our special five-part series titled news is undervalued in these times of crisis news is not just a source of information but it also leaves us with emotions like hope or sometimes despair it is something we all believe in and fall back upon for its credibility if you don't believe me believe the bug data news genre showed an unprecedented growth of 298 in first few weeks of the lockdown the number continued to be as high as 251 percent in week 13 and 219 percent in week 14 so the question we need to ask today is despite these numbers does the news continue to be undervalued by marketers or other industry people so to answer this and a lot more with me today is Mr. Vikram Sakuja group CEO Madison Media and outdoor Madison world before we start Mr. Sakuja just give me one minute I must mention that our presenting partner is ABP news and I request all of you to keep tweeting using hashtag e4m webinar and hashtag ABP news also tag ABP news welcome to the show uh Vikram hey great to be here amazing time crazy time that we roll in Vikram I want to start with that in these times that we consume news from various platforms every platform is a is has a different level of credibility so would you want to speak about credibility of news in these days and how does it pay to be more credible okay two questions there so let's start start with credibility platforms now you know I just in the last few days I've got one okay I'm just going to give you actual instances that have happened to me I got a few pieces of news delivered to me in different ways I got a whatsapp about a Japanese Nobel laureate claiming that the virus had been manufactured in a lab then I got a CNN uh sort of video of a president saying that you should you can actually inject disinfectants to kill the virus then I read a newspaper article that said I'm right now in Delhi so that non-essential shops will also be opening up and I saw a video of a news anchor saying that a political party had instigated an attack on him now this I got so four different pieces of news from four different sort of sources I also saw Twitter today which said that the one poor person who was actually trying out a vaccine some scientist has died now I have absolutely no reason to believe or I don't know whether any of these pieces of news are true or not true chances are most of them are true now let me switch the same things around in a different context supposing the whatsapp video that I got I got the president saying that that that that you can actually inject disinfectants came to me on a whatsapp supposing the entire CNN news was about the Nobel Japanese Nobel laureate saying that the the virus was created in a lab supposing Facebook had told me that non-essential shops were opening or for that matter a rival channel was actually writing and saying that this particular news anchor has got attacked by a somebody of a political party how does it start working in your head to me it works differently so right now chances are all news items are correct it could be all false also but somewhere along the line why is it that you're tending to believe one more than the other and I think that requires some degree of sort of introspection and understanding to me both credibility and trust needs to be earned you know around the time and I was getting married over 30 30 or 32 years back my wife was a reporter researcher with time magazine so I remember every Thursday they had to close a copy or something like that and they had this obsession with checkpoint Charlie checkpoint Charlie was any kind of fact that has to be reported in the story has to have at least two sources double check triple check to make sure that each and every word in that you put down is correct now contrast that with the recent interview that we've seen where now this is not even wrong it is just I mean it's egregious it's not even malicious there was a IMF chief economist talking about how the entire economy is getting sort of battered as battling exogenous variables now the news transcriber is putting it down as economies get battling exhaustion exogenous exhaustion now sometime back quite a few years back in fact there was a who are now unfaith unfortunately infamous journalist now who in America went and called the Chinese Premier Xi Jinping Xi Jinping she pronounced his name as 11 Jinping now both of these are what this is it's just stupid blunders but I think it's symptomatic of something which is deeper which is an in your rush to get out news there are some sometimes a tendency to take on mediocrity or accept mediocrity and I think that's the beginning of the problem of lack of trust credibility and authenticity and that is where I think the platforms that are doing it better are the ones which actually stand to have be more credible so in my book for me the brand is the most credible so I will so BBC to my mind for example I think it's very credible brand so if they come out with a piece of news on be it TV be a radio be it they're online but stuff I attach a certain credibility to it after that I actually attach most amount of credibility to stuff which comes out in newspapers and I think that's also because a there is a legacy the way the entire way the editors go about it they also sort of have the night or the evening and the night to actually see the the entire copy before it actually goes the response in a story it gets printed the lead time is probably a little bit more than it might be an online and TV place and as a result of it I think a little bit more quality and deliberation goes into it and in general I think the goof up less then I think I would go into TV and then maybe online editions and only the news aggregators comes way after that and I'm sorry but bottom of the pile other social media social media and the news that they sort of perpetrate so yes I do clearly believe that it's a I don't think the intentions are bad of everybody everybody wants to give credible news but the way you've built your entire news organization there are some which demand and therefore it demand more sort of exacting standards and then they will come out with respect so that is about the platform piece it is also about like big news channels also have resources to confirm from multiple sources so they can actually bring you credible news which perhaps a social media platform may not be equipped with so then I'm sorry to say but then then you shouldn't be in the business of news then if you can't if that's not your business then don't be in it so coming back to sorry sorry to interrupt you and I'll tell you why that's important the reason when you started this entire session that we are having by talking about the astronomical way in which news is being consumed these days the kind of crisis which has forced the entire world into a standstill basically has brought about a need there's a huge huge requirement for just finding out more information in order to be able to cope with the kind of crisis that this has has a task so at this point in time people obviously turn to news channels to get that so the responsibility is enormous and I completely believe just like I think the entire world does that the platform which is publishing news is fully responsible and accountable for the quality of news that they are supposed to put out so yes platforms that do it they don't have any option but to make sure the fact check so I have just got this message from my technical team that we are already live on Facebook and Twitter so you can now watch us there as well so Vikram moving on to my next question I wanted I mean we all know that TV worship is at an all-time high because we are all sitting at home so news has contributed significantly to this it is it is the leading genre it's almost like shown unprecedented to 98 percent growth in few weeks so despite all of this is news getting its true value commercially do you think as a media planner okay so let's just review the numbers that you started off the session with so yes overall TV has grown TV has grown about 40 percent and it's been driven by 12 percent more viewers and about 25 percent more viewing so average time spent is now upwards of four hours and 38 minutes and TV news as you viewership as you said has traveled so at this point in time the entire growth in TV viewership about 52 percent of that increased TV viewership is contributed by the news increase in news and share of news used to be about six seven percent now it's gone to about 17 percent it went to a high of about 20 percent but in the last post COVID week it's got a market share which is almost now similar to movies and GEC whereas it used to be considerably down at number four or five whatever it might be not only is the TV news gone up while online consumption hasn't gone up as much as TV so online consumption is only gone up by 10 percent but news online has gone up by about 76 percent and there across apps websites and video news the growth is pretty pretty solid and if I have to look at even at times of India survey that happened sometime back it seems that even the newspaper reading has gone up from I think 33 minutes to about 44 minutes with the number of people reading it for an hour or more having gone up dramatically to about 38 percent of the people are reading the paper that much so this is all sort of addressing this hunger of news and need for news that people have to sort of satisfying by going to these places now this should have actually been a bonanza time for a large number of the sort of news publishers and news media owners unfortunately these eyeballs are not translating to business the way they'd like it primarily because there is no demand so April and like the media we've always known as the demand supply game at this point in time the April has had a demand of advertising has come really due to a crashing crashing hold so it's down 60 70 percent from what the normal levels would have been if and even that is probably on the aggressive side so at this point in time news would have idly like to have said so many more people are coming and watching me so take my rates up or stuff like that but even they are being forced to discount because they just as you know there isn't enough demand now regarding value the best way we look at value is on media we look at cost per rating point or cost per thousand which is the same thing basically and in this we actually what we've seen up till now before the covid environment is that you look at this with various tv journals the gc's and the new movie channels definitely the gc's were the news channels is to have a higher cprp than the gc's and much higher than the movie channels now with the kind of growth in ratings actually you're finding that versus the pre-environment pre-covid environment the cprp's of news channels are now actually very competitive but that said obviously there's a competitive environment so the discounting that's happening on news and general entertainment is even more in news papers of course because people are it's compounded by a lot of people believing that papers are not reaching people and all the rest of it has become even worse and even if people are reading the newspaper more it's not translated in fact advertising is completely gone from there and that's again impacting the pricing so to answer your question about value i'd say that market forces actually determine value so at this point in time i the fact i don't think it's being undervalued to the extent that i think a news today there were about 11 to 1200 brands that were active in a given week during on tv during these post-covid weeks all then i think last couple of weeks all of them had news on the media plans that shows that news is being valued uh also about 40 percent of all the inventory that was bought was bought the news channels okay so i think the value the getting their dues shared by finding a very very prominent place in media plans i'm sure they would want a higher price but that price is not coming because the demand is not there but but if 40 percent is going which is which is compared to what in previous days now that 40 percent i don't think new journal would have commanded across the board a 40 percent share of all inventory at any point in time it would be lucky to get half of that so it's almost doubled yeah yeah so news definitely is doing much better relatively to all the other journals although at a much lower price yes well lower price than what they were earlier at but at a corresponding point also now which is comparable to some places where they were earlier at a premium so the i'm already getting a lot of questions uh from our viewers and uh before i take up the first question from the where i must remind you that the session is in uh collaboration with abp news uh so this is this gentleman called mr manish gupta he wants to ask you a question that there are some newspapers regional local who do their best to give credible trust worthy news will they and how will they survive impact of cobit 19 post lockdown it's more of a print question okay so um let me let me take it at a broader level does credibility is credibility valued and i think it's a slightly profound question so the i think the best way to answer this is in two ways one is that is does credibility of a news channel also lead to greater popularity so that's a consumer question subscriber question whether you're subscribing to newspapers or tv channels and the other question is that does a credible news channel get paid more by advertisers just because the platform itself is credible now i think it's a very murky area to say that is one news channel more credible than another news channel that's because when people are chasing a news channel or news for that matter there are a number of factors that go into play there is the ideology so you know the proverbial fox news versus cnn that you see in america it's better to distance it because then you're not making it personal if you look at india and there's a danger of antagonizing some of my friends so uh there is an ideological thing there's no right or wrong but there is fox news and cnn are absolutely different sides of the spectrum and people following the tool are just subscribing to that ideology some people follow personalities some people follow the investigative capability they are some people follow just the empire entire ability to break new news some of them are just going after sensationalism and salacious stuff and of course some people are going after credibility but credibility and authenticity is one factor probably not the most important thing now does this translate at this point in time to two more viewers and there again i think not because i don't see if i have to look across all the channels which we get firstly most of the on tv most of the news channels are free most of them the ones and the premium ones which are there the ones that do which do charge money they charge typically less than one rupee per month from the subscribers and if you have to look at news channels or brought sorry the business channels they might go a little bit more so at this point in time i don't think consumer monetizability is becoming a factor to look at to actually say does that determine popularity now from a from a credibility and would somebody as an advertiser pay more to be on a more credible platform now this is an age old quantity versus quality debate so i remember when i was in proctor and gamble several decades back so that time it used to be this question of would you be willing to pay a premium to be on a premium environment and most marketers actually say that if my target audience is watching a particular say program on tv and if i'm getting helping and that program is helping me get rich then i don't want to put a premium on the quality i don't want to put a handicap on adverse quality because i respect my consumer and if the consumer is watching a particular program and if my ad comes on that then that ad is completely acceptable and i don't think i should pay a premium to be on a more credible platform so the i think the brutal reality is even though we may want in our hearts the credible and the authentic guide to win unfortunately even the advertiser is not paying a premium for that particular person so long-winded answer to friend munisha's question much as i'd love even assuming that there are some whether it's regional or whether it's national if there is somebody who's really really holding the the authentic authenticity credibility and integrity of the fourth estate alive i'm afraid the consumers and the advertisers currently are not quite in the same camp to keep them afloat they will be going going more by the eyeballs go i now want to take up sandeep shivastav's question what and i'll add a little more to this so he's asking you that the newspapers delivery significantly impacted since the start of the lockdown this might have also contributed to the search in news genre on tv but you said that even readership has gone up but this is you you recently said right yeah so uh yes in a word overall news consumption has gone up it's not that maybe digitally i think all tv has gone up the entire you're not getting that print the new newspaper power frankly right now will remain something that we won't really get to know during the post-covid period uh anecdotally we are hearing that publishers are probably publishing 80 percent of their print trans but these are this is anecdotal data from whatever i understand abc may not track some of this stuff this time in this quarter because of the disruptions so at which point in time we will really never need to know what is the circulation which happened just in the post-covid period so that's it i'll complete his questions so he's saying that while appetite for news might seem momentary could part of the search remain even post-covid i also want to add one part to it will this uh preference of marketers you know towards the news will also continue post-covid marketers will chase where the eyeballs go so if if consumers want to be obsessed with news afterwards also that will also happen but my i mean i've never been a very good crystal ball geyser but i think once hopefully this is behind us quickly i think people are going to go back there will be some residual consumer behavior impact of this entire virus but as far as i think the tv genre viewership is concerned news may get some residual gains but they won't be as dramatic as what you're seeing right now i think what is going to see the biggest spike if you when that when normalcy returns is going to be sport people there's been a dearth of life sport so the minute it comes back people are just going to jump to it and see it and of course when the gc comes back with new programming that is also going to get us huge surge so this may not continue for very long if you ask yeah my my guess is that once normalcy news will go back to its normal level so it's always a very prominent genre but you don't think you'll get 20% share propansi surya has a has a question which is little to do with news so this is the time when pharma and fmcg can rise above fct and explore brand solutions to highlight and enhance brand value but there is still hesitation when it comes to integrated solutions and there is never a definite answer as to why not could you please enlighten as to what goes on in the brand's mind regarding this okay no this look there is clearly at this point in time the consumer is looking for certain assurances from uh marketers so they are looking for reassurance they are looking for a lot of safety and uh and yeah basically safety concerns they're looking at even some value concerns so if you are able to address hygiene concerns all of these they are looking so if a brand has a story to tell at this point in time there will be a high degree of responsiveness i also believe the trusted this as we've seen through some of the media and to like the ramayans and ma Bharat's there is when there is insecurity all around people like to go back to the nostalgic old kind of stuff where they've derived a lot of cocoon comfort so they will go back to those kind of behaviors so from that standpoint old trusted brands if you advertise i think are going to do they'll actually get received very well by consumers and they'll actually bounce back stronger but i think the the problem that advertisers are facing is a more short term and a very more sort of survival one there are three reasons why advertisers are not advertising at this point in time one is demand led one is supply led and third is cash led so there are some cases where even if you have all the stock in the world the autos and all of this world for example a people right now want to defer purchases and of course the stores are shut the showrooms are shut so where will the person go so at this point in time they don't want to even create forget they don't want to create short term forget long-term demands they don't want to do that then there are others like the fmcgs of this world where demand is perfect they're under essentials that actually are supposed to be available but they actually have some very acute supply side problem because factories are shut their entire distribution networks of trucks moving from one place to another that is all hampered so they really again don't have stock and this is a supply chain issue and then there are third kind of set of guys who might still have the business you know the classical so to speak the startup economy which may have a lot of I mean which at this point in time which are relying on investor funds and some of them have them but a number of them might say we have to conserve this cash and they may actually may not have cash and everybody is doing the proverbial let's pay our people before we actually go and pay for advertising and stuff like that so I think the at this point in time to suddenly come in and say why don't you do an integrated kind of solution which actually builds your brand values it may actually do good things for your brand but for very real reasons which are really linked to demand supply and or cash I think people have to sort of postpone these we have five more minutes before we have to close this session I can take I think one more question Gautam Datta wants to he's been sending this question repeatedly he wants to ask you we are getting shares but not price planners never value credibility and perception is this correct we are getting shares we are not getting price yeah so no but shares are presumed they shares as in social media shares footfall on social media kind of thing sorry this is this question is coming from what a media owner no no no no he's he's not a media owner he's but he wants to understand that we're getting shares but not price earlier he has his credibility I'm afraid I'm afraid I haven't quite followed the question news you're getting shares but not price so by that he means that news is getting shared but it's not getting paid for and advertising I think I try to answer that people are hungry for news but right now there is no demand for advertising so that's why I thought to try to explain that in the value piece so right now at least 40% of the inventory is going to the news if you talk to your brethren in GC movies music even kids which actually kids genre is actually seeing a lot of growth but even they are not getting as much traction as maybe news channels so if I was a person in the news thing I'd be actually reasonably satisfied with what I'm getting because the others are getting even less three minutes I'll take one last question current with so much clutter in the news genre both in English and Hindi what's the future of longer run of channels and their survival also why news channels are not able to get their fair share of revenue as compared to other genres wherein it is a critical genre now we're not talking about only covid days you know we're talking in general because a lot of news channels keep complaining that you know also we have eyeballs we don't get that kind of price or share which we should so this is also our topic so let's close it on it and understand from you where is it lacking okay so you know this goes I think the fundamental reason why this is happening is because of fragmentation now the crazy part is that when I started my career in advertising in media whatever 32 years back my cost for 10 seconds that I was paying was probably as high as most of the regular inventory in fact maybe even higher the Mahabharata used to pay 150,000 per 10 seconds for super prime time 10 a.m. on Sunday mornings I'm sure there's no program I mean there's no way Mahabharata would have got that for that any other program is getting those kind of rates today and if I have to take it to news all the more so because as you get more and more news channels coming in the same supply I mean same demand for news is now getting fragmented over more and more channels so it has a you know it has a double whammy to it so it's in fact it's a lose lose in a sense to it from a broadcaster standpoint because it's now getting more and more commoditized it's easy for us to act as us buyers I'm a media buyer so I can actually just buy it anywhere because it's not getting fragmented over so many channels so I can just keep on drying down the price because there are so many people out there to sort of compete with flip side as a as a advertiser it's not that that great it for me because my cost for rating point or the more number of grps I need to buy to get the same kind of reach increases so cost of my plan also goes up so it's inflationary from that standpoint so your effective rates are also going down at one level your cost for rating point is going up at another level so it's a lose lose on both now the final the proof of the solution lies in consolidation so if you actually land up now look at the places where things have consolidated so you only have one place from where you can buy IPL so prices keep on going up CPR it also go up but probably the CPRP inflation is probably on par with the CPRP inflation that you might have on crowded genres so the I think the answer to this question lies within the within the broadcaster set and they have to decide how much they want to proliferate so if I understood it right if you'll have less than a number of news channels perhaps they'll have better rates yes so I machine can we take more questions or because my they said we have to close it by 330 I still have one or more questions one question one more question should be good one or two questions should be one more question this is again from wants to ask currently big FMCG brands or big advertisers are looking at integration and also trying to gain brand equity by associating with media however the SMEs and retailers in spite of intent are not able to advertise due to cash issues or maybe they are jittery what will be your suggestion to them at this moment actually I find SMEs they probably are the most savvy and they understand the pulse of their consumer and their market in a number of ways better than national advertisers primarily because they operate in a very small market and they understand that well what I've seen the way them that they actually behave is they typically try to put all their eggs into one basket so against conventional theory what they will do is for example they will go tie up with one newspaper or they'll tie up with one channel and say I'm giving you all my money it's not much but this is what it is now you make this worth my while so at that point in time the media owner actually goes out of the way because they've actually been able to get a hundred percent of the guy's budget which in and of itself is also significant and becomes that much more valuable because he has given it all to that one person and then it becomes sort of almost incumbent on that guy on the media owner to be a co-partner in making this money work for them so this we've seen not I mean during COVID days we've seen less I think here I'm talking about a general strategy because that is this is the way I've seen the SMEs work and in the process I think they actually will land up being quite effective in market in the very short term of COVID frankly I think they are the ones who have a cash crunch so they will they will use very existentialistic factors to determine whether or not to advertise but for that matter even national advertisers I don't think I mean he said they may have the money to do fancy things like integration but most of them are also right now being very cautious when it comes to spending I hope this has answered your question Mr. Ghosh and we are already running out of time we have exceeded a few minutes. Vikram before I ask you for your closing remarks and summing it up I just want to tell all the viewers that will be back on May 6th with us part two of the series with Mr. Ashish Basim CEO APAC of Dan and Vikram thank you very much for this insightful session would you want to have some closing remarks I mean something a suggestion or anything that would you would like to speak on the topic before we close? You can lend me a philosophical note the broad issue that we were discussing was authenticity of news and its importance in these days I don't think anybody in their right mind would doubt that news is critical at this point in time and it's even more critical for that news to be accurate and trustworthy but I also believe that if we have to demand this of our newscasters the solution of that will lie with consumers and it won't lie with advertisers because unfortunately unfortunately in a democracy pretty much like the government the people deserve the press they get so at this point in time if there are consumers who want to go after the sensational the salacious the stuff which is probably not at all true but it just makes for great forwarding and shares those are the guys that's the kind of people that we have and that's the kind of society that we're perpetrating if on the other hand we are actually feels on the bottom of the heart that this is a serious issue and we should actually not allow even once something like this we should where anytime you hear this you should actually call it out and maybe name and shame the perpetrator of this kind of stuff I think once the consumers do that only then will there be any hope in a utopian world that authentic incredible news is also going to be valued more thank you so much Vikram it was really inspiring and insightful and we hope we'll have you back on some other panel sometime very soon thank you my pleasure you know where to find me I'm not going anywhere from my house I hope let's hope this lockdown gets over soon yes I hope so too thank then we'll have you live at our events look forward to it everybody please stay safe thank you same to you thanks a lot thank you very much


Just because it says made in America doesn't mean it was actually all made in America. Yeah, the official government rule is that something has to be quote, all or virtually all produced in the US. And if that sounds vague, it's because it is, with some companies using this vagueness to their advantage, making up to 30% of their products outside of the US and still labeling it as made in America. The only product that's required to say how much of it is actually American are cars. In fact, until recently, for meat and eggs, an animal was only required to be slaughtered in the US to get the product of USA label. So you could have imported a chicken that was born and raised in Uruguay and still label it as American.


I certainly want to bring you in terms of, she just mentioned of the houses, and we have seen some levels of dependency, other than the decisions they make. In terms of looking at the standard the Senate, a few months ago, in terms of the revenue sharing, moving forward with the lesson learned from people aspiring to become politicians and becoming leaders for that sake, We are not going to say that situation. In fact, there is going to be more division as we approach 2022 because we are approaching now the political period. It's 2022. And by next year, we will be saying that election will be the following year. So I foresee a situation where there will be more sharper division. And the problem that my sisters highlighted when there was a patch within the jubilee and the house leadership was changed most specifically in the Senate where Murkomen, Susan Kihika and Professor Kendiq were moved from their respective position. And these were the people who were shaping the jubilee agenda in the Senate. And they were very instrumental in passing most of the jubilee decision in the Senate. And Kenyans were shocked when the revenue bill was told in parliament because the Rungu Kangata, Samuel Pogisho and Professor Kamar team failed to convince and whipsen it to pass the jubilee revenue bill. And it ended up in a situation where there was a team which was formed. And unfortunately, among the people in that team were the people who had been removed from the leadership position. So you can clearly see the issue is not about just the changing of leaders but when we are changing some leaders or when you are changing leadership position we must look at the people who are going to replace the others in that position because if they do not fit the bill we are going to suffer. And that is the situation where we ended up dragging the bill. Counties did not receive money in time and even up to date counties have not received a single penny. Counties are collapsing. So what I expect and what I know is that going to next year we are going to have more politics starting with the bi-elections that are already up. So we are going to have a more sharper and divided parliament and senate. Just to add on what he has said, I think the reason why we I don't want to call it a quagmire but the reason why we find ourselves in such situations is because political parties in this country do not have ideologies they stand for. So today ODM stands for these two years down the line they change. But when political parties in this country will reach to a level we have ideologies we can defend. It doesn't matter who comes in. You see the reason why the when Keheka was removed Murkelman was removed is because Jubilee in itself you know the ideologies they keep shifting goalposts. But if Jubilee had an agenda which they started maybe in 20 that team that they stand for Yeah the big for agenda or whatever but they keep shifting so today the focus is dealing with Ruto the next thing is focusing you know ideologies keep changing but what I'm trying to expound is if political parties set up ideologies set up manifesto to the extent even after 2022 and let's say even Ruto or Guru does not sit to exist because we human beings people can die anytime you know when you sit to exist but can they outlive can you be outlived by that why am I saying that when you look at developed countries they have ideologies the only thing is that the ideologies they just metamorphosis right but the principle remains the same so if it's freedom freedom is protected throughout for over 200 years but in Kenya we find ideologies keep changing It's different from how you began and how it is totally different to the point you cannot even underline what is the basic principle they were actually fighting for so having said that it means if Jubilee had a proper manifesto you know you can say you have big for agendas but what is your underlying principle at the end of the day when when when ODM says it's democracy what is this democracy that you're talking about at the end of the day to the point it doesn't matter who comes into power because once they come into power both ideologies what we will shift them and we will even direct them in the way that they should literally actually go but because we don't have well established ideologies as a country even you end up having the confusion all right be it as it may Joe what major policies would you say have been passed this year that have benefited this 19 big time the policies that we have seen this year majorly we can start with the in terms of infrastructure one thing that we must give Jubilee and its government and with all its problem that it has managed to to perform is the infrastructure in terms of roads in terms of water in terms of electricity Jubilee has performed very well compared to other government if you look at the records in terms of termact road from 2013 up to date and from 2013 back you can see these are these are sharp rise if you look at the electricity connectivity despite the fact and you must be aware of the issues that are ongoing in kplc but they have been people have been connected to the electricity from all areas in other areas that Jubilee had proper policies but has failed in terms of implementation is you can get there in terms of legislation the work that parliament and senate have done in terms of implementing legislation you can cite something that is very quick and has impacted the youth of this country is to do with gambling you have seen the policies that jubilee has come up with gambling and matiangi has had the fights with the gambling companies that is a significant issue to some extent we have reduced the rate of gambling in this country and we are looking to to help our brothers and sisters we've become real hustlers yes then there's other policies which in terms of implementation it has been now it has turned out to be corruption if you look at the if you look at field security and that is coming up with irrigation schemes you have seen a good project a project that was going to help the people has been messed up because of corruption story that is aurora and kimwarel that is not to say that aurora and kimwarel money has been stolen or somebody stole the money but corruption was used to stop the project and kenyans are not being told the truth is that the corruption the alleged corruption in aurora and kimwarel was used to stop the project if you look at because what am i saying that the same model that is being used in aurora kimwarel financing the project is the same model that was used to finance sgr so unless you are telling me corruption is corruption in aurora kimwarel then it is corruption with sgr you cannot point it as a one of the one of the projects of jubilee then another issue i must not miss to say because as a young person in this country jubilee had a fantastic manifesto and policies to promote the youth but in one way or another in terms of implementing jubilee has failed the youth you can remember the youth fund issues and uh enterprise where the ceo squandered money and the project ended up the youth council and its politics has collapsed so and in terms of now youth being represented and seeing a youth being appointed in a state position and political arena we have been shortchanged positions that require youth to be given that position they have ended up to the older older guys and we respect them now it does not mean that we don't respect them we respect them but for heaven's sake those positions and if you look at the dynamics of this world certain position must be held by somebody who falls within that bracket wisdom comes in age all right so there are some one or two things that jubilee has really tried but it has here it has had some shortcomings all right betris uh what would you say has been the hits of 2020 and the misses 2020 the one of the greatest mist definitely was how covid was handled that one i will keep on hammering actually coming yeah i will keep on hammering because livelihoods have been lost and being an economist i don't know how long it will take for the country to recover because the effects would be felt even five years to come because big corporations have sank big companies have sank down and sunk with the kumon mani actually did maybe i will just agree with my brother one of the the greatest thing the highlight of this current situation that the jubilee has been in its true infrastructure has really improved and i'm glad marginalized communities have been able to access uh infrastructure in terms of even hospitals i even so krivoia now is having a very uh i think umoza level six kind of a hospital that that is good news kakamega the same thing it's not only now in central that you find people are being built for hospitals but you can go even to ajil is a new host to come up uh people can access uh medical services uh but apart from buildings now where the what is it where the issue now is really now testing uh this government is in terms of human resource that is where these are very hikap they would have very nice even in kajone they have a very good infrastructure it comes to hospital so infrastructure apart from the roads and electricity we have seen hospitals coming up even to the interior parts of the country where you could not have access uh healthcare service so that is a big up but now it's one thing to have building it's another thing to have functional functional building that that that's where the the issue is so functionality of this even over you know they open the odaya odaya it's not an annex of kh which is good because who would have thought in odaya people have such a high level kind of a facility but now what has led odaya hospital not to be open is because of human resource so it became a hitch so people wondering who will incur the cost of being the healthcare workers so i think uh what we need to learn from all these aspects it's true they had good you know we are very good at uh paper we're writing you know it's like writing a very good composition but the only way we can know that your that your theory works is when it's when it's put to the test when it's put for practicals and we can see results so i think that's where the challenge of the jubilee government has been they were very good theoretically anyway they talked they said nine stadiums my friend nine nine stadiums so maybe it would have solved the gambling issue because they used to have been engaged but think about it but topa is very good they have very good power but when the robber meets the road that's where the problem is so that's one so and the hindrance to implementation in all these aspects and this whole covid uh billionaire issue so they had a good plan let's get PPEs for the healthcare workers it's a very good plan on paper but when it came to implementation what was the greatest hindrance greed because greed brews corruption so greed among us our leaders greed among us our value system as kenyans that greed is what is killing implementation of very good projects on paper because the moment we remove greed and corruption will be nafsi i call it to be nafsi every kenyan things of themselves and in the problem is you cannot sleep in 10 houses at the same time you cannot sleep with 10 women at the same time as well as it's one at the same time you cannot be eating 10 plates at the same time we need to understand that and the moment we understand that it means you implement something because you love the people and the benefit it will bring to the people but because of corruption we have very good paper written but implementing becomes a very difficult so jubili government has had very good things on paper they have tried to implement but even those roads and infrastructures they have built the cost has been tripled 10 times finally maybe odaia has already been in mejengwa but when you look at how much it would have cost the taxpayer it would have been way cheaper than how it than the current cost that it it has been incurred again so until we saw that issue of greed would be nafsi that corruption aspect maybe odaia would have been way cheaper building it then the resources that remained would have maybe hired the healthcare personnel you know that will have not have been there but because of greed the cost is up to the point there is no money remaining to hire to hire to hire the healthcare all right in the interest of time we have to move to different matter and maybe probably this is where we will finish is still in politics we had the impeachment of governors two of two of them have been impeached one of them survived and if you look at the the the accusations are similar so the question is mbona joe one of the things that you must highlight on the the three impeachment we have had the that one of governor waiguru that one of whitey two and that one of sunko you can see the inconsistency in the in the way those impeachment have been handled one the way you have highlighted all of them had similar accusations all of them were approved by the county assemblies but the issue was at the senate and the biggest issue out of it was the political correctness within senate because these 26 senators who voted to impeach sunko and voted to impeach whitey two at the 76 who protected waiguru and inconsistency in the sense that the procedure in impeaching whitey two and the procedure in impeaching sunko was mishandled in the sense that the two third majority was not achieved at the county assembly but senate went and upheld the impeachment but waiguru's impeachment achieved the two third at the county assembly but she was saved at the senate so you can see the inconsistent but out of it what kenyans must learn from it is that some people you must be able to please your political godfather if you are knowing your political godfather you are not going to be saved in terms of in politics in this country so the big boys are the ones who determine who to be saved and who to be chopped all right bichis sanitesi lisha time yasunko ah joville this is sanitization is a very detrimental to the to the development of this country why am i saying that it's because we'll have a rogue reader who robs people robs the country in you know hinders development but because they are lying That means the law is partial, and that also shows impunity in itself. It means we as people disregard the rule of law. In essence, why then would you waste money creating a law? Only for you not to observe it. It was better we live like uncouth people, primitive people. Everybody to live as they wish because why is there a law in the first place? So having looked at that, it means that going forward, Kenyans then should ask themselves, even now this whole bibi I think, if we cannot uphold the law, someone was actually saying, if Uwuru was not observing the law, and even Rila is not also observing the law, right? There are many instances that they have gone against the law, right? Then they come back to us, they want us to amend the same law that they themselves will not observe. It's like short changing the masses. That's literally short changing the masses. And I think that is what Maraga in the Chief Justice was trying to fight, to try and say, let uphold the law so that the law can never ask to prevail. Because if the law is upheld, I'm telling you there will be no violence. If the law is upheld, people will not fight brother against brother because we are respecting the rule of law. But because of the impunity, which we learn from our leaders, that case that we have just seen of the impeachment, it means tomorrow somebody will fight because they can run to the Capitol Hill, we can run there very fast. Then all your sins have been forgiven and yet people have really suffered. So the unfortunate thing with all these impeachments, even for 82 and Kunko, they look like they are from the same calibre, the way they behave, the good is there, the way they act. It seems that the system was trying to read the street kind of populas because Uingori is not very favourable with the population but these two looking at how they act now, they are so similar. And yet the same system trying to remove them out, it must have been due to very sinister moves, maybe they were being sanitized because of the uncouthness and their lack of decorum to put it because even them having been governed as in the first place, people really wondered which root did they use, which root may use because when you look at these individuals... The voice of the people. I think this is why we can agree the city hall politics, look at how Kunko began, he removed Igale, frustrated him, frustrated him to the point Igale is like, ah, I was better off being in the banking sector, there was structure, there was, alright. Then the next thing when Igale is of what happens, Ilati is the next person to be and even you look at the Ben Motura that we are talking about that is being subjected. This is another uncouth someone with no decorum, somebody who has not even gone to school being propelled again. So it beats logic why do you remove one who has no decorum and then you want to propose. Actually there is a argument going on that Igale did not resign properly and IBC still holds the record that we have a deputy governed who has Igale. So we will have a scenario where he comes back and he says, why? Me have been here. You are kidding, Joe. We have run a Hilary. Two rooms down this way. You see, the whole world and Kenyans know Igale resigned. But the electro body? You see, you see. The issues surrounding Nairobi, you can see the issues surrounding Nairobi starting way back from the election period. If you remember during the Jubilee nomination, at one moment, Sanko was denied clearance at Jubilee for certain issues were highlighted. Then later on, Sanko was given clearance at the last minute and he ended up defeating Peter Kenneth. The same issues that were raised at that moment are the same issues that were raised the other day when Sanko was being impeached. So let us not take Kenyans for a ride. And the Nairobi politics have been made in a sense that there are certain people seated somewhere in a comfortable sitting room with AC. They just manipulate Nairobi politics. They switch this gear, tomorrow they switch another gear, the following day they switch another gear. But may I want to remind Nairobians because I'm not a voter here in Nairobi. I want to remind Nairobians that democracy is not an event. Democracy is a process. It starts by identifying a leader. You identify a leader, you look at the qualities of this person. Is he eligible to be a leader in terms of integrity, in terms of his vision and agenda manifesto? You interrogate all of those things. Then you go to an election, that person wins If that person is elected, he takes the office, democracy dictates that now he must be accountable to the common manaiji. He must implement or he must go ahead and start building what he promised the manaiji as we interrogate that person. So what democracy offers you is this. Within five years you must interrogate this person so that you determine if he is suitable for the next election. But in our current situation people are going to blame and people are going to make an assumption that democracy failed the people of Nairobi. No, Nairobians were given an opportunity in 2013 they had Dr. Evans Kidero. A very, a very nice guy, somebody who has achieved everything within the corporate world but into politics he failed. The Nairobians said, let's change. Quick reactions, medics are on strike. Now they hold, you call them, on strike quick reactions as we finish up. Where are we heading? I think it's a very sad state of affairs because a strike within a pandemic is a very dangerous thing because I think I have reached to a resolution this is my own opinion whereby the healthcare sector should be similar to security. I think the government needs to sit down as much as it's a profession but it reaches to a level it's almost similar to security and we need to find a solution to stop these kind of strikes in the future and I agree the medics themselves are also not clean they are not quite as clean they also have their own faults and their own issues but be as it may the government needs to sit down and solve this problem once and for all and I am not an advocate for unions within such a noble profession because there is a reason why it's a noble profession here we are talking about lives of individuals and that's why you are saying and even Baba he was very much castigated the other time they were saying but you too can hold to defend life you see you too cannot before you receive money in your pocket you have to defend a life because a life cannot be bought back a life cannot be needed but then they must understand that these doctors also have needs and these nurses also have needs at home that needs to be met so these are very what is it called there is a tag of war I told to defend a life on this end but in my home there is no garlic to eat you see it's a very great tag of war so we need to reach a level just like the police officer as much as he said peanuts there is no one that the police officer will decide that we leave the boulders off on health crisis what I can say that the cardinal role of a government is to protect the lives and property of its people on this one the government has failed to protect the lives of Kenyans and the issue around all this problem starts with priority if the government can prioritize its issue and put the health sector as the first issue education the second issue the national and our economy and national death third issue as we go along then we have the BBI we will have the right way of solving the problems that we are facing as a country thank you so much and Jo for coming and speaking to us and trying to put things into perspective thank you so much for staying with us we will be taking a very short break when we come back to be time for career they have been my guest and political analyst and Jo Kalinde political analyst thank you so much see you in Abitam Dereva Hillary


Hello, everyone. Welcome to Options with Doug, streaming live daily on Bookmap Discord and the Bookmap YouTube channel at 1.30pm Eastern time. Before I go any further, let me 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. And as a reminder, my presentation and the Options with Doug channel in Bookmap Discord is very focused and the focus is options, order flow, the impact of options markets on stocks and futures, and the influence of market maker hedging flow on price action. Let me just check. Okay, for those watching on YouTube, I apologize. There was a technical issue yesterday and apparently streaming did not work on YouTube, so again I apologize and it looks like it is working okay today. I have a two-step process for trading and the first step is planning and I use positional analysis and what that means is I look at how traders and market makers are positioned in the options market, excuse me, and how those positions shift from day to day to help develop a thesis for expected volatility for the day, expected trading range, as well as a directional bias. And the second step in my process is execution and I look at real-time order flow and Bookmap and market maker hedging flow and Spot Yamahiro to confirm my thesis and to plan and execute trades to find setups. And I think positional analysis just to clarify what that is, I think it's a new way of looking at the market and other traders use technical analysis or fundamental analysis and I find that positional analysis provides me with a significant edge. And on topic questions and comments are very welcome, both in Bookmap Discord as well as YouTube. And I will look at both for your questions and comments and try to answer. So today, first of all, I want to say a special welcome to everyone today, the die-hards here on the day before Christmas weekend. So thank you for watching, thank you for attending, and again thank you in advance for your questions and comments. Alright, so today I'm going to talk about and you're welcome, Moonwalker. And today I'm going to my agenda, I'm going to talk about some news items that came out this week, or today specifically. And the reason that I talk about the news is it has a, you know, especially this year with the Fed in play, it's had a large impact on price action during the day and potentially how traders are positioned in the options market. And then after that I'll go through my position analysis for the day and then we'll talk about some setups. Okay, so first of all, news items for today and there were a couple of news items out at 8.30 a.m. Eastern time. And then and that was the primarily the let me scroll down here just a little bit. First that was primarily the durable goods order orders shown here. And that was worse than expected. So at least yesterday the market was in a good news is bad news scenario and that the strong GDP I think contributed to the drop in the market yesterday of the S&P 500 and most other stocks that I follow. So today maybe bad news is good news, just the opposite of that. And then the second was the was this PCE which came in in line with forecast and that's this top item here. And then the second news item was the consumer sentiment and that came in a little bit better than forecast and then this home sales it looks like it's about the same as what was forecast. So those are the news items and the market has reacted mostly mostly bullish today. So the ESS and P500 and SPX are up marginally about a third of a percent or so. Okay, let's start with the position analysis now and I'm going to go to the S&P 500 and this is the ES futures, S&P 500 futures and what I'm showing I have two columns that I use book map cloud notes to mark notes on my chart and the first is this SG column and that's the spot gamma cloud notes and these levels shown are in terms of SPX converted to an equivalent ES price. So right now spot gamma is adding 25 points to SPX to come up with an equivalent ES level. So that is the spot gamma column and it's marking the key levels and then the second column is this C levels, cloud levels column. This is my notes and I'm showing the supported resistance levels that are noted in the spot gamma AM founders note and also key spy levels converted to an equivalent ES level and then finally the big round numbers in ES. So the key point here is that this put wall, the 3800 SPX put wall held a support today and I think this was the best setup of the day and I'll talk about that a little bit more as we go on and what I'll show is that traders were selling puts as price approached 3800 and that level held and S&P 500 rallied after that. One thing that I want to point out is the levels that I use and this is from yesterday and this shows well the point that I want to make is the levels that I use are based on three things. They're based on the options market round numbers and liquidity that's shown in book map and liquidity is the passive buy and sell orders that are shown in the heat map and what this chart shows is the S&P 500 futures ES reversed right at this LEM that's the lower edge of the expected move and that is the lower edge of the weekly expected move and I mark those on my charts at the beginning of every week and this is based on the options market. It's just a there's a one standard deviation probability that this will stay within that range the lower expected move to the upper expected move and that changes every week and it's based on implied volatility and the price at the time that this level was created so those are, that's one sort of options level that I use. The others are from spot gamma and those are the key levels for SPX and SPY for ES for example and again converted to equivalent ES levels. I also use round number levels and especially on stocks and SPY and QQQ and SPY often responds very well to round number levels and I think it's important to keep track of those levels if you trade ES. So again my levels are based on options and let's, this is SPY the same day and this is showing the lower edge of the expected move for SPY and SPY overshot that a little bit down to this 375 level which actually became the put wall today so this is from yesterday okay so again the important point here is the reversal higher at the put wall, the 3800 put wall and then this reversal lower price overshot this call wall 3835 call wall and the 382 SPY 382 volatility trigger and we'll look at the hero and see what options traders were doing at that time. Okay so again the point being my levels are based on the options market, round numbers and liquidity shown in the heat map and book map. Alright so shifts and levels again remember yesterday was a pretty strong down day with a rebound late afternoon at that lower edge of the expected move and to be expected some, there were some shifts lower in key levels so for SPX and SPY the volatility triggers both both dropped and those new volatility triggers are now shown on this ES chart so ES, SPX is trading slightly above the volatility trigger and slightly below the SPY volatility trigger and those levels are shown shown here and just as a reminder the volatility trigger is spot gammas proprietary gamma flip level and below that the assumption is that traders are long puts, market makers are short puts and they will have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure and just the opposite above there so it's a negative gamma position for market makers below and positive gamma above and also for SPY both the put wall and call wall or I'm sorry the key gamma strike shifted lower and the call wall actually shifted higher and then for QQQ the put wall and call wall both shifted lower alright let's take a look at the SP500 charts now so I just want to take a quick look at the gamma levels so this is, let's go back to SPX here and 4000 is still the key gamma strike for SPX here it is, 3800 is the put wall and that's the support level that held this morning and note the put gammas shown at the teal lines below the zero level and then the call wall is, here it is at the 3835 level and that is the short call in the JP Morgan collar that expires on December 30th at the end of the quarter and now let's take a look at SPY and SPY, this is the key gamma strike so the key gamma strike for SPY dropped down from 390 yesterday to 380 today and that is the strike with the highest absolute gamma and then the put wall shifted down to the 375 strike and that is this that is the strike with the highest net negative gamma and the call wall is here at 390 and that is the strike with the highest net positive gamma and let me just check for questions no questions so far, looks like YouTube is working okay alright so let's take a look at some of the data in the SPOT gamma AM founders note and one of the main things that I point out every day is gamma notional and this is the market makers position on the gamma curve and given the drop in the markets yesterday gamma notional as expected shifted a little bit lower today so yesterday SPX gamma notional was minus 319 and today it is minus 537 and yesterday SPY gamma notional was minus 1182 and it shifted down to minus 1688 so gamma notional shifted more negative yesterday and as I pointed out before I compare morning to morning so this is the number SPX previous from yesterday afternoon and I look at the I just compare the numbers from the one morning report to the next so that is the gamma notional and other measures of gamma like this SPOT gamma gamma index also shifted more negative so that just means that market makers are positioned lower down on the gamma curve and in that situation that means that traders are long puts market makers are short puts and their delta exposure will increase as price drops and they have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure so their trading in the direction of price in a gamma negative gamma regime so they that tends to increase volatility and that is illustrated by the advantage art here and this illustrates and shows how market makers delta exposure delta notional will increase as price falls and that is shown by this teal line that shows how market makers delta exposure will change with changes in price and volatility and that is the Vanna effect and then the black line shows how their delta notional changes with changes as time passes and that is the and that is the charm effect and trader HE have a great weekend happy holidays Merry Christmas and take care and we'll see you next week okay so this is for this is for SPX and this just shows how it changes over time so you know again gamma notional became more negative today and that just shows you know pretty shown pretty clearly on this chart and this same for spy okay let's take a look at some set up so that is the preparation positional analysis that I do before the market opens and now one last thing that I do and let's go take a look here this is my watch list little spreadsheet that I keep and I keep track of the current key gamma strike for every stock on my watch list and I compare it with the previous day so this shows the this is from this morning and this shows the key gamma strike for yesterday the previous key gamma strike and then the current key gamma strike shows the key gamma strike from equity hub this morning spy gamma equity hub and I color code these so a red number indicates that the price of the key gamma strike decreased from the previous day and you can see there are a lot of red numbers here so this is just another piece of information another starting point so you know based on this my initial outlook for the day was bearish alright so now let's look at some set ups and we'll see that that really did not that played out very early in the morning but markets rallied it looks like a lot of markets rallied after the at the 10 am data report the consumer sentiment so let's take a look at set ups and I'm just going to go through I'm going to start with the best setup of the day which was the S&P 500 and then I'm just going to go through my watch list and one other thing let's take a look at is the watch list that I posted this morning and as I do every morning in bookmap discord and the options with Doug chatroom and this is my spot gamma hero watch list sorted from the weakest signal to the strongest signal and this is just showing how the current hero signal compares with the last and it's shown a little bit more clear below with Nvidia here showing how it compares with the last 30 days and that's the gray slider sliding scale here and the last five days and that's shown by the colored portion so Moderna this morning at the time that I posted this which was about 9.55 am eastern time shows that the hero signal for Moderna was the weakest that it has been in the last five days and the last 30 days with that let's go through some setup so the first one and I thought the best setup of the day was this S&P 500 here and let's take a look at spot gamma hero let's go back so I've I've got my list sorted just in alphabetical order here and one thing to note this morning the signal for both ES and spy were on the bottom of the list and again I sorted the list from weak to strong so ES and spy had the strongest signal and this is a a classic hero kickoff setup and what I mean by that is notice the divergence here and the hero signal that's the purple line this is the new interface and I hope everybody can see this clearly the purple line starts to make higher highs while the S&P 500 makes is making lower lows here before reversing higher so the way that I handle this once I see this divergence I go to book map and I have two screens open so I'll have this view of hero open on one screen and I'll look at ES in book map on my other screen and see this divergence and I look for a level that could support a reversal look for a support level in this case with price falling and that again was that 3800 level and let's just take a look and see I'm going to break the signal into puts and calls and we can see that traders were taking advantage of the drop in price to sell puts and that's shown by this rising blue line so as price was falling towards 3800 traders were selling puts and price eventually responded and reversed higher at the 3800 level alright let's go take a look at book map again and let me check for questions on YouTube okay no questions on YouTube so I will continue on here and let's just zoom in on this so this shows there were multiple tests of the 3800 level first test, second test third test right before the 10am data and then this final test right here and then aggressive traders step in so this was the entry point so I would typically wait until after the 10am data before taking a trade so this price jumped higher right after the data report, reverse lower at the spy 380 put wall tested the 3800 SPX 3800 level one more time and then this is the test entry here at the break of this trend line and the reverse higher as aggressive traders step in and start to move price higher and there are multiple targets above really centered around this call wall erase that, have the rectangle so another pullback trend break entry up to the volatility trigger and the call wall and then price overshot a bit okay now let's scroll a little bit oops sorry about that so that was the the long setup, the bullish setup this morning clearly shown and actually I meant to show also so the hero kickoff starts with the traders taking positive delta positions and then notice the other traders coming in shown by these rising lines in the sub charts so the blue line is showing that traders were large traders were buying with iceberg orders, there were some by stops triggered and that's shown by the yellow line and then aggressive traders are shown by this pink line here that shifts from pink to dark blue and those are all shown here alright let's go back to spot gamma hero now and notice how the as price hits those levels above those targets the call wall volatility trigger traders take advantage of the high prices and they start selling calls and this is pretty typical behavior in the S&P 500 is that traders will fade highs and lows with options so as price initially they were selling puts and then as price gets to a certain level that activity slows and then they start most likely buying back their puts and start selling calls and this is again very typical behavior in the S&P 500 and the great thing about it is it can provide a great leading indicator for price action in the S&P 500 alright let's take a look now at spy ES and the reason for that is that options trades in spy are a key driver of price action in ES traders take options positions in spy and market makers hedge those with ES with futures so very similar setup here let's zoom in again pretty much the same thing that was shown in ES options trading leading price this morning and that doesn't happen every day with the S&P 500 but when it does it provides great signals alright let's just go take a look at spy in book map so here's the here's the reversal higher this morning right here just after the 10 AM data so above this 378 C1 level that's a combo level and C1 indicates that is the most significant of the combo levels they're ranked from 1 to 4 so a C1 would be the most significant combo level and that is combining spy and SPX absolute gamma levels as usual the spy round number levels are in play often very significant levels for price to react so as I pointed out before with S&P 500 there are a number of ways to trade that you can trade futures spy shares spy options SPX options your choice okay the next setup was Apple let me just check for questions on YouTube again okay no questions on YouTube okay so the next setup was Apple and notice the levels the gamma levels as well as liquidity and book map were in play but primarily at the time it was just the spot gamma levels and that is the 130 put wall which as we've seen with the ES SPX that level typically acts as support and it did in Apple as well today that's the 130 level and then the other level in play was this 132 hedge wall so let's go take a look now at spot game of hero actually I'm going to zoom in on this a bit and you can see the shift in order flow here notice all the green dots coming in before price increases and those are buy minus sell market orders and green indicates that buy orders are greater than sell orders alright so let's go take a look now at spot game of hero for Apple and I thought this was a nice divergent setup this morning zoom in a bit so notice this vertical purple line that's the total line and that is showing a big block order and we can separate outputs and calls and see that there was a large block order for calls so some large institution bought a number of calls that's shown here whoops and then traders continue to buy calls and price reverses after the 10am data and makes a final test of the put wall level before rising higher up to the 132 hedge wall level so again the way I would treat this I see this large block order for calls look at book map and see the 130 put wall level and expect that to support and just wait for order flow and book map to confirm the long entry and that is a typical or classic divergent setup using hero and the next setup was google and I saw what looked like another divergent setup here with this block order coming in there's the block order hero makes a higher high and then price reverses higher after the 10am data let's go take a look at book map google and there were no gamma levels in play on this reversal higher but there was a tiny key gamma strike as a target was in play I'm just going to I just want to see if this kind of highlight this purple line that's the lower edge of the expected move and it's kind of obscured it's right there at 88 and price reverses at right above this level right after the 10am data as there was traders were taking positive delta options positions and a natural price target at the 90 key gamma strike and which is also a level of high liquidity so this is an instance where all the levels that I look at line up in one key level so it's a big ground number 90 liquidity shown by the heat map in book map shows the resting cell orders and those orders attract price and then finally that is also the key gamma strike for google the level with the highest absolute gamma let's go back to spot gaming hero now well we've seen enough of that let's go to the next one and that's Moderna and if you recall that was at the that was at the top of the list of the hero signal list that I pointed this morning ranked from weakest to strongest so it was Moderna, NVIDIA and Tesla and that let's zoom in on this early morning section and this was definitely bearish showing the drop you know just look at all the pink dots there so a lot of aggressive sellers these and there were liquidity targets primarily primary target at the 200 key delta strike and then the next liquidity target down at 197 and let's go take a look at that I keep forgetting to turn that off let's go take a look at hero now and notice the hero signal is still weak you know that's shown price or hero is just not not rising and the signal is still weak which is the pretty much the opposite that it has been in the last few days Moderna has been in the news and again here's the the weak signal for Moderna let's zoom in and this will show that calls were driving price action and traders were selling calls and most likely this is the calls that they have been buying during the week so this morning calls definitely driving price action traders are selling calls market makers buying calls and they have to sell stock to hedge their delta exposure so if you were fast you could have caught a pretty nice drop here in Moderna and let's go to the next stock on the list now again I'm not going in the order of the list that I posted I'm going in an alphabetical order picking out what I thought were the best setups of the morning break this out into puts and calls and I thought there was a bullish put divergence this morning look at traders selling puts and you could have interpreted this either way with traders selling calls but it looked like to me this put signal was stronger so let's go take a look at order fluent book map now and pretty choppy action in Netflix today anyway there's the bullish setup in Netflix and the next setup Nvidia and that was the next stock on the list this morning ranked from weakest to strongest and that really did not unless you were very fast did not necessarily play out quick drop at this trend line and then aggressive sellers come in and drop it right down to the 149 liquidity level pause it looks like they pause briefly at the 150 put wall and that high liquidity there and let's go take a look at hero now Nvidia so there's strong correlation this morning or yeah especially in the morning up until about 11 o'clock or so strong correlation between options trades and price action and a little bit of divergence here so that's Nvidia and again ES was the best setup of the day QQQ let me just check for questions on YouTube and David asks are you able to get spy levels in cloud notes and the answer is no not at this time that is on my spot gamma I'm a wish list for next year and I will send that email to spy gamma shortly so I hope they do that that would save me a ton of time having to enter all those levels in my spreadsheet every day for all the stocks that I have in book map and David asks why did the puts not follow when selling calls and vice versa is happening there I guess two separate instruments and you know the different traders may prefer to sell calls or buy calls and or buy put sell calls and vice versa so there in some stocks not necessarily so QQQ and I thought let's zoom in on that so I thought there was a call divergence this morning and that's shown right here and again price checks whatever support level three or four times and reverses higher shortly after the 10 a.m. data as traders were buying calls all that time and let's go take a look at book map now go to QQQ and anybody else who you know who's interested send that request to spot gamma as well I would love to see cloud notes for stocks and I'm going to suggest this as a starting point the third ninety hero stocks and I as a minimum yeah QQQ and spy definitely I would love to see spot gamma cloud notes for those you know it takes me a fair amount of time to mark those levels in my spreadsheet and get them up on this on these cloud notes every day and here is the reversal higher QQQ and in this case it is at a C1 level a combo level in this case of QQQ and NDEX so it's going to be primarily QQQ at the 264 level and that is a C1 level and that's shown here and there's the final test the reversal higher a few minutes after the 10 a.m. data and the move higher to eventually to 268 and let's just go take a look at hero again I'm going to break this up into puts and calls again so it looks like what happens at that 268 level is traders stop buying calls and they start buying puts so this activity levels off and they start buying puts and then they're selling their calls and finally let's take a look at Tesla and as usual there's a very strong correlation between price action and options trades as traders trade options in Tesla market makers typically hedge those trades immediately and what I'm looking at here there's a very strong correlation between between puts traders buying and selling puts and price action but you could interpret this as somewhat of a leading indicator with the calls traders are buying calls and here they're buying calls and selling puts and Tesla reverses and let's take a look at book map look at the order of flow in book map look at Tesla so there's the setup in Tesla and it looks like it takes Tesla a little bit longer to get going it makes a series of slightly higher lows and then finally reverses higher about 10-15 about 15 minutes after the consumer sentiment report and then blast higher as aggressive traders come in and start to move price higher and it looks like there are no spot gamma levels that were in play today but options trades were definitely driving price action and let's just go take a look at hero one more time go back to the total signal and again as usual with Tesla there's a very strong correlation between options trades and price action and let me check let's see in book map discord there's a question do I get the hero watch list weakest to strongest data pre-market and no so hero is based on options trades and equity options don't start trading until 9.30 a.m. so that's why I wait until typically somewhere between 9.45 and 10 a.m. to post it and so you've got to I wait a few minutes after the open when traders start trading options before posting the watch list let me check YouTube for questions and no more questions there okay at this point I'm going to wrap it up so again the best setup today by far the easiest to interpret the best leading indicator the leading signal was in the S&P 500 and primarily looking at the ES chart that 3,800 level that was expected to act as support and has acted as support earlier in the week acted as support today and traders were taking bullish options trades as price moved down to that level and that was just a very clear setup and that was the best setup of the day so with that I'm going to wrap it up I want to thank everyone all you die hearts here on Friday afternoon before Christmas weekend for watching for your questions and comments everybody have a great holiday Merry Christmas and I will be here next week starting on Tuesday so thanks again for attending and watching and thanks for your questions and comments and I will see you next week thanks again bye


All right, the markets await the start of second quarter earnings season. Let's talk about it now with John Manley, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Funds. John, good to see you back here. Great to meet you here. All right, so second quarter earnings are expected to grow six and a half percent in year over year. Do you think we'll actually exceed that forecast? We usually do. I think the corporations like to keep it modest and hope they can beat it. I still see no reason why they shouldn't. I think it's still a good environment for earnings. I think they're still going up. But still, this is the catalyst that we need to move us to the next level, the markets, and breach some key levels in the S&P 500. All about earnings. The Fed is going to be accommodated, but only mildly. So the valuations aren't cheap anymore. They're kind of expensive. It's going to be driven by earnings where it's not going to be driven at all. And lately in the markets, we've been seeing a rotation out of tech stocks and into financials. Do you expect that trend to continue in the second half? I kind of like them both, but I got to say I like financials more. I think there's more on the come. The as rates go up, the short rates go up. It gives the financial corporations a little more wiggle room to price then says they should be priced. That helps. Tech is expensive. There's no question about it. I think there's still good stories, but I'd like to buy them at better prices. In terms of financials, is it mostly just a yield curve play or does policy deregulation, does that play into it a little bit as well? Well, remember, I work for banks. I'm a little bit prejudiced. I think it's a little bit of both. I think the better yield curve, better economy helps. You'll probably have lower loss ratios. And I think a less adversarial regulatory environment will probably help as well. And is there anything specific you'll be watching for in the big bank earnings that we will get at the end of this week? If you're clean, then they're better. That's what I'm looking for. And the C-card didn't do that for you? No, unfortunately. In terms of other sectors you're looking at for the second half in terms of opportunities? I like healthcare. I still think healthcare is a great collision of new products and old people. And it's more people like me move into their 60s and 70s. They're going to need more help and corporations can provide it. Now, how does it get paid for? I think one of the reasons the Republicans and the Democrats are having so much, so many problems with trying to get healthcare legislation is somebody's got to pay because it can't go unpaid. And I think it's going to be for my generation now, what education was for my generation 30 years ago, a government push of money into that system one way or the other. But now we're seeing some senators and many analysts saying that the current version of the healthcare bill is dead. That's obviously... What does that mean for healthcare stocks? That means we'll find another thing. We'll find some other way of doing it. As instead, the demand for healthcare is there. People will pay for it. And staying alive is very high on most people's list of things to do. So they'll pay for themselves. And I think what happens is America is basically funding the rest of the world for R&D as far as healthcare is concerned. I think we keep doing that. I think the government probably steps up a little bit. But timing that is all but impossible. All right, John Manley from Wells Fargo Funds. Thanks for coming back with us.