 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. And 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. 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. As a reminder, 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 and the first is planning and I use positional analysis and I look at how traders and market makers are positioned in the options market to develop a thesis for the day and a thesis regarding expected trading range and volatility as well as a directional bias. And 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 and Spot Gamma Hero to confirm my thesis and for entries and exits. And questions and comments are welcome. I will be watching the chat channel options dash Doug and Discord as well as the chat and YouTube. So again, questions and comments are welcome and JEC confirms Discord audio is 100% great. So thanks for the confirmation. All right, today what I wanna go over, the usual items, we'll go over the news, economic data events and then our positional analysis and finally we'll look at some setups. Okay, so first of all the news, again the CPI came out yesterday and then today, let's go here and then today the US retail sales came out and was much better than expected. Both the month over month was better than the previous number and better than forecast. That was the retail sales, the core retail sales month over month also better than the previous and better than forecast. And we'll look and see how the market reacted to that in a minute. So that was today and then tomorrow, the PPI comes out at 8.30 a.m. Eastern time and then Friday is the February options expiration. And we'll look at how traders and market makers positioned on Friday to develop a thesis. If there's a build in negative gamma, for example, in the S&P 500, which doesn't seem likely given the move today, then we would look for a put banner rally. What may be more likely is looking for call gamma unwind in stocks that have really run up this week where traders have been buying calls like Nvidia and Tesla. So we'll go over that more tomorrow. So that's the news, the events for the week. Now let's start with our positional analysis and I'm gonna start with a larger timeframe view. And this is the SPX in a 20 day one hour chart showing that last Thursday SPX broke this uptrend, then reversed higher. And that was around the spy 405 level. And now for the last three days has been trading in a very narrow range between 4,100 and 4,150. So anybody trading non-directional trades in SPX is probably doing pretty well this week. And then this chart is just showing price and the spot gamma levels. And this is updated for today. These are levels that are provided in a thinkorswim script for spot gamma subscribers. And this is showing the key levels for today and we'll go over the levels in a little bit more detail in just a minute. So there's the put wall at 4,000. And then that's also the key gamma strike. Then the volatility trigger in the zero gamma level right under 4,100. And then the call wall at 4,200. This is showing the call wall. I think it may be showing it at 4,150 and that is, I'm looking at the wrong date, that is correct. So the call wall, the put wall increased from yesterday from 3,900 to 4,000 and the call wall decreased from 4,200 to 4,150. And again, we'll look at that in a little bit more detail. So those are the levels that are in play today. And again, SPX trading in a range between 4,100 and 4,150 for the last three days. And that range may continue into the options expiration on Friday. And then I would expect that range to expand one way or another after options expiration. Okay, so that's a long-term chart. Let's take a closer look. Again, just looking at a thinkorswim chart here and then we'll take a look at book map in just a moment. So this is thinkorswim, this is a one minute chart and this is just showing today. So showing the levels that are in play for today and again, SPX trading at a narrow range between 4,100 and 4,150 with a slight bullish uptrend. And here we've got 4,100, the zero gamma and the volatility trigger below and the call wall above at 4,150. And note that SPX is trading above the volatility trigger in a positive gamma environment. And this is bullish but in this positive gamma environment, market makers will be trading against price to hedge their delta exposure and that tends to subdue volatility in a positive gamma environment. All right, let's take a look at book map now. And in YouTube, Hank asked, does that script update automatically? And no, it does not. Unfortunately. So you have to open a new text file every day and copy that and then go in and edit your script and thinkorswim with the latest, I just, I delete everything in that script and then paste in the new script. So you have to do that manually every day. And on the other hand, so book map, spot gamma provides levels for a number of platforms. Thinkorswim is one that I use as well as book map and spot gamma provides cloud notes for book map and those are updated automatically. And this is not showing any levels in play in this current range. Let's just zoom a little bit. So here this is showing again the spot gamma levels and this is showing the SPX4100 level below there and that was noted as support in the spot gamma AM founders note. So it's showing, these cloud notes are showing SPX levels converted to an equivalent ES number. And right now, spot gamma is using a 10 point difference between SPX and ES and that's pretty close. And then I also have my own column of notes here. These C levels, cloud levels, these are my own cloud notes and I'm marking spy key, spy spot gamma levels, key levels as well as ES, big ground numbers, 50s and zeros. And then the support levels that are noted in the spot gamma AM founders note. So this is showing that SPX4100 level as support and then that's also the, this 410 spy 410 key gamma strike was also noted as support in the AM founders note and it did act as support today. And that's showing there were several tests of the 410 level and then finally price reversed higher. So overall a pretty lackluster day in the S&P 500. So again, there were several approaches to today and if you wanted to trade the S&P 500, I think just trading the range with I guess potential neutral strategies like Dave and Discord posted a double calendar SPX0 DTE double calendar that looks like it's doing pretty well today. So that was a good approach for the day instead of trying to find either that or we'll talk about some setups, especially in stocks that are in the new category. Especially in stocks that are in the news like Airbnb today. If that's your style, if you like to chase those stocks that are in play in the news, that was a good trade and again, we'll go over this. So that's the S&P 500 futures and the levels again are shown on the chart, the levels that are in play. And that was the SPX4100 level below and the, let me just zoom in here, and this SPY410 level that was also noted as support. All right, so that's the S&P 500 today and again, we'll go over setups. So shifts and levels, I've already mentioned and we'll go through again. So for the S&P 500 volatility triggers for SPX and SPY both increased from SPX, the volatility trigger moved up from 4060 to 4095 and the volatility trigger is Spot Gamma's Gamma Flip level where market makers position on the Gamma curve would flip from negative below to positive above. So I've already mentioned that SPX is trading above the, it's volatility trigger and that is considered bullish and it's a SPX, market makers position as far as SPX goes is in positive Gamma. So again, SPX and SPY volatility trigger shifted up and for the SPX, the put wall shifted up as well from 3,900 to 4,000 and then the call wall shifted down from 4,200 to 4,150 and we will look at the absolute Gamma levels and see what's going on and how traders are positioning themselves into the February expiration and market makers are positioned as well. And then for QQQ, the key Gamma strike moved up from 300 to 310 and that is, that's bullish when the key Gamma strike increases and we'll look at my key Gamma strike spreadsheet in just a minute and see what that looks like. Okay, let's take a look at the absolute Gamma charts for the S&P 500. So this is the SPX and there is the 4,000 key Gamma strike or absolute Gamma strike and that's the strike with the largest absolute Gamma puts in calls. So this chart, here's the zero line is this is showing market makers position at these different strikes and call Gamma or put call Gamma is or positive Gamma is showing above the zero line. So the black lines are showing call Gamma, positive Gamma and below the zero line, that's put Gamma or negative Gamma and that's shown by the teal bars. So again, there's 4,000 that is the absolute Gamma strike and now it is the put wall as well. So that's the strike with the largest net negative Gamma and that can be expected to act as support and then the call wall has moved down to 4150 here and that's the strike with the largest net positive Gamma and that can be expected to act as resistance. So right now, I think the primary thing to note is the build of both call and put Gamma between 4,000 and 4150. So this range has narrowed down a little bit and there is, you know, there's certainly some call Gamma, positive Gamma at 4,200 as well. So this is the, you know, at least for today, this range has narrowed down. So again, remember the put wall moved up from 3,900 to 4,000 and the call wall moved down from 4,200 to 4,150. So the range of put and call Gamma has narrowed to this range, 4,000 to 4150 and 4,000 can be expected to act as support and 4150 as resistance until something changes. And yeah, those Gamma levels are tight, but it's pretty clear when you look at this chart. Okay, here's spy and the 4,10 is still the key Gamma strike or the absolute Gamma strike. 400 is the put wall and then 4,18 is the call wall. So no changes in these levels for spy. So the range in spy is really a little bit wider 400 being the largest net negative Gamma, the put wall and the Gamma up to the 4,20 level. And by definition 4,18 is the call wall that's the strike with the largest net positive Gamma. So there's the range for spy, a little bit wider than SPX. All right, that's the S&P 500 and those levels that I was talking about before. Now you can see exactly where they come from. The put wall, the call wall and the key Gamma strike for both these SPX and spy. Here's QQQ, let's just zoom in. Now the put wall is down at 290 and that's the strike with the largest net negative Gamma again and 300 is a large Gamma strike but the 310 now is the key Gamma strike. So really for QQQ it looks like Gamma's concentrated mostly between 300 and 310. All right, let's, so I think the thing to note here especially for SPX and spy is the build of call Gamma above, although spot Gamma the AM Founders note took a little bit of a bearish stance today based on the call wall dropping but to me it looks like, let's just go back and look at SPX, there's definitely, to me it looks like there's a build of call Gamma up at 4100 to 4150 and certainly you can see why this 4150 would act as resistance or potential resistance. So build of call Gamma above the key Gamma strikes for both SPX and spy. All right, let's take a look at the data. So a couple things to point out. The, first of all, the spot Gamma one day implied move plus or minus 41 points. And let me just check my watch list and see what, and that is the, that's the SPX from the RTH open. And right now it's gone nowhere. I've got it's down 0.2 points. So, you know that if you sold a straddle for today you would have done pretty well in SPX. All right, so that is the expected range and that, you know so far that's not playing out and one potential reason and that really doesn't line up with some other information like this Gamma notional here. So this is the Gamma notional market makers position on the Gamma curve and this is showing SPX in the left column spy in the middle column and QQQ on the far right. So again this is market makers position on the Gamma curve and for SPX it's positive and that means that as far as SPX goes, market makers, traders are short calls, market makers are long calls and as price increases they have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure and when price drops they can buy back their short hedges. So in a positive Gamma environment they're trading against price and that tends to subdue volatility in a positive Gamma environment. And then for spy it's negative Gamma. So that means that just looking at spy that traders are long puts, market makers are short puts and they have to sell futures as price drops to hedge their delta exposure and then as price increases they can buy back their short hedges. So that tends to increase volatility in a negative Gamma environment with market makers trading with price and then for QQQ this is pretty much neutral, a minus 12. So all of these levels shifted to more positive or less negative from yesterday and I compare morning to morning. So yesterday morning SPX Gamma notional was 287 so today it increased to 305. Yesterday spy Gamma notional was minus 689 and today it's minus 585 so a little bit less negative and then yesterday Gamma notional for QQQ was minus 141 and today it is minus 12. So again less negative for QQQ as well. All right let's take a look at the Vana charts which provide a graphical illustration of what I was just talking about. So what this is showing is market makers delta notional or delta exposure that's the vertical axis and then the horizontal axis is showing how that delta notional changes with changes in price and changes in implied volatility that's shown by the green curve that's the current expiration and that change in delta with a change in implied volatility is called Vana that's the Vana effect and again that's the change in delta as implied volatility changes and what this is showing is that as price increases market makers delta notional increases and they have to sell futures they wanna remain delta neutral so they have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure. So that's SPX remember that was positive Gamma then for spy negative Gamma so it's just the opposite again as price decreases market makers delta notional increases and they have to sell futures. But this is I take this SPX and spy as mostly fairly neutral and then here's QQQ you know this is definitely showing neutral and market makers given the range of movement shown on this chart are not really gonna have much hedging to do one way or another according to this chart and this is based on the beginning of the day market makers position assuming their delta neutral at the beginning of the day. All right so remember I'm going through my planning process here and next thing that I wanna look at this is a spreadsheet that I track every day of the key Gamma strike and this is just one part of my process just an easy visual representation tracking whether the key Gamma strike for these stocks increased or decreased from the previous day. So this previous key Gamma strike column on the right showing is showing the Gamma key Gamma strike for yesterday and the current key Gamma strike column is for today and then I colored code these and green indicates that these levels all increase from the previous day and red increase that the key Gamma strike decrease from the previous day. So just looking at this on the surface this looks this looks fairly bullish a lot of these and I trade and track mostly large cap tech stocks with a few higher beta stocks thrown in. So Microsoft, Moderna, Netflix, NVIDIA, QQQ, Snowflake, AMD up above and block key Gamma strike all increase for these stocks. So that's bullish. So again, I'm doing all this my planning process to develop a thesis for the day and I'm mainly focused on the S&P 500 and here's a note just a snippet of a note that was in the Spot Gamma AM founders note. For today, we would give an edge to the market holding the 4100 to 4160 range and that's SPX and so far they were right on target with that and that is what I was expecting today given the somewhat neutral Gamma notional and what the options expiration approaching what the SPX has been doing the last couple days. So so far this is right and looking at the key Gamma strike list and the increasing key Gamma strike for a number of stocks you know, I had a slight bullish you know, I guess slight bullish bias and expecting this range to hold. So looking for I guess range day type trades. All right, so let's take a look at some setups now. So I'm gonna start with hero here and this is Spot Gamma hero showing real time options trades and market maker hedging flow and what this is showing, I'm gonna zoom in on the morning and hero was showing I guess slightly supportive hedging flow for longs this morning and here were remember this key Gamma strike was noted as support the 410, this is spy 410 key Gamma strike. So a couple of longs here at that 410 level with a slightly supportive hedging flow. All right, so let's go take a look at book map now. So here's ES and we'll look at spy and there's the test of the support level then 410 key Gamma strike list and slightly, you know, I guess a slightly positive cumulative volume Delta as well as buy stop orders that's shown by the rising dark blue line that CVD and the rising yellow line that's buy stops but kind of a choppy bullish trend higher and this, let's go back and take a look at hero again. So the hedging flow was slightly bullish up until about 11 o'clock and then has definitely shifted to negative Delta starting again around 11 o'clock and let's see what, so traders are buying puts today so they're buying calls and you can tell by the rising orange line and the positive notional value here and then the negative notional value they're buying puts and that is a larger number than this number and the line is steeper as well. So yesterday this had the effect of setting up a short but today not so much, not so far anyway. All right, so that is that spy and let's take a, let's go back to book map now let's take a look at spy. So spy continues higher even though order flow shown by cumulative volume Delta here is bearish and hedging flow is bearish as well. So maybe this 413 C1 level will act as resistance and I kind of hope it does. My long-term positions are negative Delta at this point. So yeah, I'd like to see it go down but again, remember the expected top end of the range is up here, let's see that would be so we're actually looking for 415. So here these levels up here are potential upper end of the range. That's the SPX 4150 level and then the spy 415 level. Okay, so a little bit difficult trade in spy today some short longs that were supported by hedging flow not supported by order flow so much. Again, notice the falling CVD. So again, it looks like JEC with his strangle today and Dave with his double calendar had the right approach I think to trading SPX. Okay, let's take a look at some stocks now and we'll go back and start. I'm just going to go through this list. This is Apple and there was a, this is definitely bearish hedging flow and it took a while to play out and I would have a hard time taking along in Apple. So there was a short around just before noon so let's take a look. So again, remember we were looking for short and around 1150 to 12. So let's go take a look at book map now. There's Apple, you know, along would have been a better trade but definitely not supported by hedging flow. So there's the short 1150 to 12 with that. There's a buy sweep. All these green dots kind of be, you know, like a stop run potentially up into this level and then a move lower. So good for a point, point and a half. So not much to write home about there in Apple and that's pretty much the story for today. So here's Amazon and let's take a look at Hero. So there's Apple and with Amazon there's a little bit better confirmation between hedging flow and price action and along about 1050. So let's go back and take a look at, let's go back and take a look at book map. So there's Amazon, a lot of chop around the 99 level and then price starts to move higher as traders started taking positive delta positions. So right around here with a target at the 100 key gamma strike, so price at that level, drop down found some resistance there and now it's moving higher again and it looks like order flow has definitely shifted to bullish. Notice the green dots coming in. Let's just take a look at CVD. We should see the increase. The move up and see CVD corresponding with the green dots coming in there. All right, that's Amazon and let's go back. Let's take a look at Hero, take a look at Coinbase and there's a strong confirmation here between hedging flow and price action and that's on my other computer if I have time at the end all. I'll go take a look at that. There is another good setup that I wanna look at as well and that's and we'll look at that in a minute. So the next Microsoft and confirmation long and short based on hedging flow is shown by Hero. Let's take a look at book map. So there's the short of the morning and consolidation between around the 26650 level and the 268 level and then this final sweep down into the liquidity at 26650 and then price starts to move higher and confirmed by hedging flow. Let's just make these dots a little bigger. Let's check CVD and it's actually been bullish all day. So definitely confirming long here and you can see all of the green dots coming in here and it looks like price is heading for the 270. That's the key delta strike and also the liquidity at that level. Let's go back and take a look at Hero. So traders started buying puts or selling puts, I'm sorry, buying calls and selling puts and especially buying calls and that's shown by the rising orange line just afternoon. All right, so that's Microsoft and we'll take a look at NVIDIA. Confirmation long and short, pretty choppy hedging flow and so really watching this closely confirming longs and shorts if you like to trade NVIDIA. So that's NVIDIA. Again, hedging flow confirming longs and shorts. Let's take a look at book map and in the morning you can see all the pink dots. This was definitely confirming a short. Seeing all that just a great short and then notice the shift in order flow. I'll write it between the 221 and 222 level. The shift in pink dots to green dots. Price moves higher, pulls back to the 223 level and continued higher to this liquidity at the 227 level and NVIDIA has been pretty bullish all week. So this is a stock that we will be looking at for a call gamma unwind, potential call gamma unwind on Friday. Traders have been buying calls, market makers sell the calls and they buy stock to hedge their delta exposure and these calls they're buying are calls that expire on Friday. So as Friday expiration approaches, those calls will start to, the out-of-money calls will start to lose value due to the passage of time and that's charm and then we can watch implied volatility as well and that often drops as well. So that would be the VANA effect but we're kind of looking for the charm effect there. So those calls lose value, market makers delta exposure decreases and they can sell stock. They don't no longer need their long stock to hedge their delta exposure since their delta is dropping. But for today so far after around 10 a.m., order flows shifted somewhat bullish, hedging flow bullish and NVIDIA is moving higher and we've looked at spy. Let's see what spy is doing. So heading up now, it looks like it got past the 413C1 level. That's a combo one. So that's a high amount of SPX and spy gamma at that level heading up to the 4150, SPX 4150 level and let's see what options traders are doing in spy and they're still fading this move. Let's just take a look at a, we'll change to this rolling window to 30 minutes and that gives us a little bit more clarity but still pretty choppy. Positive delta trades, negative delta and then shifted back slightly to positive delta there. Meanwhile price continues to rise. So I think a pretty difficult read on the S&P 500 today and again I think the neutral strategies, time selling premium should again working well today in the S&P 500. All right, karma trades ask, how do I draw the key delta strike, key gamma strike for stocks? And the way I do that I use an add-on that's available in the book map marketplace called price lines. And those levels I get from spot gamma every day in equity hub. So this is where those levels come from. So for example, here's spy, that's where those levels come from. I enter those in a spreadsheet and then price lines uses the cloud notes feature of spot gamma to display the labels, let's go look at spy. So spot gamma or price lines displays these labels and then draws the lines. And I have asked, and this is time consuming for all these stocks just to fill out this spreadsheet every day, but it's better than drawing these manually in custom notes. So anyway, this is what I do now and I have different colors for different, you know, these mean different things. So a spot gamma level is shown with a white line, a white background and red text and yellow with black text is just a round number. And then there's again a spot gamma level at 413. And then I'm also adding in, and I just recently started doing this, adding in the SPX levels. So I convert or find the ratio of SPX to spy and I calculate that every couple of days and then I show the equivalent, I show the SPX levels in my chart as well. Okay, I'm looking at questions and comments and discord and karma trades are you asked, are you using both levels on a daily basis? So I use all the levels. So let's, let me just show something here. So this spot gamma provides these pop-up notes for SPX, spy and QQQ and I've already, I've dismissed or closed the spy and QQQ levels, but this is for SPX showing the SPX level, the equivalent ES level. And their cloud notes are based on this, but I use this for spy to draw all these levels. So the equity hub shows the five main levels that's the put wall, call wall, key gamma strike, hedge wall or volatility trigger for spy and QQQ and the key delta strike. So those are the primary levels and then these notes for spy also include these intermediate levels like this 413 C1 level. That's not one of the five main levels. So anyway, that's how I do that. So looking through notes and again, I have asked, I've asked spot gamma to provide these levels for stocks. And I don't know if they're planning on doing that or not, but that's one of the, one of my request to spot gamma. All right, let's take a look at Tesla and let's go to hero and look at Tesla, Tesla. There's Tesla in overall pretty bearish hedging flow, setting up some shorts in the morning. And that was definitely confirmed by order flow and book map. Let's go take a look at book map, trying to do several things at once here. So Tesla overall today is bullish up on the day, but hedging flow and order flow, notice the all the pink dots in here. Definitely order flow is bearish. You know, we just saw that hedging flow was bearish. So setting up some short entries here. Let me just check on something here. So right now, Tesla is up about 1.5% for the day. Even with the bearish hedging flow and order flow. All right, then let's, I've got a few minutes left. I wanna show a couple of stocks on my other computer. So one way, another way to approach this, this spot gamma hero dashboard here provides a list of trending stocks, both up and down. And notice this, this Roblox has been in the news. I think they reported earnings, the same for Airbnb. And notice the strong hedging flow, all bullish, traders buying calls and selling puts. And I've got this on another computer. Let me, I'm gonna share my screen on the other computer and we can look at Airbnb in book map. So here's Airbnb in book map. Strong uptrend, notice all the, all the buy sweeps this morning, these small green dots, not a lot of liquidity there and a jump straight up from 130 at the open to 135, 136. And then more of a steady uptrend after 10 up now to 138, let's go back to hero. And again, notice the strong hedging flow supporting that uptrend. So traders were buying calls, selling puts and market makers were selling calls and buying stock to hedge their delta exposure. Okay, karma trades, you're welcome. And Dave says, you're not getting, getting ready to trade using this method is a two hour process for me. It's not quite that long for me. I think it probably takes me about an hour to go through, read the AM founder's note, note all the key levels and I just jot that down in a trading notebook, paper and pen. And then I fill out my spreadsheets and there's a question, what drawing tool do I use on the screen and that is Epic Pen. And I assume you're referring to that and that's Epic, Epic Pen. And that's just for drawing on the screen. It's not, it's not a permanent mark like you can make with like in book map with the drawing tools. And JEC says he uses Zoomet. I'm not familiar with that. Epic Pen is okay. Maybe worth taking a look at Zoomet. So I would like actually like a tool that does highlight. So anyway, that is, that's all I have for today. So again, I talked about the S&P 500, what was working today. The thesis was for a trading range, somewhat bullish and most of the stocks that I follow were pretty similar to the S&P 500. So not a lot to see there. And again, another approach was to look for stocks like this, like you look for Roblox. Oh, that's pretty choppy. Coinbase, strong uptrend, and again, Airbnb. Okay, so that's all I have. And again, remember tomorrow, PPI at 8.30 a.m. Eastern time and then options expiration on Friday and we may get some good setups based on Friday, based on how market makers are positioned, their gamma position for both the S&P 500 and for stocks. So thanks again, thanks for watching. Thanks for your questions and comments. And I will see you tomorrow. Thanks, bye.