 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 involve substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all 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 in Bookmap Discord, the Options-Doug Chat channel. That's a great place to post questions, comments, and content all related to the topic of this presentation as well as the primary topics of the channel, which are 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 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 a directional bias. And the second step in my process is execution. I look at real-time order flow in Bookmap and real-time market maker hedging flow in SpotGamaHero 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 an underlying asset. My analysis is based on the options market order flow and hedging flow, but the setup I will be talking about in underlying asset setups can be taken with futures, options, or shares of stock. Questions and comments are welcome, and I will be watching both the options-dug chat channel and Discord as well as the chat and YouTube for your questions and comments, so please feel free to post. All right, my agenda for today, what I want to cover is news items, economic data events, and earnings for today as well as the rest of the week. Then I'll go through my positional analysis. Excuse me. Then I'll review setups, and I'll go as cover as much as I can until 2 p.m., and then that is the FOMC announcement. And then finally, we'll cover the live market, look at the live market at 2 p.m. All right, so news items for today. Obviously, the FOMC announcement at 2 p.m. Eastern time, and then the press conference begins at 2.30, just as my presentation will wrap up. So again, I'll cover as much as I can up to 2 p.m., and then we'll stop and watch the live market, primarily the S&P 500. All right, so first of all, again, FOMC meeting today, and the market, the CME Futures, this is the CME Fed Watch Tool pricing in a 99% chance that there's no increase. So the current target rate, that's the current rate 525 to 550, and the market is pricing in a 99% chance that that remains the same, and that a 1% chance of a 25 basis point increase. All right, so with this expectation, this high, the market will obviously be, market participants, the algos will be parsing the statement, and then the press conference for any changes. All right, just one note that Spot Gamma is looking for a pretty big move after this meeting, either up to the 4,500 SPX call wall, or down to the SPX 4,400 call wall, and we'll take a look at those levels in just a minute. All right, so that is the big event for today and the rest of the week. I didn't see any other high impact data coming out for the rest of the week. All right, let's get started with positional analysis now. This is the ES Futures, S&P 500 Futures in Bookmap, and 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 30 day one hour chart for SPX. This is showing the August 18th options expiration put dominated negative gamma rally that began on that day. And then here is the September expiration, slightly positive gamma, but very call dominated. And so far, price is trending lower after the September expiration. 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. This is just based on the options market. That's what the options market was pricing in for the week. And then the dash blue lines are showing the lower and upper daily expected move. And right now it looks like SPX is trading within that range that may change in 20 minutes. And the expected move for SPX today was plus or minus about 30 points. All right, let me point out all right, let me point out spot gamma levels on this chart. First of all, pretty narrow range here. Here's the 4400 put wall. These are proprietary spot gamma levels shown with the dark red lines. So that's the put wall, the strike with the largest net negative gamma that can be expected to act as support. The next level up is 4450. That is the volatility trigger that has spot gamma's 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 enhance or increase volatility. On the other hand, 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 finally, the call wall is at 4500. That's the strike with the largest absolute positive gamma. That is also the absolute gamma strike. So the strike with the largest absolute positive and negative gamma. And the call wall can be expected to act as resistance. So again, spot gamma was looking for a large move after the announcement today, either down to the put wall or up to the call wall. All right, let's take a look at the levels that are in play for today. Just to give you some perspective here, we'll include a little bit of yesterday. So now it looks like these two levels, the zero gamma level, did act as support in the morning. And now price is broken below that level. And also the volatility trigger. So the zero gamma level is at 4451. And the volatility trigger just below that at 4455. And note the there were there was only one shift lower in levels for SPX from yesterday to today. Actually, no, they're just one one shift lower. The volatility trigger shifted slightly lower from 4460 to 4450. All right, let's go back to book map. So in book map, I have my my own cloud notes. And I'm showing SPX levels, there's the 4450 and the 4451. 51 acting as support earlier today. I also have spy levels on this chart. There's the 444, 443, and prices pretty much for most of the cash open session traded within that range between spy 443 and 444. And now there's a pretty big price difference between SPX and ES. And today when I looked at it this morning, it was about 46 points. So ES 4450, I'm sorry, SPX 4450 is actually at ES 4496. So ES minus SPX today is 46. And we'll talk about setups in a few minutes. So, you know, all this is will change pretty significantly in 15, 16 minutes. All right, let's take a look at NASDAQ most likely. Take a look at NASDAQ, take a look at the levels and play. So here's the actually before I take a look at the start, let me go to a couple of charts. First of all, QQQ to see the levels and play for today. Note this combo level, combo all one. It's an important level combination of QQQ and NDX Gamma acted as resistance just before the cash open. And again, just after the cash open. And now the 370 level is acting as resistance. 370 is the absolute gamma strike. And I forgot to mention for spy, both the call wall and absolute gamma strike move lower. Call wall down to 450 and the absolute gamma strike down to 440. And for QQQ the put wall did shift slightly quite lower, quite a bit lower from 370 to 350. Spot gamma noted that was because of the addition of about 25,000 puts at the 350 level. All right, then finally, let's take a look at NDX. And on this just a little bit. So here's the NDX call wall at 15,250. And then prices now hovering trading around the volatility trigger at 175. All right, those levels are shown on my bookmap chart. And my cloud notes again. There's the NDX 250 call wall. There's the QQQ 370 absolute gamma strike. And then the NDX 175 volatility trigger. All right, so this the levels and play for today. We'll take a look at setups in a few minutes, just from from this morning. We'll see what options traders are doing as well. All right, let's take a look at gamma notional. We'll see how market makers were positioned on the gamma curve at the beginning of the day. This will give us an idea of how market makers may react to changes in price and applied volatility. So this is gamma notional. Again, market makers position on the gamma curve at the beginning of the day for SPX, SPI, NDX and QQQ. Note all these numbers are negative. This is at the beginning of the day. Quite negative for SPI 1.92 billion negative. Also negative for SPX and for QQQ. So this indicates for those indices that traders are long puts. Makes sense before an FOMC announcement. Market makers are short puts and they have to trade with price to hedge their delta exposure. And let's take a look at the Vana model now. This is the Vana model for SPX. And let's just check for SPX. See where price is trading now. So I've got around 44 or 48. So that's pretty close to the bottom of the Vana model here. So that's showing, let's zoom in on this. So somewhere just to the right of this line. So showing a very slight Vana tailwind. What this chart is showing is market makers delta notional. It's their delta exposure and how that changes with price on the horizontal axis. So delta notional on the vertical axis, price on the horizontal axis. There are two curves on this chart. The gray line is just showing how market makers delta notional will change with changes in price. And then the purple curve adds implied volatility to the equation. And that is showing how market makers delta notional will change with changes in price and implied volatility. So as I was saying before, if price increases and volatility decreases implied volatility, there's a slight Vana tailwind. Market makers can buy back short futures. But that's only good for a few points. And then that Vana model really levels out. All right, so that's the Vana model for SPX. Let's just take a look at QQQ so we can get a sense of NASDAQ. So this curve is a little bit more typical of a negative gamma environment with a steep skew to the left. So I've got QQQ trading right around 369. So showing a little bit more of a Vana tailwind for QQQ. Price increases, wrong tool, price increases, implied volatility drops, market makers can buy back short futures. All right, let's take a look at some setups now and we'll see what options traders are doing. I'm going to start with the SMB 500. This is the hero signal, hedging impact real-time options. What this chart is showing is price for SPX and options trades and market maker hedging activity for a combined signal for SPX, SPY, XSP, and ES futures. So if you treat any form of the SMB 500, this is the signal that you want to take a look at. All right, let's assume that on this chart. So this is the cash open right here. Note this huge drop looks like a big block order right at the open, at the cash open. And let's take a look, separate outputs and calls. So somebody was created, I bought a lot of puts that's shown by the blue line, falling blue line, negative, negative notional value here, minus 2.4 billion. They are buying calls also, so they're buying puts. Right now that is 400 million positive. So put buyers definitely in charge today, much more aggressive. Let's just take a look and see what they were doing the last time I checked this and think or swim. This is SPX and this is the put volume. This may be hard to see, but this is the all these purple little rectangles indicating puts that expire today. So traders are buying September 20 puts. Let's just see what they're doing the last time I checked this. So I'm going to scroll up to the options chain for today. And the last time I checked this, this is the high volume for puts. And that is 44, actually 4455 to 4400, maybe 4395. I think it's 4500. So notice all the high volume. This is volume for today. These are the strikes. These are what large traders are doing. You can obviously see the concentration of volume there in the 20 September options in the 4455 to 4400 strikes. All right, so they're buying puts. All right, let's take a look. So that really, if you were trading this morning, set up a nice short right around here, right around 1012. So traders were buying puts. Initially they were buying calls. That activity stopped. They actually started selling calls and price dropped pretty sharply. Sharply as it can today in this pretty narrow range. So let's go take a look at book map. Go back to ES futures. So anyway, if you're trading this morning looking for a short, here's that series of lower highs and then the short set up, that quick drop from 444 to 443. All right, let's go back to hero now. See what options traders are doing. So they continue to buy puts and they're right around 140. They started buying calls again and price responded higher about 10 minutes later. Let's just check and see zero DTE. Sorry about that. I don't know why it zooms out so much. So the bulk of the volume is in the zero DTE puts. We saw that in thinkorswim, but they're also buying long term puts as well. So this kind of light blue line is showing options that expire today. These are the puts they're buying that expire today. And then the blue line is showing all expiration. So that is options longer term options. So they're buying short term and longer term puts. Again, they're also buying calls, but the put buyers more aggressive. Well, let's take a look at NASDAQ. I've got about four minutes left. I'm going to zoom in on this. So this is a combined signal for NDX and QQQ. And let's take a look. There was a set up this morning. Nice divergent short options traders taking negative delta positions. It took price a few minutes then responded lower. And then it looks like right around 1120 options traders started taking positive delta positions again. And price responded higher a few minutes later. All right, let's go take a look at book map. You're a NASDAQ. So here's the short set up at 371. That divergent short. That was good for about two points in QQQ. We're about 80 points or so in NNQ with that divergent short confirmed by order flow. Give me just a moment. I want to get CNBC running on my other computer just so I can see any commentary. And hello, Hunter. Welcome. Glad you're here. All right, so we're waiting on the Fed decision. So here's the here's the long set up preceded somewhat by large traders buying ice with iceberg orders they use to hide their size. And these are pretty small. But you know, that's to be expected before the FOMC announcement. All right, let's go back to the SAP500. Interesting, this large iceberg order was in on this. You can see by the falling light blue line, right? I've got about 30 seconds. So I think between what I'm saying in YouTube, there is a delay 20 seconds. So we know options traders have been buying puts all day, both zero DTE as well as further out expirations. All right, 2 p.m. Initial reaction sharp drop lower. Put some in this. So no change. And Hunter, yes, just contact me in Discord, Doug P with a direct message. And I'll I'll be glad to answer your questions about one on one mentoring. All right, so it looks like so far an initial bearish reaction looks like the put buyers were were on the right side of the trade so far. So I'm watching CNBC. I haven't seen anything about the about the statement. So a quick drop from 443, which was around, which was support earlier today down to the 4435 level that was noted as support in the spot game. I am Founder's note. We'll see what options traders are doing. Let's go back to SAP500. Actually, let's I'm going to go back to a quicker look back period so we can get a instead of looking at the entire day's worth of data, I'm just going to look at the last 30 minutes. Zoom in. So they started buying calls right around 130 shown by the rising orange line. And then the put buyers kind of stopped. So price responded higher until the announcement dropped sharply sharply lower. Traders continue to buy puts. Let's go back to book map. Note all the sell iceberg orders and the green volume dots. Those are showing buy minus sell market orders. There were some aggressive buyers there and large traders selling selling that with iceberg orders. Large traders continue to sell with iceberg orders. So the move lower is being fueled by put buyers, large traders with iceberg orders. Looks like there were also some sell stop orders that shown by the yellow line, the following yellow line. Now aggressive buyers stepping in shown by the CVD line, cumulative volume delta, maybe finding support at the 4435 level. We'll see. Let's go see what options traders are doing again. So it looks like the call buyers have taken their foot off the gas. Traders continue to buy puts back to book map. So still looking bearish CNB says the fed indicates inflation remains elevated. So that was in the statement. Job growth slowed but remained strong. Let's check on Nasdaq. And Hunter, I'm not sure what DII is. This is, I'm showing you what I trade here. ES, Nasdaq futures, and then primarily large cap stocks. Sorry, I don't trade the Dow Jones. If you're interested in, again, one-on-one, want to talk about it, we can do that. But normally I don't trade the Dow. Most traders that I know trade either ES or NQ or some, the Russell 2000 RTY. But the two primary futures contracts, equity futures contracts, and ETFs that I trade are SMB 500 and Nasdaq. All right. So sharp move lower in Nasdaq down to the 300 level in Q300 level, as well as the QQQ 368 level. Let's go take a look at hero, go to Nasdaq. So remember we're on a 30-minute look back period. So this looks bearish. Spot Gamma talks about this when the call and put line are going in the same direction, either up or down. That is a very strong signal. So when traders are selling calls and buying puts, that's very bearish. All right. I'm going to go back to all day looking at the data for the entire day. Let's just take a look at the total signal. Still bearish. We can scan through some stocks real quick. See what traders are doing there. There's Apple. Definitely a bearish setup today. That was one of the setups that I was going to talk about. Apple AMD. Divergence short this morning. Sharp move up. Options traders really weren't supporting it. Price reverse lower. Great hunter. Again, just contact me through a DM direct message and we can set something up. All right. So AMD. Let's take a look at Meta maybe. Continues lower. Microsoft moving lower as well. Nvidia. Let's just take a look at this. This was another great divergent short setup this morning. Notice the hero signal falling with price increasing. Setting up a short. Nvidia continues to move lower. Let me just check something here. Interesting. So bonds are slightly higher. The note ZN is actually flat. And the ZB just a little bit higher. So actually the 10 year, 30 year actually slightly lower for the day. Two year slightly higher. So I'm looking at treasuries. All right. Let's scan through on book map. Scan through some of these stocks. SAP 500. It looks like it is chopping around now. All right. Let's go to book map. Take a look at some stocks. So it looks like NDX, NASDAQ, NQ may have found support at the 368, 300 level. Here's Apple. Short set up this morning. Talked about that. AMD. Divergent short after that sharp move up. Meta. Pretty similar pattern. Quick move up in the morning. Then price moving lower. Microsoft pretty much weak from the open. Trend break and a move lower in Nvidia with that divergent short set up. Let's go back to the SAP 500. So possible support at the 4435, 442 level. See what options traders are doing. All right. So there was a sharp drop. Traders taking negative delta positions. Consolidation. And now they are taking positive delta positions. Let's take a look at NASDAQ. All right. So similar drop lower, but more of a consolidation instead of a steep rise like the SAP 500. Let's go back to book map. So now NASDAQ consolidating between 368, 369. Let's go back to the SAP 500. Let's go back and check hero. NASDAQ still flat to sightly rising. Starting around 209. Let's see what traders are doing. It doesn't provide much clarity. The total signal helps more. So right around 209, traders started taking positive delta positions slightly. So the balance shifted slightly positive delta about nine or 10 minutes after the announcement back to the SAP 500. All right. So about the same time, the balance has shifted, shifted positive positive delta. And for the SAP 500, a little bit more prominent shift to positive delta about the same time as NASDAQ. Steeper line for hero. Let's go back to book map. All right. Does anyone have any questions, any stocks that you want me to take a look at? Just let me know and I'll look at anything you want to. So it looks like at this point, the markets are in a waiting consolidation, waiting mode for the press conference that begins in 10 minutes. So a sharp move lower. Options traders continue to take negative delta positions. Then a consolidation with support around the 4435 level. Let's take a look at NASDAQ again. Same thing. Quick move lower. Traders taking negative delta options positions. This drop in NASDAQ. Definitely fueled by stop orders. Shown by the drop. The yellow line. Also that red. Small red dot there. Those are sell stop orders. Fueled that quick move lower. Also some large traders in selling with iceberg orders. Those numbers are not significant. Really 50, but they were still helping to move NASDAQ lower. And large traders continue to sell with iceberg orders. Shown by the falling light blue line in the sub chart. So again, it looks like waiting C mode at this point. Let's check hero see what options traders are doing. So for the SMB 500, there was an initial burst higher about 210. Traders taking positive delta positions. And it looks like that has pretty much flattened off leveled off. Go back to the shorter timeframe. And that really that shows they are starting. They've really stopped taking positive delta positions. Starting to take negative delta positions. Although that line is definitely more choppy than the one day cumulative or look back period. Let's go to NASDAQ. So now it's turning more sharply negative. Let's take a look at puts and calls. So it looks like they have stopped buying calls. Maybe slightly selling calls. Start up buying puts again. Add those lines together to get the total signal and it's it is dropping. Again, wait and see mode before the press conference begins back to book map. All right, so net for the day pretty bearish day. Again, the SB 500 maybe finding support at the 4435 level as well as the spy 442 Kilma to volume delta definitely rising aggressive buyers coming in. No, they actually started around 140. Then came in right at right after the announcement. That was a small stop run stop run by stops up to this liquidity in the order book. That green dot there small green dot shows that that was 580 by stop orders. Field that little jump higher to that liquidity in the order book. Those are resting cell orders. I can darken that up a bit. Limit cell orders and now price moving higher. Let's go take a look at hero again. So the hero signal after 110 overall continues to move higher. Let's take a look at NASDAQ. Remember want a 30 minute look back period. Let's smooth that out a little bit. Still shows a lot of positive delta positions coming in right about 224 223. Let's go to book map. So it looks like NASDAQ has broken out of this QQQ range the 369 to or 368 to 369. NASDAQ has broken above the 369 level. All right. Anyone have any questions comments? I'm going to wrap it up in a couple minutes. Any stocks again? If you have any stocks you want me to take a look at please let me know. Let's just take a look at VIX see what applied volatility is doing. So as a proxy for implied volatility we'll look at VIX. Interesting. Sharp move lower. Move higher. Now moving down. Bullish signal. Let's see when the so it really started moving lower. All around 215. So right around here for NASDAQ the final test of the 300 level. And for ES that was the final test so far of the 442 level. All right. Looks like the press conference is about to begin. This is all I have for today. I want to thank everyone for watching. Thank you for your questions and comments. And I will see you tomorrow. We'll cover the aftermath of the FOMC announcement and press conference. Now it looks like let's just take one quick look at HERO again for the SB500. That's odd price going lower and HERO going higher. Oh that's for NASDAQ. Same for the SB500. So right at the moment options traders are we're not driving price for at least a few minutes. Now price is responding. So Powell says he remains strongly committed to the 2% inflation target. All right. So anyway it looks like the market likes what he's saying. So I'm going to wrap it up again. Thanks everyone. Thanks for watching. Thanks for your questions and comments. And we'll cover the aftermath tomorrow. Thanks again. Bye.