30-day one-hour chart and note this rally began on August 18th that was the August options expiration put dominated slightly put dominated but very negative gamma so that means that traders were long puts market makers were short puts and as those puts expired price increased implied volatility drops puts were losing value and again puts expiring market makers could buy back short hedges and price rallied SPX rallied up to just short just right around 45-25 and during that move up again the very negative gamma position at 818 during the rally up that negative gamma gradually became less negative and shifted to positive gamma on August 30th and now today has shifted back to negative gamma I'll talk more about that and in just a few minutes so that is I'm talking about the SPX not the not spy just SPX so deeply negative gamma at August 18th rallied up to a positive gamma position on the 30th and now has shifted back to negative gamma today all right let me point out some levels on this chart first of all the dash purple lines are showing the lower and upper weekly expected move and note that SPX is trading below that lower weekly expected move this is based on the options market it's available in any trading platform that has an options chain then the dash blue lines are showing the lower and upper daily expected move so SPX did trade down below the lower daily expected move earlier today and now is moving back up so currently above that level all right so those are the daily and weekly expected moves let's take a look at the spot gamma levels now these are proprietary spot gamma levels gamma weighted open interest first of all I'm going to go over the key daily level so here's the put wall this is the strike with the largest net negative gamma that can be expected to act as support the next level up is the volatility trigger that is at 4470 that is spot gammas proprietary gamma flip 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 hedge their delta exposure and that tends to subdue or decrease volatility I'm sorry negative gamma environment that tends to enhance or increase volatility trying to read questions all right so negative gamma environment market makers have to trade with price to hedge their delta exposure and that tends to enhance or increase volatility so SPX is shifted back to a negative gamma environment SPX still trading below the volatility trigger 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 and that tends to subdue volatility and then the next level up is the 4500 level that's the strike with the largest absolute positive and negative gamma and then finally the call wall is at 4600 that's the strike with the largest net positive gamma that can be expected to act as resistance so those are the key daily levels let's take a look at a another SPX chart just a shorter time frame so we can isolate the SPX levels that are in play for today so first of all here's the lower daily expected move SPX gap down below that level chopped around below that level then rallied right around 1030 rallied up above that level and it acted as support a couple of times and now SPX is gradually moving higher making a higher low but still below the volatility trigger and the lower weekly expected move right in my ES chart and book map I have the SPX levels there's the 4450 level that was noted as support in the spot gamma am founders note there's the 4442 level also noted as support and that is right around the lower daily expected move again that level acting as support I also have spy levels on this chart the spy 443 level was not it's not a gamma level not a key gamma level but it did act as support multiple times today it looks like right at the cash open there was a triple bottom at that level for from 930 to 1030 and before at around 9 a.m. that level was tested as well so the spy 443 around that level the lower the day and note that yesterday excuse me spy I'm sorry excuse me spy 444 was the low around the low of the day so yesterday the data release at 10 a.m. the PMI data came out spy dropped pretty quickly from 448 made its way down to 444 and as positive Delta options traders came in started taking positive Delta positions spy rally back up to the halfway point at 446 so today right at the open I'm sorry right at the the release of the data the jobless claims at 830 a.m. the SMB 500 dropped below that 444 4444 level down to 443 and now as made its way back up to the absolute gamma strike also the put wall at 445 right so I have spy levels SPX levels also ES levels and there's the lower daily expected move for ES all right let me go over shifts and levels for the SMB 500 first of all for SPX the volatility trigger did shift lower slightly from 4475 yesterday to 4470 today that was the only shift lower for SPX and for spy there were quite a few shifts lower first of all the volatility trigger shifted lower the call wall shifted lower from 455 to 452 and also the absolute gamma strike shifted lower from 450 yesterday to 445 so bearish shifts lower in levels for spy again volatility trigger call wall absolute gamma strike all shifted lower we'll talk about setups in a few minutes those are the levels and play for today all right let's take a look at NASDAQ NASDAQ I'm gonna first of all isolate the QQQ levels and play for today so for QQQ the main level and play for today is the 370 put wall price did move below that level almost down to 369 made a series of higher lows tested that level around 1030 and now it's chopped around between 370 again that's the put wall and the 372 level so those are the QQQ levels and play for today note the 372 level acting as resistance multiple times also earlier today the 371 level was resistance then acted as support round number levels for QQQ very important all right let's take a look at ndx so here's ndx the gamma levels and play for today now I will tell you that I include ndx just for completeness I think the QQQ levels are much more important again I'm including this just for completeness one of the reasons is the options in ndx are very thin for example for several days the put wall for ndx was higher was at 15175 whereas the call wall was at 14625 so the put wall was higher than the call wall for several days that has shifted lower now so again I don't I put more much more weight on the QQQ levels for Nasdaq than I do the ndx but again I include this for completeness so just up for shifts and levels for ndx the put wall now shifted lower down below the call wall where it should be down from 15175 yesterday to 13000 and then for QQQ the volatility trigger shifted lower from 377 to 374 and then the put wall shifted higher all right so those are levels in play for Nasdaq today note this 372 level that's also the lower daily expected move for ndq that level is acting as resistance and then here's the QQQ 370 put wall I'll talk about setups in a few minutes so those are the levels in play for today for the SMB 500 and for for Nasdaq let's take a look at gamma notional now Lincoln's important to look at this every day this gives us an idea of how market makers are positioned on the gamma curve at the beginning of the day and how they are likely to react to changes in price and applied volatility and this also give us a sense for the expected volatility and trading range for the day so I'm looking at gamma notional for SPX spy ndx and QQQ and note that today all these numbers are negative for SPX spy and QQQ again for gamma notional I really don't pay much attention to ndx it really doesn't change very much so gamma notional for SPX did shift from positive yesterday slightly positive almost neutral really to negative today spy gamma notion shifted more negative as well as QQQ gamma notional was slightly positive just really neutral shifted to negative today so this gives me an idea that boring any mean reverting trade from options traders which can especially for Z zero DTE traders we'll take a look at that in a few minutes that can have a mean reversing reverting price action as they buy dips and sell sell reps barring that this gives this gives me a sense that volatility will be higher today and to look for wider trading ranges larger moves so what this means is that in a negative gamma environment market makers are long puts I'm sorry traders along puts market makers are short puts and they have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure and let's see how that works with the Vana model I'm going to take a look at SPX again it shifted to negative gamma today what this chart is showing is market makers delta notional on the vertical axis and how that changes with changes and price shown on the horizontal axis so the great curve is showing how market makers delta notional changes with changes in price only the purple curve adds implied volatility to the equation that's the one we want to take a look at that shows how market makers delta notional will change with changes in price and implied volatility and that change in delta with a change in applied volatility is the Vana effect and Vana is a second order Greek so let's take a look and see where SPX has traded today so first of all right around 44 30 was low of the day and SPX right now is trading right around 44 53 so starting from this point with price increasing and implied volatility dropping market makers could buy back short futures and that that is a put Vana rally so market makers always want to remain delta neutral so as their delta notional drops they can buy back their short futures and that helps to enhance or increase volatility leading again to wider trading ranges they are trading with price in a negative gamma environment and that again that tends to make for larger moves all right so pretty similar curves for spy just likely more negative gamma as well as QQQ all right let's take a look at some setups so we know that barring anything else we're expecting higher volatility for today also S&P 500 just based on the shifts level lower and spy for volatility trader call wall and absolute gamma strike that led me to an initial thesis primary thesis for that was bearish all right let's see how that played out I'm going to take a look at start with take a taking a look at the hero signal this is hedging impact real-time options this is available to spot gamma subscribers the white line is showing price for SPX the purple line is showing options trades and market maker hedging activity for a combined signal for SPX spy XSP and ES futures so if you trade any form of the S&P 500 this is really the signal that you want to take a look at the combined signal of all these instruments all right let me check for questions all right so Soto sorry says put walls on spy as 450 SPX put wall as 4300 which is correct put wall so first of all the put wall for spy is 445 the put wall for SPX is 4300 so they're both correct they're just at at different levels all right so you know they're both correct I think maybe over time they may sink closer together or move further apart but again they're both both correct and then Friday is asking about a put banner rally or a call gamma unwind so we'll we'll take a look at that so for the S&P 500 we're seeing a put put banner rally today as those as market makers can buy back short futures as price increases and applied volatility drops we just check something all right so VIX is actually up for the day all right so but VIX has been declining all day all right so implied volatility dropping let's just take a look at that so price rising implied volatility dropping market makers can buy back short futures let's go take a look at VIX so here's VIX declining all day so implied volatility dropping price rising market makers buying back short futures so put banner rally today and and we'll see tomorrow when we have have the data see what the market makers position on the gamma curve is is tomorrow all right so let's take a look at some setups for today so we know what this chart is is the hero signal gonna zoom in on more of the warning session so this was really first of all set up a short confirmation of a short right around 945 then the mean reverting options trades come in right around 1030 then they start selling again taking negative delta positions but in in that case that does not have much of an impact on price so let's and then finally around 12 o'clock options traders join the party again and price continues to grind higher let's see what traders are doing I'm gonna take a look at a couple things first of all let's take a look at this next expiry which will show us the zero DTE trades so for the SB 500 SB X ES SPI they're all options that expire every day so this next expiry is the zero DTE trades and that is slightly more negative still than the total all expirations but a very large part of the options trades today are in zero DTE trades notes the the strong correlation between the green line that's showing zero DTE and the purple line which is showing all trades right so we know that zero DTE traders are having a big part of options trades today a large large amount of the volume today is zero DTE trades and this is pretty typical this is showing that traders are buying calls shown by the rising orange line positive notional value here 1.3 billion they're also buying puts that show by the falling blue line and the negative notional value there minus 1.82 all right let's take a look at some setups so really the key setups were the short right at 945 that was confirmed by negative delta trades and then this reversal hire at 1030 and note this reversal hire came with the fourth test of that right around the spy 443 level all right let's go take a look at book map zoom in to about 1130 so here's the reversal lower reversal lower at 945 right at the 4450 level just around VWAP as well that's shown by the light blue line there and then aggressive sellers really come in just below the 44 42 level lower daily expected move also the 444 level price moves down for another retest of the 443 level and then so that led to one good short setup and then another move down so that was the short setup and then we know that options trader started taking positive delta positions right around 1030 just a few minutes after you can see the shift in order flow let's take a look at the clues and book map so we know this level the 443 level has been tested multiple times we know that options traders started taking positive delta positions we also know that large traders have been buying with iceberg orders that's shown by the ooze hire in the light blue line that's 3587 contracts five executions 283 238 236 contracts two executions you can see the shift in order flow from these magenta dots those are showing by minus sell so more aggressive sellers than buyers those are market orders and then aggressive buyers come in you can see the clear shift from magenta dots to green dots and then the move move hire is starts to be fueled by by stop order shown by the rising yellow line also cumulative volume delta the pink line is rising by stop orders and that fuels the move hire to 4450 spx 4450 as options traders again we're taking positive delta positions just want to mention I can only present on one screen but when I'm trading during the day I have book map on one screen and hero on another screen and hello Vhoo good afternoon to you glad you're here welcome and I will talk about meta definitely great long and short setups in meta today all right so that's the sp500 continues to grind hire multiple pullback entries so far large traders on the right side of the trade here with iceberg orders they're buying with iceberg orders well let's take a look at nasdaq let's take a look let's go to hero first see what options traders were doing take a look at nasdaq so interesting the flow alerts now are available on the combined signal so that is let's see so what this is this is an alert that is still in beta testing it's a alert to high levels of hero flow so it's a hero alert the alerts appear over here I don't want to go to that see all so anyway let's let's zoom in on this so this is a combined signal for nasdaq for ndx and qqq let's zoom in on this so really for nasdaq this hero signal has been more bullish all day so based on this I would be be looking for longs options traders taking positive delta positions let's see what they're doing so they're buying calls that shown by the rising orange line also the positive notional value there at 562 million they're also buying puts that shown by the falling blue line as well as the negative notional value that's minus 86 million so the call buyers are much more aggressive than the put buyers and that is definitely driving price action higher in in nasdaq today call buyers in charge let's go take a look at book man go to nasdaq so really it looks like aggressive buyers as well as options traders call buyers helping to drive price higher in nasdaq today making a series of lower higher lows coming back to retest key levels so here's the test of the 370 put wall would consider that somewhat of an all-clear signal put wall acts of support as expected you can see the shift in order flow there aggressive sellers on the way down a test of the put wall and then aggressive buyers come in as options traders are taking positive delta positions quick move up to 372 level then chop and now price is trying to move above that level and we saw in the QQQ chart that 372 level had has acted as resistance a number of times today just the opposite of the S&P 500 here large traders are fading the move iceberg orders lower for the day right let's go back and take a look at hero one more time so we know that call buyers are helping to drive price higher today let's just check one thing so this reversal here was right around 1030 let's see what options traders were doing in that time I'm gonna zoom in on this just a little bit look at 1030 let's see what the call buyers were doing so right around that time they start buying calls more aggressively this line goes from pretty much flat to increasing put line is flat they buy a few puts then they start selling puts and that helps to jump start that move higher above the 370 boot wall alright so that's the S&P 500 and Nasdaq nice put Vanna rally slow grind higher in the S&P 500 then call buyers so far today helping to drive price higher in Nasdaq let's take a look at some stocks now start with Apple remember Apple has been pretty weak yesterday there was some news out of China helped to drive Apple lower dip buyers came in today no there was an alert flow alert for Apple after a pullback that led to a decent long here no the 180 is the call wall we'll take a look book map in just a moment we'll see I would imagine there's quite a bit of liquidity at that level we'll see what option traders are doing alright so they're actually selling puts in Apple today helping to drive price higher so when traders sell puts market makers buy the puts and they have to buy stock to hedge their dealt exposure so the put sellers much more aggressive than the call sellers so this call number slightly negative 1.33 million versus the negative 1.33 million now less than that 660 616 K versus 386 negative for puts so they're selling calls selling puts put gel put sellers in charge go take a look at book map go to Apple and I believe this is the the pullback to 176 and VWAP after that alert good for a quick two-point move up to 178 liquidity target there and note the high liquidity stacked up at that 180 level right so put sellers coming in today let's just go back and check that alert so that reversal higher pullback to VWAP 176 right around 1030 let's go to hero again so that alert comes in right around 1015 just wait for the pullback and then there's the 180 I'm sorry that is 180 is actually the put wall so Apple trading well below its put wall today right the next is Amazon and every day what I do is I just look at a few stocks to highlight I'm going to zoom in on about the first hour of trade so note the rising hero line from the open when 35 is the key gamma strike when 34 is the hedgewall this is a large block trade large institution so hero drops large institution takes advantage of that does a big block trade buying calls showing that pop-up shown by that pop-up in the orange line so call buyers definitely driving price in Amazon today let's go take a look so this hero alert comes in right around 1015 same time as Apple book map go to Amazon nice uptrend in Amazon alert came in a little bit late wait for a pullback price moves higher call buyers definitely in charge today and you can see that from the open really let's go back and take a look at hero by the rising hero line actually let me gonna zoom in on the first on the first half hour so you can see that traders were taking positive delta positions from the open helping to fuel that sharp move higher up to the 135 key gamma strike and up higher up to the now up above the 137 level all right the next is meta here you go be who very interesting day today in meta note that 305 is the call wall we'll keep that in mind all right let's go take a look at hero look at meta so 300 is the key gamma strike below that level 295 is the hedge wall put wall down at 290 then above that there's the call wall so at the zeros and fives those are the key daily levels now let's zoom in first of all we'll zoom in on the on the morning session and it took a little while for options traders to join the party here right around 1005 also there was an alert here right around 1015 same time as apple and amazon let's see what traders were doing so they're buying calls note the call notion of value at positive 97 million they're also buying puts at minus 15.6 million call buyers much more aggressive than put buyers driving price higher and the alert comes in at 1015 so we already know that from the open traders are buying calls when traders buy calls market makers sell the calls and they have to buy stock to hedge their dealt exposure all right let's go take a look at book map again I'm going to zoom in all right so we know from the open traders are buying calls taking positive delta positions let me go back and check when we check the time of that alert again so that alert was actually at 1016 so the alert came in right around here a little bit late here's your pullback entry if you if you wanted to get if you got in before the alert pullback to 300 key gamma strike with the target of the 305 call wall another pullback entry here pullback to 3 299 and the wewap at that level right the really interesting thing about this as you know of course again from the open traders buying calls looking for a pullback to get long the interesting thing let's I think is the shift in order flow right at the call wall note the immediate shift in the volume dots here green on the way up this is a buy sweep up into the 305 level and then aggressive sellers come in immediately and it took a while bit of a consolidation but then met a drop sharply lower so one great play here was just by a put by a 305 put go away make lunch eat lunch come back and you've made a ton of money all right let's see what options traders are doing let's take a look at the total signal first so it took a while but price really started to move lower so we know that aggressive sellers were in there immediately with the touch of the 305 call wall large magenta volume dots and then it took a while but options traders started taking negative delta positions and then price started to move lower below that 305 level let's separate out puts and calls so call buyers it took a while again they took the foot off the gas then they start selling calls and they also start buying puts right so now it looks like the options traders have started coming in again summer between the put wall and the hedge wall and have started taking positive delta positions a little bit of the divergent diverge it's long here hero line starts to rise and then price responds higher a few minutes later let's go back to meta I'm going to all these red numbers green numbers that's the absorption and sweeps indicator the red and green are the sweeps I'm just going to turn those off that's obscuring price action too much turn off the absorption that's the pink and the blue sometimes it just overwhelms all right so there's just the price action in meta all right two minutes do you look for higher highs and higher lows like a stock to know to trend for hero yeah so I think it's better just to look at the overall trend of of hero sometimes it's hard to interpret the the small moves I think it's you know I prefer to look at the overall trend of a hero except for extreme reversals like we just looked at at meta here at the the bottom slight a very market very marked or notable shift in hero let's go back to go back to hero so there was a very sharp drop in hero and then it starts to grind higher so given this I'm looking at the the overall trend of hero making a series of higher lows now it looks like it may have leveled off so right around the 300 key gamma strike let's go back and take a look at at book map so 300 key gamma strike we know that options traders taking their foot off the gas tool and then aggressive sellers are coming in again the large magenta volume dots so pretty pretty clear read in in meta today let's take a look at Kimley to volume Delta overall turning negative for the day but the shifts in order flow are pretty pretty clear easy to read again aggressive sellers coming in right at the 305 call wall does its job acting as resistance as expected and then with the move down to 293 aggressive buyer start to come in making a serious higher lows as options traders started taking positive delta positions and now it looks like as options traders have taken their foot off the gas then aggressive sellers are coming in again alright two men ask you just ignore the sharp dips not quite sure what you mean yeah meta if you're talking about the the the pullbacks can be pretty deep in meta so you know for example here if this is what you're talking about you know this is a two plus point pullback from 297 down to around 294 50 so yeah and and then the you know these pullbacks in meta are typically pretty deep right so Truman I hope that answers your question yeah it just depends on the stock so Apple is going to trade different from meta from and Nvidia and Tesla for example right so Truman I think the like I said before you know looking at hindsight here the best thing to do was just to to buy a put up here and go eat lunch and come back or go make your lunch come back take a look at it take your profits as options traders started taking positive delta positions price made a clear higher low time to get out of your put so that's advantage of trading options in this case but you you never know but I think this was a pretty clear pretty clear signal up here for meta alright so Truman says he had a had a put alright let's take one last look at SB 500 and NASDAQ my time is up just want to take a quick check on those so SPX may have found resistance the SMB 500 may have found resistance right around this cluster of levels SPX 4450 up to the spy 445 absolute gamma strike put wall see what options traders are doing back to the SP 500 oops so still very strong correlation between options trades hedging flow and price action price following options trades so right now in this swing options traders started taking negative delta positions it looks like around just after 2 p.m. take a quick look at NASDAQ so now options traders starting to fade the move higher as well take a look at book map NASDAQ and for NASDAQ this may may just be a pullback as NASDAQ makes a series of higher lows pullback to VWAP in the 250 level so here I would be looking for aggressive buyers to come in if I were looking for a long look you know look for a shift in an order flow here let's see if take a one last look at hero so so far options traders the trend of hero is still down maybe flattening off a little bit check some alerts so here's another meta alert alright my time is up I want to thank everyone for watching thank you very much for your questions and comments and I will see you tomorrow thanks again bye