 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. Before I go any further, I do have an announcement today. Bookmap is on this campaign to help reduce spammers and enhance the benefits of Bookmap Discord. I'll show the slide in just a minute, but you can fill out this form and unlock it. Bookmap is asking that you do this, all you Discord users, to again help reduce spam and enhance the benefits of Bookmap Discord. Alright, I'll show the slide where that ends up in just a moment. So 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, there's an options-doug chat channel. That's a great place to post questions, comments, and content related to the topics of my presentation and the topics of the channel that I'll go through in just a moment. I'm also on X, formerly known as Twitter. My name there is at Doug Pless. And by the way, Bookmap Discord is free and available to everyone. There's a lot of great content there on a wide variety of topics, asset classes, stocks, options, futures, crypto, also in a wide variety of languages. It's a fantastic community of traders all working together to help each other become better traders. Highly recommended, free and available to everyone whether you subscribe to Bookmap or not. The focus of my presentation today and the focus of the options-doug 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. 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 of volatility for the day as well as the directional bias. And the second step in my process is execution. I look at real-time order flow in Bookmap and real-time market maker hedging flow in SpotGama Hero to confirm my thesis and for setups for injuries and exits. And when I talk about setups today, I will be focusing on an underlying asset. And setups in that asset can be taken any number of ways. For example, the SB500 setups can be taken with ES futures, spy shares, spy options, SPX options, or even ES options. Questions and comments are welcome. And I will be watching both the options-jug chat channel as well as the chat and YouTube for your questions and comments. Please feel free to post and I'll do my best to answer your questions. And hello, Caesar. Welcome. Glad you're here. Alright, here's my agenda for today, Thursday, February 1st. First of all, I want to go over news items, economic data, events, and earnings for today as well as the rest of the week, tomorrow. Then I'll go through my positional analysis. Then I'll review some setups from earlier today. And then I'll take a look at the live market. And when I get to the live market, if anyone has any setups, any stocks they want me to take a look at, please let me know and I'll be glad to do that. Alright, let's get started. And first of all, just to continue with the public service announcement, I've got this in an email, this link. I have scrolled down, it shows my email address above, and I don't want to do that. So you can follow the steps here, enter your email address, provide your discord name, and then your bookmap license key. So apparently you do need to be a bookmap subscriber to complete this form. Alright, so there's the process to go through to link your email address with your discord name and your bookmap license key. Alright, let's move on to economic data and events. So first of all, yesterday the FOMC meeting announcement, meeting at 2pm, and really the fireworks began once Jerome Powell started speaking at the press conference at 2.30pm eastern time. Excuse me, so up and down, mostly down when Jerome Powell indicated that it was unlikely that the Fed would reduce rates, cut rates in the March meeting. Now the market's trying to recover from that down move, we'll take a closer look at that in just a minute. Alright, so for today there were several data items, I think the market mover was this ISM manufacturing PMI that came out a little bit greater than expected and greater than the previous number. Alright also for today, Apple, Amazon, and Meta report earnings after the market closes. And then on Friday, the jobs report comes out at 8.30am eastern time and then at 10am, Michigan consumer sentiment. Alright, so that will wrap up the week, a big, big, big week of news, events and earnings. Alright, let's move on to positional analysis now. I'm going to start with ESB500, this is the ES Futures and Bookmap. And before I take a closer look at this chart, I do want to take a look at a larger time frame. I'm going to go to the underlying index. This is the SPX, the underlying index. I'll go through this quickly. The current rally began last year, October 30th, ran into resistance at 4800. Then on January 19th, options expiration, SPX broke above that 4800 double. And then from here, let's take a closer look at the last 30 days. So I'm going to go to another SPX chart. This is a 30 day one hour chart. This is the 4800 level, resistance at that level. And then on expiration Friday, that was January 19th. This is the expiration line right here. It may be difficult to see. SPX broke out above that level, found resistance at 4900. That was the call wall for a while. Then broke out this Monday. That was on the back of a Treasury announcement about their debt. And then yesterday, dropped down below 4900 again with the FOMC announcement and press conference. All right, let me point out the levels on this chart. First of all, the dash purple lines are showing the lower and upper weekly expected move. This is based on the options market. I update this once a week. The dash blue lines are showing the lower and upper daily expected move, also based on the options market. I update this once a day. These are all based on the closing price for the SPX previous day. And then what the options market is showing for the expected move. All right, the dark red lines are showing SPOT gamma levels. These are proprietary SPOT gamma levels provided to SPOT gamma subscribers available on a variety of trading platforms. This is thinkorswim. I'm going to point out the key daily levels. So these are based on gamma weighted open interest. SPOT gamma takes open interest data applies their proprietary algorithms to come up with these levels. All right, so the first level is the put wall at 4775. That's a strike with large net negative gamma that can be expected to act as support. And that level did shift up pretty significantly from yesterday at 4500. It had been at 4500 for quite some time, shifted up again pretty substantially. All right, the next level up is the volatility trigger. That's at 4855. That's a strike. That is SPOT gamma's proprietary volatility and 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 edge their delta exposure. That tends to enhance or increase volatility. On the other hand, like SBX is trading now above that level market makers position on the gamma curve is positive. In a positive gamma environment market makers have to trade against price to edge their delta exposure. And that tends to tend to subdue or decrease volatility. And note that at the beginning of the day market makers position on the gamma curve for SPX was slightly negative. And now SPX is trading above the volatility trigger. That level also shifted higher from yesterday. It was at 4775 yesterday and shifted up today to 4855. The next level up is the call wall at 5000. That's a strike with the largest net positive gamma that can be expected to act as resistance. That's also the absolute gamma strike. That's a strike with the largest absolute positive and negative gamma. That's where most of the gamma weighted open interest is concentrated. All right, finally, let's take a look down to a one minute chart now. So here's the drop yesterday. Very nice setup short above 4900 yesterday. Actually 4928. That's what I posted in discord yesterday. Very sharp drop and finding support right around 4850. This is today this dark shaded portion on the right. So for today the levels in play for SPX is the volatility trigger the level in play 4855 acting as support also as a target for a short. And I'll talk more about that in a few minutes. So right now SPX is trading above the upper daily expected move price traded above then acted as support for the upper daily expected move. So the 4900 level is the next level up above 4900 is a large gamma three level. And then just below that is a combo level combining SPX and spy gamma weighted open interest into one combined level shown in terms of an SPX price. All right, here's the futures and book map. So I've talked about the underlying index the SPX that's the primary index spy is a version of that. And this is how I look at the SMB 500 ES is a derivative of SPX. I have my own cloud notes here so I can show so I can show SPX levels. So there's that 4900 level that I was just talking about and then the 4899 combo to level just below that. So there are SPX levels. I also have spy levels on this chart. Here's the spy 486 volatility trigger acting as resistance making for some early morning short setups. So 486 volatility trigger acting as resistance. Here's that 4855 volatility trigger acting as support. And now the spy 487 in play as well as 488. So both the SPX and spy levels are definitely in play for today. All right, note there is a difference in price between ES and SPX. And today it's right around 22. So ES minus SPX equal 22. So I'm showing the SPX 4900 level at ES 4922. And note that I post the index relationships that I'm using for both my ES and NQ charts and discord. I've started posting the preliminary relationships before the cash open and then the final index relationships that I'm using sometime after the cash open. We'll talk about setups in a few minutes. So good short setups in the morning and then long aren't starting around 11am. All right, so those levels in play for the SMB500. I talked about shifts and levels for the SPX both the volatility trigger and put wall shifted higher. On the other hand for spy the volatility trigger put wall and absolute gamma strike both shifted lower. So a bearish hat trick for the for spy. So kind of conflicting signals for the SPX and spy. And the way I was looking at it in the morning, I'll talk more about this setup in a few minutes was with a bearish bias CVD falling resistance at the 486. Now, obviously that has resolved to the to the bully side to the upside CVD starting to rise and ES breaking through that 486 volatility trigger level. So we'll take a take a look at those setups and a few minutes. All right, let's go move on to NASDAQ now. So this is the NQ features and book map. And before I take a closer look at this chart, I do want to take a look at the underlying index charts. I'm going to start with QQQ. This is a one minute chart showing the levels in play. This is a 418 round number level. That's not a not a spot gamma level, but acting as resistance before the cash open shown in the gray shaded area. And then after the cash open shown in the darker shaded area, then this 420 large gamma three level acting as resistance both before the cash open and after. And now QQQ is trading above that level. Let's take a look at a quick look at NDX and the only level that employee and this was yesterday afternoon is this combo level at 17137. All right, let's go back to NQ now. So just like ES, I have my own cloud notes. So I can show QQQ and NDX levels. There's that 420 level zoom in on this zoom out. I'm sorry acting as resistance multiple times before and after after the cash open 418 acting as support and now NQ moving higher above that level. All right, shifts in levels for the NASDAQ, just like SBX for NDX, both the volatility trigger and put wall shifted higher. And just like spy for QQQ, the volatility trigger call wall in this case and absolute gamma strikes shifted lower. So a bearish hat trick for QQQ. All right, let's take a look at gamma notional to see how market makers were positioned on the gamma curve at the beginning of the day. So this is gamma notional again, market makers position on the gamma curve at the beginning of the day for the SME 500 NASDAQ Russell 2000. Note with the exception of NDX, which I really don't pay much attention to here. All these numbers are negative and pretty significantly negative for spy. So gamma notional market makers position on the gamma curve at the beginning of the day once negative for the SME 500 and QQQ and the Russell 2000 as well. So this indicates and this position of the gamma curve traders are long puts market makers are short puts and they have to trade with price to hedge their delta exposure. That's typical of a negative gamma environment. Well, let's take a quick look at the Vana model so we can get a graphical representation of what that means. I'm going to take a look at the spy chart. What this chart is showing is market makers delta notional on the vertical axis price for spy on the horizontal axis. There are two curves on this chart. The light gray curve shows how market makers delta notional may change with changes in price only. And the purple curve shows how market makers delta notional may change with changes in price and applied volatility. And remember market makers always want to remain delta neutral. So what this is showing if if price is decreasing and applied volatility increasing market makers delta notional will increase and they have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure. On the other hand if price is increasing market makers delta notional will decrease and they can buy back their short futures. So this is showing on this portion of the curve market makers are trading with price both down and up. Let's check on prices now. So the low of the day for spy was right around $484. So there it is $484. So if price had continued to fall market makers would need to continue to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure. Then this afternoon as price is increasing market makers can buy back their short futures. Let's take a quick look at QQQ. Since I'm looking at spying QQQ since gamma notional was much much more negative over a billion for spying QQQ. So QQQ low of the day $418. So again the same thing market makers trading with price to hedge their delta exposure. And then if price continues to increase that pressure will decrease. Let's see where QQQ is trading now right around $420. So it looks like there's still some room for a put-van rally that's what this is called. Price increasing implied volatility drops market makers can buy back their short futures and that is a put-van rally. Alright let's take a look at some setups now. I'm going to start with the SB500. I'm going to take a look at what options traders have been doing today. What this chart is showing so everything that we've looked at so far other than book map is based on static data. Spot gamma takes the open interest data, applies their proprietary algorithms to come up with the levels that I showed on my charts and the gamma notional, the VANA model. And so that's all based on static data that's updated once a day. That's what I use in my planning process. Now we're moving to execution to take a look at some setups. So I'm going to start with the hero chart to see what options traders have been doing. So what this chart is showing is price for SPX with a white line, the hero signal, hedging impact real-time options. This is showing options trades and market maker hedging activity for a combined signal of SPX by XSP and ES futures. All into one combined signal. Let's zoom in on this chart. So what this hero signal, the purple line indicates, a falling signal indicates traders are taking negative delta positions. They are buying puts and or selling calls. Market makers take the opposite side of that and they have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure. So market makers are hedging their options trades in the SP500 with ES futures. On the other hand, a rising hero signal indicates traders are taking positive delta positions. So they are buying calls and or selling puts. Market makers take the opposite side of that and they have to buy futures to hedge their delta exposure. Let's take a look. I'm going to zoom in on the morning. This is what I was looking at in the morning. So right around 10 a.m., 10.10, hero signal started to make a series of lower highs. This setup, one quick short setup with the ES right at SPY 486 volatility trigger. I posted that in Discord and then the better setup was about 20 minutes later as hero continued to make lower highs and ES reverse lower again at that 486 level. So let's go take a look at the book map. Go back to ES. Now, obviously that was not the big move of the day, but looking back in hindsight here, this is what I saw in the morning. So here's the first short setup, second test of the 486 level in the cash session. Note the volume dots here. Volume dots indicate market buy minus sell. Green dots indicate more buyers than sellers. Magenta dots indicate more sellers than buyers. So price makes kind of a double top there at the 486 level as traders were taking negative delta positions. Price moves lower down to the 485 level, reverses higher, then again finds resistance. Right around the 486 level as more aggressive sellers come in and this time price moves down to the SPX volatility trigger at 4855 before reversing. And note during this time as ES made a slightly higher high cumulative volume delta shown by the pink line and the sub chart was decreasing. And then finally once this got moving, sell stop orders helped to fuel the move lower that shown by the following yellow line both in the sub chart there. Alright, so a couple of short setups, one good for about 10 points and the next one good for looks like about 20 points. Right, yeah, that's right. So this is this is spy 484. It's also the 485 volatility trigger. Alright, so that's the short setup in ES. Then of course again the big move of the day was this reversal higher right around the 485 volatility trigger. And the big clue and book map here is watching what large traders were doing with the Heisberg orders that shown by the rising blue line. So as aggressive sellers and stop orders were fueling that move lower, large traders were fading that move. They were buying weakness. That's pretty typical of large traders with Heisberg orders shown by the rising light blue line and also the on chart indicator. All these numbers are not significant. They were buying with Heisberg orders. Alright, let's go to book map hero now. Let's see what options traders started doing right around 11 on this just a bit. So to me this was not not really convincing. Slight rise in the hero signal really didn't start to take off until 12. Let's take a look at one other thing that maybe that might provide a little bit more clue. This is the so the purple line is showing all expirations. This is all trades. The teal line or green line is showing next expiry and for the SB500 this is options that expire today. So the teal line starts to rise more sharply just around 11-10 as traders start taking positive delta positions in zero DTE options. Helping to drive price higher so that provides more clue. Another clue, a more significant clue as to what what traders are doing and what was moving price. Let me turn that off and next I want to take a look at this mag 7 signal. What this chart is showing is the hero signal options trades and market maker hedging activity. For a combined signal for the stocks known as the Magnificent 7. Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla and note this line let's zoom back in on the chart. Did not really start increasing until about 11.30. Alright let's go back to book map. Notice in book map a lot of aggressive buyers start to come in. So just like the short set up driven by aggressive buyers shown by the cumulative volume delta. You can also see all the green volume dots coming in. So market sell on the way down aggressive buyers start to come in by stop orders shown by the yellow line. Start to feel the move higher and then the options trades. Of course the zero DTE options trades especially also starting to drive the help the move higher. So when traders again buy call sell puts market makers take the opposite side and they have to buy futures to hedge their delta exposure. And Caesar ask does the hero signal or spot gamma show anything regarding position into Apple? Yeah we'll take a look at that in just a minute. That was on Apple's on my list of stocks to take a look at. Alright so I thought just based on hero and order flow this these short setups in the morning weren't easier read. But based on especially what what's shown in book map here reversal at the 485 for 4855 volatility trigger also pretty apparent. Initiated by large traders with iceberg orders then the aggressive buyers and by stop orders start to feel the move higher. Alright let's take a look at NASDAQ and then we'll get to Apple. Alright so Apple let's go back into NASDAQ. Let's go back and take a look at the hero signal for the mag 7. Gonna zoom in a bit. So here's the long set up first of all at 10 a.m. Initially traders were taking negative delta positions right around 10 a.m. They shift start taking positive delta positions NASDAQ reverses higher so a good long and then a short. These peaks in the mag 7 hero signal have been good indications for a short recently. So the peak trader start taking negative delta positions and NASDAQ reverses higher right around 1035. And let's just take a look at the NASDAQ signal as well for some additional confirmation. I'm going to zoom in again. So here's the long at 10 a.m. This is a combined signal for QQQ and NDX. And then note a very nice divergence short set up here. The NASDAQ signal again QQQ and NDX traders start taking negative delta positions. And then price reverses lower about 20-25 minutes later. So very nice divergence signal there. Alright let's go take a look at book map. Alright here's the long at 10 a.m. Let me zoom in on this just a bit. Alright so price moving down. Here was the iceberg signal moving higher. So traders just like SMB500 fading the move lower. Large traders with iceberg orders they use to hide their size. Price reverses right at QQQ 418. Aggressive buyers start to come in. CVD jumps higher. Price moves up to 420. Then remember traders started taking negative delta positions in NASDAQ. And then right around 1035 in the MAG7 signal they started taking negative delta positions. Aggressive sellers start to come in right around that QQQ 420 level. NASDAQ makes a series of lower highs and price moves lower. Kimmeled to volume delta falls. And then sell stop orders fuel the move lower back down to 418. So a quick round trip. Kind of an hour long round trip. 418 to 420. Then back down to 418. Alright let's take a look at Apple. Take a look at some stocks. I want to focus on the stocks, the reporting earnings. And then we'll take a look at the live market. So this is Apple. Let's see what traders are doing today on Apple. So on Apple they are taking negative delta positions. That started right around 1045. Taking negative delta positions. So far Apple stock not responding. I noticed there when I looked before there were a lot of aggressive buyers. We'll take a look at that in just a minute. Let's just separate outputs and calls. See what traders are doing. The falling orange line indicates traders are selling calls. The falling blue line indicates traders are buying puts. Notional value is negative for both. Alright let's go back to book map. So up until about 1030 or so. Going down these volume dots just a little bit. There were a lot of aggressive buyers. There still are. Showing by all the green volume dots. Alright so in Apple really not a lot to see here, but traders are taking negative delta positions again and they're selling calls and buying puts. Next Amazon. Up and down day in Amazon. Let's see what traders are doing. Options traders. So they're buying calls that shown by the rising orange line. They're also buying puts. Showing by the falling blue line. Call buyers more aggressive. Note the notional value. Right around 188 million versus minus 91 million. So call buyers more aggressive. Let's go back to book map. So a good long set up in the morning. Then after that chop. Alright let's take a look at Meta. Meta also reports earnings. Caesar asked does the hero signal account only for opening trades or all transactions? I don't know for certain. I would imagine there's accounts for all transactions. You might want to send that question to spotgammasupportinfo.com and my guess is it's all transactions. Alright another up and down day here in Meta. Let's see what options traders are doing. Go to Meta. I'm going to zoom in. Just so we can see what was driving that move higher in the early session. This is pretty typical of Meta. Aggressive call buyers come in right at the open. Up to the 400 call wall. They take their foot off the gas. Start selling calls. Price consolidates and their moves lower. Alright zoom out to see everything. So net for the day they are selling puts and selling calls. So Amazon just the opposite. Buying calls, buying puts, buying strangles or straddles and Meta just the opposite. Selling puts and selling calls. Let's take a look at the, go back to the total signal and net for the day it is bearish. Pretty typical pattern in the morning. Traders aggressively buying calls in this case. Take their foot off the gas. Shift negative. Price moves lower. Let's go back to Meta. So Meta back to around the opening print. That's shown here with this huge volume dot. Formative control will remain at that level until the closing print. That's pretty typical of stocks. So another round trip here in Meta. Alright you're welcome Caesar. Alright let's take a look at, let's see if SMCI and then RUT or IWM. I don't have either of those in book map. We can take a look in Hero here. We'll start with SMCI, Super Micro. Traders are buying calls in Super Micro. They're also selling puts. Super Micro has breached the call wall. So a very bullish day here in SMCI. Sorry about that. Try that again. So they're buying calls and selling puts. Call buyers much more aggressive. Breach of the call wall. So when those calls go, well first of all for stock, SpotGam assumes that traders are long calls. Market makers are short calls. As those calls go further in the money, their delta increases, market makers have to continue to buy stock to edge their delta exposure. And also the same when traders are buying calls, market makers sell the calls and they have to buy stock to edge their delta exposure. So in the case of SMCI, traders are buying calls and selling puts. Market makers take the opposite side of that and they have to buy stock to edge their delta exposure. And this is, if you're looking for a long, this is a great setup today. Looking for these call buyers. And then we'll take a look at IWM. Mixed picture here for IWM. Welcome Nanny. Let's go back to the total signal. So we're on wall today for IWM. Traders are taking negative delta positions. There was a pretty strong correlation between options trades and hedging flow up until about one o'clock. Note the flow alerts. They came in in the morning. Good indication for a short setup. All right, so it looks like IWM recovered higher along with the rest of the market, starting around 11, 11, 15. All right, let's go back. Let's take a look at the SP500 first. So now it looks like options traders have taken their foot off the gas. Hero signal leveling off and prices consolidating. Let's take a closer look. I'm going to go to a shorter look back period. I often like to do that in the afternoon. That doesn't provide much clarity. That's more chop. So let's go back to the one day. Next, Dexbury. So note this is for the day, the very strong correlation between the green line, the zero DTE and the total trades. All expressions almost the same. This is showing that for today the zero DTE trades are making up a bulk almost all of the options trades today. All are in zero DTE trade options. Take a look at the Mag7. Still continues to move higher. And the NASDAQ signal moving lower. All right, so neutral for the SP500 as far as the options trades go. Hero signal maybe shifting lower, maybe just a swing down. NASDAQ bearish, Mag7 bullish. So let's go back to book map. Start with the SP500. So right now the ES is trading at a narrow range between SPY 487 and 488. Let's take a look at NASDAQ. Also trading at a range. Somewhere between 420 and 421. Also making a series of higher lows. So maybe set to a breakout above 421, 400. As traders continue to take positive delta positions in the Mag7. And sometimes NASDAQ can chop around those round numbers for quite a while. Let's go back to the SP500. Go back and check the hero signals. Mag7 hero continues to move higher. NASDAQ lower. SP500 also shifting lower now. Go back to book map. Not a lot happening here in ES. Check NASDAQ. Still stuck around 400. Check ES. I've got a couple of minutes left. Any more stocks? Does anyone have any stocks they want me to take a look at? Alright, so NASDAQ looks like it may be trying to break lower. CWR wants to take a look at Amazon. Alright, let's do that. Go back to Amazon. 158 level. Let's see what options traders are doing in Amazon. Alright, here's SP500 hero signal now making broke below that. That swing low. Let's take a look at Amazon. Right now traders continue to take positive delta position in Amazon. So there you go, CWR. Amazon trying to break above the 158 level. As traders are taking positive delta positions. Check on ES. Much easier reads in ES in the morning. Couple of short setups, long setup. NASDAQ still stuck in a very, very narrow range. Mag7 signal has leveled off. NASDAQ continues to move lower. SP500 also continues to move lower. Book map. Looking at a shorter time frame. NASDAQ making lower highs. Mag7 hero signal leveling off. NASDAQ signal continues to move lower. Alright, my time is up. I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up. Interesting to see what happens with NASDAQ here. Alright, again, everyone, thanks for watching. Thanks for your questions and comments. I will see you tomorrow. Remember, tomorrow, jobs report. 8.30 a.m. Eastern time. We still have a data dependent Fed. Should be interesting. Could be a market mover. And then consumer sentiment at 10 a.m. Alright, we'll talk about that tomorrow afternoon. Thank you everyone for watching. Thank you for your questions and comments. And I will see you tomorrow. Bye.