 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Options with Doug, streaming live daily on Bookmap Discord and the Bookmap YouTube channel at 1.30 p.m. Eastern time. 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, trading futures, equities, and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. The focus of my presentation and the focus of the Options-Doug chat channel and Discord is options, order flow, the impact of options markets on stocks and futures, and the influence of market maker hedging flow on price action. I 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. The second step in my process is execution and I look at real-time order flow in Bookmap and real-time market maker hedging flow with SpotGamma Hero to confirm my thesis and first setups for entries and exits. On topic questions or comments are welcome and I will be watching the Options-Doug chat channel and Discord in the chat and YouTube for your questions and comments. Let's get started. So what I want to talk about today is very briefly economic data and events for the week. Then we'll go through our positional analysis and plan for the day and then finally talk about some setups. So first of all today of course this week the big event was the FOMC meeting announcement and press conference on Wednesday and then today there was some minor economic data that didn't seem to have much impact on the market, the durable goods orders and PMI data. Alright let's go through our positional analysis now and this is the S&P 500 ES Futures and Bookmap and before I dig into this chart I'm going to take a closer look at a larger time frame and this is the S&P 500 SPX index and this is showing just price and key SpotGamma levels and these levels are provided to SpotGamma subscribers in a ThinkScript and you do have to, there's some manual work in updating that, it takes a couple of minutes. So again this is SPX price and key Gamma levels and just to point out a few here, this is the 3800 put wall, the strike with the largest net negative Gamma that can be expected to act as support and then the volatility trigger at 3960 and that is SpotGamma's criteria Gamma flip level meaning that market makers position on the Gamma curve is negative below that level and positive above in a negative Gamma environment they have to hedge against price, trade against price to hedge their delta exposure and above that level in a positive Gamma environment they have to trade I'm sorry a negative Gamma environment they're trading with price in a positive Gamma environment they're trading against price to hedge their delta exposure and then finally up above at the 4065 level that's the call wall, the strike with the largest net positive Gamma and that can be expected to act as resistance and then also the 4000 level that's the key Gamma strike or absolute Gamma strike and that's the strike with the largest absolute Gamma and that can be expected to act as support, resistance or a magnet for price so those are the key levels that are in range for this chart today and of course now we can, we'll take a closer look and see the levels that are in play for today, we'll take a look at a one day one minute chart, again this is thinkorswim showing the same levels just zoomed in so just today is showing on the chart again a one day one minute chart and here is the SPX 3900 level and this 3917 level was noted as support in the spot Gamma AM founders note and it acted as very good support a couple of times just around 1030 and 1115, something like that and now price has finally moved up above the 3950 level and that was noted as a pivot level in the spot Gamma AM founders note and now price is heading up toward the volatility trigger so those are the levels that are in play for today and that's a thinkorswim one day one minute chart and let's take a look at book map and the same levels are shown on this chart and I have two columns of levels here and the first is spot Gamma cloud notes again provided to spot Gamma subscribers, they provide these levels for a variety of platforms and here I'm showing the levels in spot Gamma cloud notes these are updated automatically, right now spot Gamma is using a 30 point difference between ES and SPX and I calculated that at 29 points that difference so I'm showing that level just one point down here in my cloud notes that C levels column the things that both of these columns are showing are the key SPX levels there's the 3960 volatility trigger the 3950 pivot level the 3917 support level and then I'm also showing key spy levels and that's the 390 put wall key Gamma strike and it did act as support after the RTH open and then also in my cloud notes I'm showing the big round numbers in ES the zeros in the 50s alright so that's the levels that are in play for today and after a choppy morning just after 11am that maybe may coincide with the European close that the S&P 500 ES SPX spy did a final retest of the spy 390 level and the SPX 3917 support level and has been moving higher alright so that's the SPX and we'll go over go over setups in more detail in a few minutes alright let's talk about shifts in levels and there were very few for the S&P 500 the only shift higher was the shift lower actually the SPX volatility trigger shifted lower from the 4000 level yesterday to 3960 and again that's spot Gamma's proprietary Gamma flip level with market makers position on the Gamma curve negative below that level and positive above and that can act as support and resistance so we'll watch and see what happens with that level now SPX ES spy just below that level alright so that is it for the S&P 500 and then for QQQ the volatility trigger increased from 305 yesterday to 309 today and then the key Gamma strike increased from 300 yesterday to 310 today and one thing I want to take a look at the well I'm talking about the NASDAQ let's go to QQQ take a look at history here and this is showing the key daily levels for the last 10 days and just want to point out that this is confirming the bullish price action in QQQ and the NASDAQ this is the key Gamma strike notice that it has increased from 290 10 days ago gradually up to 310 today and that is bullish traders are positioning themselves at higher prices looking for higher prices and the same with the hedge wall also the call wall increasing and notice the put wall has remained the same at the 285 level alright so that is the QQQ the shifts in levels and again the increase and it's called the hedge wall here it's the volatility trigger for an index so the increase in the key Gamma strike and the volatility trigger for QQQ alright let's take a look at Gamma levels now absolute Gamma levels and we'll get a clearer picture of where these levels come from so we'll start with the S&P 500 these are absolute Gamma levels first of all they're SPX this is the zero line horizontal line and above that line that is positive Gamma or call Gamma market makers position at those strikes and below that line that's negative Gamma or put Gamma positive Gamma or call Gamma shown with the black bars negative Gamma or put Gamma shown with the teal bars and this is pretty obvious the 4000 level the key Gamma strike the strike with the largest absolute Gamma and here is the put wall at 3800 again the strike with the largest net negative Gamma can be expected to act as support and then here is the 4065 strike that is the call wall the strike with the largest net positive Gamma and that is also the short call strike of the JPMorgan collar that expires at the end of this month on March 31st alright so that is SPX now we'll take a look at SPI and for SPI 390 is the absolute Gamma strike and that's also the put wall and that did act as support today so that is the put wall and the key Gamma strike and then the 402 level is the call wall the strike with the largest net positive Gamma and one other thing that I want to point out here let's take a look at these combo levels and this is showing combined strikes of SPX and SPI the Gamma at those levels and then this is converted to an equivalent SPX number and shown on this chart and again the zero line marks negative Gamma or put Gamma below and positive Gamma or call Gamma above and recall the 3917 recall the 3917 strike noted as support in the SPOT Gamma AM Founders Note and shown on my charts and this is where that comes from that combo level and again SPOT Gamma Brent Kujuba noted that as support in the SPOT Gamma AM Founders Note and RJ asked could you explain the importance of the JP Morgan collar if any and well first of all I urge you to look back in the archives I don't know if my sessions were recorded that far back in December the I think it was the maybe the 3835 something like that that that was the short call strike of the JP Morgan collar and that acted as support so if price is a magnet for price so as if price is close enough that can act as a magnet for price so at the 4065 level most likely the SPX would be in a positive Gamma environment so that means that market makers are trading against price so in a positive Gamma environment around that strike let's say price is above that level then market makers would be trading against price selling futures as price increased and potentially bringing price back to that level and the same from below if price is close to that level in a positive Gamma environment market makers will be buying futures as price decreases tending to move price back to that strike but if price is far away let's say price is much further down 3900 3800 something like that that strike will not come into play so I think probably search in the SPOT Gamma YouTube channel and find something about that as well okay so those are the Gamma levels for S&P 500 let's take a look at NASDAQ so for NASDAQ we just look at QQQ NDX is not significant so for QQQ remember the bullish increase in the key daily levels for the past 10 days and now the 310 level is the key Gamma strike and that is again the strike with the largest absolute Gamma and the call remains at 285 the strike with the largest net negative Gamma and then the call wall at 320 strike with the largest absolute positive Gamma and I usually as usual I focus on the Gamma notional this is market makers position on the Gamma curve and this is for SPX in the left column in the middle column and then QQQ on the far right column and notice all these numbers are negative indicating that traders are long puts, market makers are short puts so they're in a negative Gamma position on the Gamma curve and they have to sell futures with price as price drops to hedge their delta exposure and as price increases they can buy back their short futures so they're trading with price to hedge their delta exposure in a negative Gamma environment and the changes in these Gamma notional levels was mixed was mixed from yesterday SPX Gamma notional was minus 79 and it shifted much more negative to minus 453 and then on the other hand there was just a minor change in SPI Gamma notional from minus 1997 to minus 1952 so it became slightly less negative and then also for QQQ yesterday Gamma notional was minus 230 today it's minus 102 so still negative but less negative and we can take a look at the Vana charts which provide a graphical illustration of what I was just talking about and this is showing market makers delta notional on the vertical axis and strike price on the horizontal axis and this green curve is showing how market makers delta notional changes with changes in price again shown on the horizontal axis as well as changes in implied volatility and that's for the current expiration and that's the Vana effect the change in delta with a change in implied volatility so again this is showing in a negative Gamma environment market makers delta notional will increase as price decreases and they have to sell futures as price decreases and then if price increases and implied volatility drops they can buy back their short futures and then the black curve is showing how their delta notional changes as time passes and that's the charm effect the change in delta with a change in time as time passes so that is SPX and we can just compare that with yesterday and see the change from fairly neutral yesterday to slightly negative to much more negative today and then here's SPI and today Gamma notional for SPI is about four times the Gamma notional of SPX so the curve is a lot steeper and then just note the very small change from day to day and then here is QQQ and again just slightly negative at minus 102 alright so that's the the Vana curve showing again just illustrating what I was just talking about all indices in a negative Gamma environment market makers position on the Gamma curve for SPX, SPI and QQQ still negative alright let's wrap up the positional analysis and planning with these key daily notes and actually we'll look at equity hub for some additional information so this is just for a quick glance and indication of some possible stocks to trade today and an indication for further investigation so what I'm showing is the key Gamma strike for all the stocks in my watch list and the far right column, the E column showing the previous key Gamma strike is the key Gamma strike from yesterday and the current key Gamma strike the D column is the key Gamma strike for today and I compare the number from yesterday from today to yesterday and I color code these just for a quick easy reference and green indicates that number increase from the previous day and I interpret that as bullish traders are positioning themselves for higher prices particularly in single stocks and they're looking for higher prices that's what they expect and that's how they're positioning themselves and that's how they're trading so the note today the increase in the key Gamma strike for Microsoft, NVIDIA and QQQ alright so just based on this I was initially just on the surface here bullish on these stocks with a caveat for NVIDIA and I'll talk about that in just a moment so maybe somebody can answer so it's Friday and what do we look for on Friday I'll give you a few minutes so Friday remember stocks, single stocks have Friday expirations and traders are there you go, Carmo trades you get the price for today call Gamma unwind so that's right so before we take a bullish stance on NVIDIA and any of these stocks really will take a look at Equity Hub and sort this list by next expiry Gamma percent and notice so the thing that I'm doing is again sorting this list and I'm looking for anything any number over 30% so it will be this will be much more an in place situation on the monthly expirations the third Friday the month but for stocks you know we can look at this every Friday so I'm typically going to look for numbers that are around 30% or higher and also the top Gamma expiry expiration date being today 324 so these are the three stocks that come in mind come into play and Netflix I just added this to my watch list today just a couple of hours ago and I if we have time I'll look at that that's on my other computer and book map on my other computer and if we have time we'll take a look at that I'll add it to my main computer book map of my main computer for Monday it's been in play and showing good price action but anyway the first stock on the list is Nvidia and we'll take a look at Netflix but then AMD so these are two stocks that I'm looking for a call Gamma unwind so the next step is to go to this this chart of the easiest thing is just to look at this composite view in equity hub and see that it's call dominated above the 275 level that is the call wall right so call dominated above the 275 level and let's just take a look at history so note there were definitely some increases in these key daily levels so if this was earlier in the week I would not even look at that next expiry Gamma percent I would be bullish on this stock like I was yesterday but today is Friday traders this 42.4% of Gamma expiring today is a strong signal in a call dominated stock to look for a short even though key Gamma strike increased edge wall increased and the put wall increased again this all depends on the day of the week alright so mixed picture on Nvidia here a lot of Gamma expiring call domination above 275 but bullish increases in these levels so the key for all these stocks is to confirm your thesis with order flow and hedging flow show that in just a minute and no changes in the key daily levels for AMD and note the this is 27% it's not as strong a case for a call Gamma unwind but there is a domination of call Gamma above the 105 strike alright so my the thesis for Nvidia and AMD and then recall the rising key Gamma strike for Microsoft and QQQ so let's go we'll take a look at Microsoft first and note there is some call domination above the 290 level but that is all out in in the April monthly expiration that is call Gamma unwind really doesn't come into play for today so that is Microsoft and let's take a look at the history for Microsoft and this is how I go through my process so again the first step is that key Gamma strike that gave me an indication to look at Microsoft closely more closely and also I've mentioned before that I go through this history for every stock in my watch list as I fill out the spreadsheet that provides the levels that I show on my C levels columns and all my charts so Microsoft here I see that the key Gamma strike increased from 270 to 280 but the call wall decreased from 300 to 280 so a little bit of mixed picture but I interpreted this as a build of Gamma and potential magnet at that 280 level so that's Microsoft and we've looked at QQQ we'll take a quick look again so we can see again the gradual increase in the key Gamma strike from 290 now to 310 the increase in the volatility trigger increase in the call wall so all bullish for QQQ and there is some Gamma expiring today for QQQ at 23% a little bit lower than the 30% threshold of watching order flow and hedging flow so bullish increase in key daily levels but a potential for some call Gamma unwind let's just take a look at the composite view and here this will confirm that that will not really be in play this is all red below indicating put dominance throughout the price range shown on this chart so not call dominated the call Gamma unwind does not come into play some setups now and again we have a thesis for the day for AMD, NVIDIA, Microsoft and QQQ and we're going to confirm all of those with order flow and hedging flow so let's go to Hero now this is the hedging impact of realtime options and this is for AMD we'll start with AMD and this is showing bearish hedging flow for those of you may not be familiar with this chart this is spot Gamma hero hedging impact of realtime options and the white line is price and the purple line is showing hedging impact of trades and market maker hedging in terms of it's a delta notional value dollar value and the magnitude of that is shown over here in the right so definitely negative delta today bearish traders are taking negative delta positions selling calls and buying puts so let's go to bookmap now and we'll go to AMD and the bearish thesis did play out in AMD so far still playing out the best move was in the morning so just as a further explanation the way this works is during the week traders have been buying calls and market maker sell the calls so they have to buy stock to hedge their delta exposure and traders typically for many stocks especially stocks that are more actively traded are buying calls that expire at the end of the week so at the end of the week those calls that are losing value due to charm they're close to expiration they're losing value market maker's delta exposure decreases they no longer need those no longer need those long stock hedges so they can sell their stock hedges excuse me just a second so they can sell their stock hedges and that is the call gamma unwind so AMD we're confirming with hedging flow and now we can here in bookmap confirming with order flow as well and there were some good setups this morning mostly with reversals at or pullbacks here to price and the 99 level and VWAP and then another pullback to VWAP with the price target at the 97 hedgewall level and so far that is acting as support so here is the 97 hedgewall notice the concentration of liquidity at that level and the 98 level so there are a couple ways to play this you could sell shares or buy a put either way and the easiest thing to do was just at the open or as soon as you could buy a put and good for a couple of two points move down so that's AMD and let's take a look at Nvidia now and let's go take a look at Hero for Nvidia and let's zoom in on the morning definitely Hero confirming the move lower again traders taking negative delta positions Hero dropping and price moves in the same direction let's go take a look at bookmap so the same deal here just you could buy a put notice you can see the reversal at the 70 key gamma strike with the 260 265 put wall hedgewall level as a primary target and intermediate targets at the 267 liquidity level 266 and again the primary target notice the highest liquidity there at the 265 level or enter at pullbacks to VWAP or close to it so far 2 for 2 with our call gamma unwind and recall Netflix was also on that list and let's go take a look at Hero for Netflix and again recall for AMD and Nvidia hedging flow did confirm the call gamma unwind let's just take a look at Nvidia and see what traders are doing so they're actually buying calls slightly but selling more puts than calls so that is that is what has been moving price lower alright so let's take a look at Netflix I'm going to zoom in a bit so kind of a mixed picture for Netflix but definitely in the morning overall bullish and let's just see what traders are doing so they're buying calls so as long as traders are buying calls and I've zoomed out all the way as long as traders are buying calls then market makers need to continue to they continue to sell the calls and they have to buy stock to hedge their delta exposure so in this situation with a positive hero this call gamma unwind doesn't happen so again we're confirming with hedging flow and order flow so if I have time at the end I'll go take a look at Netflix on my other computer let's take a look at the combined signal again so this number is positive dollar notional value alright so that's Netflix then let's go to the other stocks that were in my plan for the day so let's go to Microsoft now and that was definitely the best bullish setup that I saw today and strong confirmation with hedging flow and price action notice the slightly increasing hero with flat to slightly increasing as price drops setting up the first entry here just around 9 950 something like that let's go take a look at book map look at Microsoft and here's that first entry right around 950 kind of a deep pullback let's zoom in on that so you can see the shift in order flow here all these green dots market buy orders coming in these are aggressive buyers with market buy orders and there's a question in YouTube what does hero say about spy and I'll get to that in a few minutes alright so the first pullback there confirmed by hero and order flow the reversal around the 276 level and then pullback entries to VWAP before around 1010 to 1020 something like that and then the primary target and Microsoft is moving pretty slowly today with the primary target at the 280 call wall and key gamma strike and note the high liquidity at that level and Microsoft still can't seem to make it to that 280 level and just keeps pulling back to VWAP over and over again QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ QQ Q at book map. So you could really read this in order flow and book map a little bit easier. All these green dots coming in at a reversal higher at the 307 level by sweep shown by the small green dots and this quick jump up to the 310 key gamma strike level. I thought AMD and NVIDIA and Microsoft were much easier to plan and read both in order flow and in and hedging flow. All right so that's QQQ and let's take a look at meta now. So bearish order flow here in in meta today. Let's just go take a look at we'll take a look at heroine and take a look at equity hub. So here's meta and up until about 1230 hedging flow was definitely bearish. Falling hero price oscillates up and down but follows hero. Trainer's taking negative delta positions. Let's just take a look at at equity hub here for meta and there were some gamma expiring today 21% that is today but heavy call dominance above the 200 level and that's shown by the brighter green color here. Put dominance in red below 200 call dominance in green above the 200 level. All right let's go back and take a look at it book map. Well there order flow is definitely bearish today. Notice all the pink dots market sell orders. Price making a series of lower highs and excursions up just above VWAP several times provided good short entries. All right let's take a look at the S&P 500 now. Go take a look at spy and spy is definitely bullish today and now looks like price is still trying to make it above the 3960 volatility trigger. These are my cloud notes for spy and I'm showing the first of all the key SPX level so I calculate the ratio of SPX to spy and then I note those levels on my spy chart and then also I'm showing that every spy level every whole number and just a basic whole number showing a yellow there and then the gamma levels spot gamma levels in white with red text and a white line so that L395 is an LG2 level large gamma 2. All right so that let's take a look at hero now and let me try something I've this has not been working earlier today the S&P 500 signal and price is not working for some reason this is a combined signal of SPX spy and XSP and this is typically what I use for the S&P 500 whether I'm looking at ES futures or spy but I know spot gamma is doing some work on this this particular signal so it is price the white line for some reason is not not correct today so we'll look at first we'll look at SPX but normally again for the S&P 500 I look at that combined signal but today we'll have to look at SPX and spy separately and for the SPX this is definitely confirming the the bullish price action hero is positive so that is SPX let's take a look at spy and this is why I look at the combined signal here notice this is neutral up until about noon then bearish and this is actually pretty typical of the S&P 500 and traders will fade moves so as price starts to move up to the 39 SPX 3950 level and the volatility trigger at 3960 traders start to fade that move and most likely they're buying puts and buying calls but they're buying more puts than calls and yes that is the case so that is kind of an ominous number there 666 million positive for calls positive delta versus 1.66 billion minus 1.66 billion so like I expected they're buying calls and buying puts but they're buying more puts than calls the total total notional value is negative at minus 983 for spy let's take a look at SPX so now it's minus 102 billion and for SPX positive 9597 so you take the difference and it would be negative for the S&P 500 alright so let's go take a look at the ES now see if we can gain any additional information so this is showing I'm looking at the lines in the sub chart here showing all of these lines gradually increasing the light blue is iceberg orders these are what larger traders use to hedge their to buy to hide their size so they use these iceberg orders again to hide their size and they here they're trading with price helping to move price higher and that's also shown with these blue numbers here the on-chart indicator the blue number is showing large traders buying and the next thing is the dark blue line that's cumulative volume delta and that's positive and then finally the rising yellow line those are stop orders so buy stop orders so hedging flow slightly bearish but the order flow is indefinitely bullish here and it can be easily seen in book map so we know cumulative volume Delta's high stops are positive and icebergs as well and that's also shown here all these numbers are positive and here this is showing the buy stops helping to drive price higher all these small green dots and so QQQQ trader and YouTube quite the difference between spy and SPX yes that's why I like to take a look at the combined signal instead of looking at each separately and and combining them for myself but anyway this is what it is this is what's driving price large traders with iceberg orders other all traders with stop orders maybe real to retail traders and then also aggressive buyers shown with the green dots and the cumulative volume Delta all right let's let's wrap it up we'll take a look at Tesla and then we'll call it a day in a week so Tesla has been kind of all over the place recently not as easy to trade as some other stocks let's take a look at hero for Tesla so there's Tesla overall overall in the morning negative negative hero and then shifts to bullish traders taking positive Delta positions some were starting around 1130 so as usual with Tesla there's a very strong correlation between hedging flow and price action let's go back to book map so there's Tesla all right that is all that I have for today and RJ asked do I ever look at multi-day hero for example with Tesla and I do occasionally so what RJ is referring to is the the history in hero with the latest update now SpotGam is providing five days of back history in hero and I if I'm doing a review over the weekend I may look at that that five last five days but typically I don't typically I'm just using the default settings for hero which is the total total signal calls inputs one day look back period for today okay again that's all I have I want to thank everyone for watching thanks for your questions and comments have a great weekend and I will see you on Monday thanks again bye