Near the center of modern day Fort Bliss, Texas, stands a small frontier army post, a recreation of the fort as it was over 100 years ago. During those years, Fort Bliss has been the home of the infantrymen, the horse cavalrymen, the anti-aircraft artillerymen, and today the air defense missile man, the simple army outpost of 100 years ago, and the imposing facilities of modern Fort Bliss would seem to have little in common. Yet through the decades, the army's basic mission in the Fort Bliss area has remained the same, defense of the United States. The army's role in this Southwest area began during the Mexican War, when Colonel Alexander Donovan led troops into the Paso del Norte, or Pass of the North. Not long afterwards, with expanding national boundaries, soldiers surveyed the first wagon road from San Antonio to what is now El Paso. Then came the wagon trains pushing westward. They had to be protected, as did lonely frontier settlements. Protection was also needed by those solitary wanderers of the West, the trappers and prospectors, as well as the isolated cattlemen. The lone stagecoach constantly faced Indian attack. Yes, for the army, the years on the frontier before the Civil War were active ones indeed. When the Civil War began, Fort Bliss was occupied by the Confederacy. Later in the 1870s, no troops were assigned to the border area, and the lawless element terrorized the settlers. In 1878, the troops returned to restore order. In 1914, Brigadier General John J. Pershing assumed command to Fort Bliss. Pancho Villa, the Mexican Revolutionary, posed a threat to border communities. To maintain peace, more troops were needed. So state militia was called to duty, and by 1916, some 60,000 troops were at Fort Bliss. Later that year, with permission of the Mexican government, Pershing led the punitive expedition into Mexico. This expedition marked the first occasion that American troops used aircraft, a development that would mean much to Fort Bliss in the future. Came World War I, and the fort was garrisoned by the 15th cavalry. Men were trained here for the front lines in France. Many outstanding leaders in World War I saw duty at Fort Bliss. In the period between the two great wars, the famed first cavalry was stationed here. In 1940, on the eve of World War II, a new branch of the service was brought to Fort Bliss, the anti-aircraft artillery. Gun crews trained here served throughout the world. In 1945, when captured V-2 missiles were brought to this country, a brand new kind of unit was activated at Fort Bliss. The first anti-aircraft and guided missile battalion organized specifically for missile research and development. As early as 1944, the first American air defense missile had been conceived by Fort Bliss anti-aircraft artillery officers. Nine years later in 1953, an extensive development effort paid off when the Nike Ajax Air Defense Missile was placed in the hands of the troops. The Army Air Defense artillery had entered the missile age. But why missiles? Here's why. With the speed of modern aircraft, conventional artillery, even using radar and computers, must be aimed at intercept points over five miles ahead of the oncoming target, too long a distance to be practical. Besides, evasive action by the target would make a hit next to impossible since the projectile cannot maneuver. Guided missiles were the only answer. In a few years, Fort Bliss assumed its modern role as home of the U.S. Army Air Defense Center. Here, the Air Defense School teaches today's missilemen all the complex skills needed to defend either the 50 states or our field armies against air attack. Advanced individual training for troops assigned to the air defense artillery is also provided. Among auxiliary and tenant organizations are the U.S. Army Combat Development's Command Air Defense Agency, the U.S. Army Air Defense Board, the Army Air Defense Human Research Unit, the Combat Development Command's Institute of Nuclear Studies, the Defense Language Institute, the Allied Student Battalion, the Federal Republic of Germany's Air Defense School, and several artillery groups who support training in the operation of air defense weapons. Now let's take a look at how the Air Defense Center fits into the big picture. First, protection of the North American continent against air attack is the mission of the North American Air Defense Command, a combined Canadian American command controlling land, sea, and air forces from a combat operation center under Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Army's role in this joint operation is carried out by the U.S. Army Air Defense Command. Specifically, the Army's job is to defend the skies over more than 100 key population and industrial centers of the United States. To do this, the Mobile Hawk, primarily a field weapon for defense against low-flying aircraft, can be made available to protect any location in the United States proper when necessary. Permanently on guard stands the reliable Nike Hercules, ready to defend against high-altitude threats. This is how a Nike site would operate should an enemy threaten our country. Upon detection by the North American Air Defense Command's warning system, the enemy's number and location, direction of flight, and speed of travel are flashed to headquarters. Instantly, this information is passed on through division direction centers to Army, Navy, and Air Force Air Defense Commands. Assume that this Nike Hercules site is in the flight path of the enemy aircraft. Alerted to the enemy's approach, the Nike Hercules search radar detects the intruders and determines their location. Target tracking radar is assigned to track the enemy and feed position information into a computer. The particular missile selected to fire is guided toward the target by a missile tracking radar which sends steering orders to the supersonic missile. The computer produces the steering orders by continuously comparing target and missile positions. Search radar continues to scan the sky for enemy targets. Additional missiles are ready to fire immediately. To meet the second big challenge to Army Air Defense Forces, protection of the field army, Army Air Defense weapons will be deployed as represented on this painting. Of course, distances will be greater. Automatic artillery weapons will be placed well to the front of the battle area. They will defend air corridors where radar cannot reach due to such terrain features as narrow valleys. Farther back, hawk units will wait for unfriendly aircraft. Still farther back, the Nike Hercules will be ready to attack any intruder getting past the forward defenses. Though our largely automatic air defense system is truly a technical marvel, highly trained men are vital to its maintenance and operation. Training these men is the job of the Center's U.S. Army Air Defense School. The students, most of whom are volunteers, are carefully selected by means of aptitude and intelligence tests. The jobs these men are being trained for require a high degree of technical competence. The school conducts over 60 courses at once, ranging from a few days to more than a full year. The specialties taught are many. For instance, electronics has applied to complex radar, missile guidance, and computer systems are a major field of study. Military tactics and leadership are also of paramount interest. Graduates of the school join the ranks as line and staff air defense officers, electronic warfare specialists, hawk and Nike Hercules missile technicians, automatic weapons specialists, and fire distribution system operators and maintenance technicians. It is obvious that the control and coordination of widely separated air defense weapons demand reliable communication systems. To teach maintenance and operation of such systems is a major mission of the Air Defense School. Here, students watch a diorama demonstrating operations of the ANG-5 or BIRTI fire distribution system. An acronym for battery integration and radar display equipment coordinates operations of missile fire units by conducting a continuous high speed exchange of tactical information among all fire units and higher air defense commands. This information includes position and identity of all aircraft within the defense area, the status of each fire unit, and commands, such as assignment of specific targets to specific fire units. To see how BIRTI maintains effective control of a tactical situation, let's assume that an intruding aircraft has been detected by the radar net of the North American Air Defense Command NORAD. Information on the hostile aircraft's position and identity is flashed to BIRTI. This information along with that supplied by local surveillance radar is displayed on BIRTI consoles in the form of symbols. The console operator monitors the progress of the enemy aircraft and corrects or updates the data as necessary. All target information displayed on the BIRTI console is also displayed at each fire unit. Thus, each fire unit commander has an accurate picture of the overall air situation. The BIRTI console operator decides which fire unit is best situated to engage a hostile aircraft and assigns the target to that fire unit. At this time, the battery commander of the fire unit starts tracking the target by radar in preparation for firing a missile. Now that the enemy aircraft has been destroyed, the fire unit transmits a message to BIRTI indicating that it is ready to engage additional targets. Also, the kill information is relayed by BIRTI to hire a command and the tracking information on the destroyed aircraft is cleared from the system. Now let's visit a class engaged in study of actual hardware. Gentlemen, this is the general purpose console for the missile mentor fire distribution system. This console automatically exchanges data with all other elements within the area to be defended. Information displayed gives the Army Air Defense Commander an instant picture of the air battle. As the battle takes place by watching the console, he can immediately determine such things as the number of enemy aircraft present or when a kill has been made. Which firing unit should fire its missiles and the time of firing? So began a class of future fire distribution system maintenance men. But a fire distribution system includes many items besides the consoles. For instance, classes are held on radar data processing equipment, memory storing units, several types of surveillance radar, computing equipment, and automatic data transmission systems. Another major part of the Air Defense School is the low altitude Air Defense Department. Here, a new class get their first lesson in maintenance of the twin 40 millimeter self-propelled gun. This lightly armored automatic artillery weapon was designed for air defense at the division level. But because of its rapid rate of fire, it has proved itself a valuable support weapon against ground targets. You men are about to receive training in the operation of a weapon made famous as the Quad 50 in World War Two. As you can see, four caliber 50 machine guns are supported by a power driven mount. Now, everybody take your stations and we will run through a dry run to familiarize you with this weapon. This is the red eye. It is a man transportable, shoulder fired, air defense missile. It will be used to protect frontline troops against such targets as jets, helicopters, and reconnaissance. This is the Vulcan, an automatic 20 millimeter gun with an extremely high rate of fire. It can be used against both aerial and ground targets. This linkless feed system stores 1200 rounds in ready to fire condition. Against aircraft, 3,000 rounds are fired per minute. Against ground targets, the Vulcan is set for 1,000 rounds per minute. When deployed in the field, the Vulcan will be used in conjunction with the Chaparral system. The Chaparral system uses an infrared guidance system to defend the forward battle area against low flying aircraft. The system is fully mobile, has a top speed of 40 miles per hour, and can cruise for about 300 miles. The Air Defense School devotes a large part of its effort to training officers and men in the operation and maintenance of the Hawk missile system. The Hawk, designed for defense against sneak attack by low flying aircraft, works like this. Two acquisition radars, one for higher altitude and one for extreme low level search, detect the intruder, a jet-drawn aircraft. In the battery control's central van, the tactical control officer watches the radar display of targets speed and direction. At the proper time, he finds the target to a Hawk fire unit. The illuminator radar, facing in the direction from which the threat is approaching, searches a small area of sky. Now its beam finds the target, locks on, and automatically tracks. Next, a specific launcher is selected, slave to the radar, and the firing button pushed. The missile is guided by signals directly from the illuminator radar and homes on signals reflected from the target. The Hawk missile has proved so reliable and accurate that it has been adopted as a primary air defense weapon by the Marine Corps and several NATO nations whose maintenance and operational personnel are trained at Fort Bliss. But successful as the Hawk has proved to be, improvements are being made to enable the system to meet battlefield requirements with even more effectiveness. Another major part of the air defense school is the high altitude missile department. Here an officer's class is instructed on operation of the Nike Hercules guided missile system. Nike Hercules is a long range weapon capable of destroying an entire formation of hostile aircraft. It is reliable and extremely accurate, having hit targets traveling at supersonic speeds at distances greater than 75 miles and at altitudes up to 150,000 feet. As you can now see, we have our target presented on our scopes. Now it is the job of our operators to go and place this target into a track condition. He will do this by... Some of these officer students may attend the school's guided missile systems officer course to study science and engineering fields relating to missilery and space technology. The purpose is to train staff officers capable of analyzing past, present and future scientific developments as they relate to concepts of modern warfare. Officers with such training are essential to effective development and use of highly complex missile systems. The Nike Hercules was originally designed for installation at permanent sites, but to provide a high altitude defense for our Army in the field, the system was made mobile. For a brief look to the future, the Spartan missile is being developed to defend our strategic retaliatory forces, such as intercontinental ballistic missile sites against enemy warheads. This is Sprint, Spartan's smaller partner. Sprint and Spartan are the two missiles of the Army's safeguard ballistic missile defense system. To assure that enough highly trained technicians will be ready to man the complex system, the safeguard simple training facility has been set up at the air defense school. Another air defense system currently under development is the SAM-D, designed for both battlefield and continental deployment against low, medium and high altitude aircraft and short range missiles. The SAM-D missile is expected to replace eventually the Nike Hercules and a portion of the Hawke systems both at home and overseas. To be fully trained, the military missile man must actually fire his weapon. For this purpose, the Air Defense Center operates McGregor Range, the largest air defense missile training range in the free world. Here the Army Training Center gives advanced individual training in firing the various air defense weapons against a variety of targets. For instance, the Twin Forties are put through their paces. Here the Quad 50s go into action. As an instructor looks on, Red Eye, one man defense system goes against an aerial target. The Army's over-reliable gaffling gun has been reincarnated so to speak by a modern weapon, the Vulcan. A companion weapon to the Vulcan seeks a flying target. The fast-moving drone is greatly slowed by the camera. Since 1960, the range has supported annual practice, as well as advanced training firings of air defense missiles by U.S. and NATO units from throughout the free world. The Hawke search radars look for the target, but there's no target in the sky. Instead, the equipment in this radar signal simulator station supplies the target electronically. The signals generated here cause the radar displays by Hawke firing unit personnel to appear exactly as they would in actual aircraft either hostile or friendly were in the area. The simulator is not nearly as costly as actual targets would be and provides training that would be difficult to give otherwise. Now signals simulating approaching hostile aircraft are beamed to Battery Control Central. Inside, Battery Control personnel selected target and assign it to a specific launcher. The Hawke radars operate just as if actual aircraft were approaching. Hawke swoops toward its imaginary prey. Battery Control Central personnel watch for the simulated intercepts. As usual, the faithful Hawke scores what would be a direct hit. Here personnel from a missile site defending a faraway city prepare for their annual practice firing of the Nike Hercules. As with the Hawke, a radar signal simulation station provides targets electronically. The search radars receive the simulated signals and react as they would to a real threat. In the director station, the radar displays show an enemy to be approaching. Based on the predicted kill point provided by the computer, a missile is selected for firing. As with the Hawke, the score is kept electronically and operators are effectively trained at minimum cost. Thus the highlights of the Fort Bliss story, a story that ends with the traditional ceremony held in honor of the graduating air defense artillery man. These men are now ready to follow in the footsteps of the 200,000 graduates that have gone before. Whether they are called to serve in the frozen wastes of the Arctic, the barren stretches of the desert, or the devastating heat of the jungle, these men will maintain the perpetual vigilance demanded by our unsettled times, for they know that they will be able to carry out their mission. They will be led by our unsettled times, for they know that not only our national survival but the survival of human freedom itself may largely depend upon the skillful use of our arsenal of air defense weapons.


Good morning, welcome to CMC markets on Friday, the 4th March and this quick look at the week ahead beginning the 7th of March with me, Michael Houston and markets have taken another turn for the worse today as I record this video reports that one of Ukraine's nuclear power stations at I think that's how you pronounce it, they caught fire after being shelled by Russian forces now pointing to one side that it takes a special kind of stupid to start firing on a nuclear power station. Obviously markets haven't reacted well to that it's doubly incomprehensible I think and reckless given Russia's experience with Chernobyl in the north of the country and any potential impacts on Russia itself as well as Europe from any potential accident. So, nonetheless, European markets are lower quite significantly. It's been a difficult week around. We've seen big declines in the dex the dex is at a one year low. Obviously, because they're at the ground zero when it comes to the implementation of sanctions, sanctioning of Russian banks sanctioning of Russian individuals, the wholesale withdrawal of an awful lot of global brands from Russia is absolutely tanking the Russian economy the Russian ruble has fallen quite sharply. The Russian stock market has been closed, pretty much since the sanctions were announced and is likely to be closed for all of next week as well as simply to keep the tide of selling of Russian assets at bay. But nonetheless, we're also seeing massive moves in bond markets as well. That's no better illustrated by no better illustrated by the movements in UK Guilts that we've seen this year the 10 year yield where earlier this week we saw a decline on the first of March of 30 basis points in a day as bond markets or bond investors started to potentially price out the risk that the central banks will start to hike quite significantly. Personally, I think that's slightly misguided. I think central banks have got a very, very difficult task. We're seeing commodity prices blow out across the board, whether it be industrial metals, aluminium's at record highs, wheat prices are back at levels last seen in 2008, corn prices are back at levels last seen over 10 years ago, we're seeing spikes in rough price prices, soybean prices, at some point central banks will have to react to that, even if by reacting to it, there's actually nothing they can do about it. The dollar has moved higher this week. It's not the best performing currency this week. That's been the Australian dollar, largely I think as a consequence of its exposure to the commodity space. We've also seen decent gains from the New Zealand dollar as well on expectation that we could well see rate hikes, further rate hikes there. So at the moment markets are being very event risk driven. We've got non-farm payrolls, the US non-farm payrolls report later today. I really don't think that that's probably going to have too much of an effect on markets. Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell has already said this week that he will be looking to raise rates when the Fed meets in just under two weeks time by 25 basis points. He said that he's in favour of a 25 basis point rate hike. Now there are some on the committee who might be in favour of going slightly bigger than that. The bigger question is, does he really want to strengthen the dollar any more than it already is? And that's going to create other problems for countries, regions like Europe where we've seen the euro come under further pressure. It's now trading just above 110. And the effects that a weaker euro or weaker currencies will have on inflation pressures more broadly, particularly here in the UK where a weaker pound imports inflation. Having said that on the plus side, one thing that we have seen this week is the pound rise to its highest level against the euro since before the Brexit referendum. But at the moment it's pretty much risk off today. The FTSE 100 has broken through that 7200 level that I was talking about last week and the trend line from the lows that we saw back in 2021, early 2021. If I calculate the potential pullback on that break, then we're potentially looking at 6850, 6845, 6850. That's just on a minimum retracement move based on just the measured move basis and the break of those, that key support level there and the 200 day moving average. We've broken a number of key support levels on the FTSE this week, today in particular, and that would suggest that we're probably going to get at least a retest of 6970 over the course of the next few hours, days, weeks. But on a technical basis, this is not good for the FTSE 100. It does suggest that we're probably going to see a retest of this series of lows, all the way through here. So anywhere between 6850 and 6800. And while that's nowhere near as bad as what we're seeing in the DAX, nonetheless, some of the technical breakouts that we've been seeing in the DAX would appear to suggest that we're probably lining up for further losses here as well. If you look at the minimum retracement that I've drawn in on DAX from the lows back in 2020, 7,960, the move all the way up to the record highs earlier this year, we're already within touching distance of a 38.2 retracement of that entire move, which suggests that we're probably going to get a retest of 13,100 in the not too distant future, and potentially even a move back to 12,130, unless we can break back above for 14,000 in fairly short order. And given the progress of the war is currently taking place in Ukraine and the fact that President Putin is reportedly repositioning some of his troops from eastern Russia to the Ukrainian frontline, that would suggest to me that things aren't going well. And that things are likely to get an awful lot worse. And as a consequence of that, you're going to see a lot of economic damage over the course of the next few weeks. And it's not immediately clear what central banks will be able to do to mitigate that because they've got supply supply shocks on the one hand, and inflation shocks on the other. Anything that they do with respect to these supply shocks by raising interest rates to either support currencies or what have you will not be positive for the global economy. But at some point, they're going to have to at least to be seen to be doing something while inflation runs rampant because we're getting hit from all sides now natural gas prices. In Europe, the record highs this week Brent crude's gone through $120 a barrel we have very briefly, but could well go higher natural gas is obviously at record levels in Europe as well. The only good thing about that is we are starting to come into the spring and summer months where demand could well tell off but that's not going to change the prospect that food in the shops is likely to get much more expensive, particularly when you consider that Ukraine and Russia and the Black Sea ports export 20% of the world's grain supplies. And if that's a war zone, you're not going to be growing much grain. I've written a little bit of a piece on searching oil and wheat prices on the website. You can find it on this page here in the news and analysis section of the website. Right. Right. Yeah. So as we look ahead to next week, having tried to dissect some of what the major markets are doing. The main thing to keep an eye out for is the European Central Bank. Before I get to that, let's quickly look at the S&P. Again, we've got this downtrend line here. It's still intact. Most markets have held up slightly better than European markets this week and it's not really surprising given the geopolitical factors that play. Obviously, Europe is right on the front line. The US isn't. Therefore, I think there's probably an element of a little bit of money flowing back into the US and out of Europe, helping to support US stocks relative to the European counterparts. And here, the big level on the upside, 4,400. This trend line down here. We still remain very much in a downtrend when it comes to US stocks. And you can certainly see that played out when it comes to the NASDAQ here. We're again, we were unable to make it through this series of peaks through here and the trend line through here. We're still above the January lows, but if we break below those January lows, then we could will see further losses for US stocks back towards the levels that we saw around about this time last year. You'll have to forgive me. My voice is giving out haven't been well this week, which is why I haven't been posting or tweeting anywhere near as much. Quickly have a look at Brent crude before I move on to next week. This is the key level that I'm looking at on Brent crude. It's these twin peaks in 2011 and 2012 of around about $125, $26 a barrel. This gives you an indication of the inflation shock that's coming that's coming our way. If you look at EU CPI, it's at a record high of 5.8%. Obviously inflation in the Baltic States is even higher. And this year alone, we've already jumped from $80 a barrel up to $120 a barrel. So it's almost 50% rise in Brent crude prices and even bigger percentage rise in natural gas prices and wheat prices are up 47, 48% this year to date as well. And none of this, none of that what I've just outlined is currently priced in to the inflation numbers that are coming out now. And European PPI is around about 30% with monthly PPI early this week coming out 5% on a single month. So I think, you know, that that paints a really bleak picture when it comes to commodity prices and their effects and the likely effects that we're likely to see over the coming months. The Bank of England already has an inflation target of 7.2 thinks that will peak out 7.25% in April, given the events of the past few days, I find that highly unlikely. I think we could well go as high as 10%. And what does the Bank of England do in that that sort of instance? Does it continue to push rates up? It may well have to. But again, you know, what can central banks do against this sort of inflation shock? The answer is not that much, particularly with interest rates at current levels. So that brings us on to the ECB. If its position wasn't difficult enough already, it's already become that much more difficult. But one thing I would say is that it's still running its asset purchase program. The PEP program is due to end this month. That will probably end, but they will probably need to look at extending and increasing the asset purchase program to compensate. We've already had Austrian ECB governing council member Robert Holtzman growing back slightly on his earlier call for a rate hike towards the end of the summer due to events in Ukraine. I have a feeling that rate hike may or may not get road back even further. But again, the ECB is facing a similar problem to every other central bank out there. What can you do? And they have the added complication of borrowing costs in countries like Italy and Spain, Italy in particular, which relies pretty much exclusively on Russian guests to power its economy. So there's some really dark clouds blowing in for the European economy and that's being borne out by this euro dollar chart here. We're back at levels last seen back in May 2020 with the likelihood that we could go much lower. If we break below 110, 109.80, then I'm looking for a potential retest of this series of lows through here, which is around about 107.80, 107.60. And the fact that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise rates in March. But also the US economy is much stronger than its European counterparts. So they have scope to move rates higher. And ultimately the Federal Reserve will only do what it thinks is good for the US economy. We won't care that much about the rest of the world. We saw that at the beginning of the 2010s when its massive easing program caused a big spike in commodity prices. And again, the tightening policy could cause a series of unintended consequences there as well. So euro dollar, the prognosis looks pretty poor going forward. Similarly, euro sterling does look as if it's on a slow grind lot. So we've broken below the lows in 2019. If we take it out even further, we've also gone below the lows that we saw back here. And we're now back to the levels that we saw around about the time of the Brexit referendum 2016. So we could see a move back to 8150 if we continue to fall through because ultimately there's not really anything between here and here. You've got that peak there, which is around about 8120. And you've got that monthly low there, weekly low there rather, which is around about 8156. But anything below where we are currently at the moment, that's pretty much all there is. So euro sterling does look if it's going to continue to drift lower. And what does this mean for cable? Well, obviously cable is feeling the effects of the stronger dollar. But we're still above these lows through here. I still think it will probably drift back down here at the moment we're finding it very difficult to get back above 134 and a half. That in the short term is the key resistance for a move back towards this line here. So currently in the context of the overall trend, we're still very much in a downtrend, which makes me think we're probably going to come back and retest the lows at 131 60 over the course of the next few trading sessions. Okay, so let's talk about let's talk about the European Central Bank. Let's talk about German PPI. It's already at 25% is much higher in Spain and Italy. All of these are likely to go higher. Oil prices $100 a barrel and higher escalating tensions pressure on Germany to reduce its reliance or stop buying Russian oil and gas. The outlook, the outlook is not looking pretty. And I think it's even without events in Eastern Europe, a rate hike would have presented enormous challenges for the ECB current events make that prospect even more problematic than it would have been. So I can't see the ECB doing anything other than jawbone. And as I'm talking to you now, the FTSE 100 is continuing to ratchet its way lower. So that 6980 level could be there. We could be there before we even know it. What else are we looking at this week? Well, we've got US CPI. That's already at 7.5% 7 point and could well go to 7.8% when the numbers are released later this coming week on the 10th of March, same day as the ECB. With the last set of PPI, so we CPI numbers. Aside from use car and petrol prices, which have already risen 40% year today. We're also seeing double digit price rises in domestic gas meat dairy fish and fruit. Those are likely to going to continue to come through over the course of the next few days. So the wider question I think will be around how many more 25 basis points rate hikes will follow if they do go in March and Powell has suggested that they will. There's little expectation that the number of rate rises this year has been paired back. But I think it's highly unlikely that we'll need to see anywhere near the number of rate rises expected now given the strength of the US dollar. Certainly I think in the context of the wider scheme of things. It's quite likely that the CPI number that we're going to see later on the 10th of March is likely to be much, much closer to 8% than perhaps a lot of people would like, and it's probably likely to continue to go higher. Other items to keep an eye out for we've got UK monthly GDP. We've got UK industrial manufacturing production and industrial production. All of these numbers are expected to see a really decent, decent rebound in January, but given the current environment. I'm not sure it really matters that much. Yeah, the economy is fairly strong at the moment unemployment is still fairly low. And I think for that we should be thankful, but ultimately the cost of living squeeze is likely to make disposable income very difficult for people. And unless we get significant wage rises, and that data will come later this month for three months to January. We really do need to see some signs of an acceleration in wage growth and certainly that is still lagging well behind on the wages front. Okay, on the, on the, on the companies front, there's not really that much to tell we've got Rivian automotive, which has had an absolute shocker over the course of the past few months. Since December, the shares have fallen further down below their $78 IPO price.  That's million, not billion million up from $1 million last year. I mean, that's pretty pitiful for companies that's got a market cap of about $60 billion. All year losses expected to be $3.6 billion. Okay, $3.6 billion losses on revenues of $63.3 million. And they have a target of 1200 vehicles, although they have pre orders of around about $71,000 up from $55,400 in October. On the earnings front, we've got Belfort BT, construction company, UK construction company. So keep an eye out for them on the 10th. They're down 4% today. That's the Belfort BT chart, very much a range trade, I think fairly decent sport in and around 210. I'm getting absolutely clobber today. And we've also got Greg's sandwich maker as well. So let's just quickly let's have a quick look at gold for a side off completely tested the series of peaks through here, around about 1970. That's likely to continue to cap the upside in the short to medium term. But for the here and now, gold is probably likely to remain fairly well supported only dips down towards 1900 over the course of the next few days and weeks, and less of course, we get a ceasefire. But on, you know, on on current on the way things look at the moment that doesn't look a probable outcome but you never know. I think certainly equity markets would welcome a ceasefire but given given Putin's demeanor at the moment, that doesn't seem that doesn't seem that likely. And I've got to say, it's probably it's probably one of the most one of the most least likely outcomes at the moment. Otherwise, that's it for this week. Thank you very much for listening. We'll have a great weekend and hopefully speak to you all sometime same place. Next week. Thank you very much for listening.


Hello everyone. Welcome to Options with Doug. Streaming live daily on Bookmap Discord and the Bookmap YouTube channel at 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Before I get started, I need to go through the disclosures. General disclosure, all Bookmap limited materials, information, and presentations are for educational purposes only and should not be considered specific investment advice nor recommendations. Risk disclosure, trading futures, equities, and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. I have the focus of my presentation today is options, order flow, the impact of options markets on stocks and futures, and the influence of market maker hedging flow on price action. I have a two-step process for trading. In the first is planning and I look at positional analysis. I use positional analysis. I look at how traders and market makers are positioned in the options market and how those positions change from day to day to develop a thesis regarding the expected trading range and volatility for the day as well as a directional bias. And the second step of my process is execution. And I look at real-time order flow in Bookmap and real-time market maker hedging flow in Spot Gamma Hero to confirm my thesis and for setups for entries and exits. I think this is a new way of looking at the market that provides a significant edge. And on topic questions and comments are welcome and I will be watching the options-doug chat channel and discord and also the chat and YouTube. So again questions and comments are welcome. All right let's get started. What I want to cover today is first of all go over economic data and events for today and the rest of the week and then briefly touch on what's going on next week and then we'll go through our positional analysis and then we'll take a look at some setups and there were some great setups today. All right so first of all I think the key news for today was the ECB rate decision and they did go ahead with their forecast rate increase of 50 basis points. So previous was 2.5% and now it is 3% and I just saw something come over my news feed just a couple of minutes ago about they were afraid to do anything less than expected and fear of spooking the market. So you know for what for what that's worth and anyway this did not seem to have much impact on the market but it was something that I was was watching. All right then tomorrow of course is the monthly options expiration that is for the month of March and also for the quarter. Now there's also an end of month I guess maybe that's the true quarterly expiration but anyway March is a large expiration and remember for SPX there are two expirations. There's the AM settlement at the open and then the PM settlement for the weeklies at the close and then next week is the FOMC meeting and announcement at 2 p.m. on Wednesday and I believe also next week is Wednesday is a VIX expiration. All right let's take a look at our positional analysis and here is the S&P 500 futures ES and book map and before I dig into this chart I'm going to take a look at a larger time frame and we'll take take a look at SPX. So this is a 20-day one-hour chart for SPX. This is a thinkorswim chart and I'm showing just price and key levels here. These are spot gamma levels that are provided to spot gamma subscribers. They're updated in a thanks script you have to update that manually it takes a couple minutes. All right so the key levels that are in play for today are in I guess really in the in the range of possibilities but not really in play today is the put wall at 3800 and then here is the 3900 level that's not a that's an L2 level and that is also the key gamma strike. So the key gamma strike for SPX did drop from 4000 to 3900. Here's the 3950 level and that is the volatility trigger that spot gamma is proprietary gamma flip level. Market makers position below that level is negative and their gamma position above that level is positive. I'll talk more about that level in a few minutes and then there's the call wall at the 4065 strike and remember it dropped down yesterday and that is the also the the call collar strike the collar strike for the JP Morgan collar that expires on March 31st. So those are the key levels and that is a 20 day one hour chart showing primarily the rally that began yesterday with a test of the 3850 level and now SPX has gone above its upper edge of the expected move for the week and then also it's trading around 3950 the volatility trigger and that was also noted as a resistance level in the spot gamma AM founders note. All right so that is a 20 day one hour chart and then let's just zoom in a little bit closer. We'll take a look at another thinkorswim chart and this is a one day one minute chart again just showing SPX and price SPX price and levels. So here is the 3900 level that was noted as resistance also in the AM founders note and price passed right through that and now it seems to be finding more resistance at the 3950 volatility trigger level. So nice solid uptrend in SPX today as well as many other stocks. All right let's take a look at book map now in the levels that I was just showing are also shown on this book map chart and I have two columns of levels here. This is the spot gamma cloud notes provided to spot gamma subscribers and this is noting the key SPX levels. There's the 3950 volatility trigger and also resistance level and there's the 3900 level the key gamma strike. Excuse me and there's a comment in YouTube screen clarity required. Sorry I don't know what that means. You might if you're watching on YouTube you might need to adjust your quality settings. So go to go to your settings and you can change the quality there if it's fuzzy or not clear but at 720p you should be able to see the screen clearly. Okay so this is the SP500 again and the levels that were in play today were primarily in the morning session anyway the ES levels 3900 3950 and now the 4000 level is in reach and again also it looks like this SPX 3950 level is acting as resistance or somewhat it slowed down the S&P 500 anyway. All right I'm showing when I mention also I'm showing another column of levels. These are my cloud notes and I'm showing several different things here. First of all I'm showing the big round numbers for ES the zeros and the fifties and I'm also showing the same 3950 SPX 3950 and 3900 resistance levels. Spot gamma is using a 30 point difference between ES and SPX and I calculated it today at 32 points so I'm showing these levels just a little bit different just a little bit higher and that's where the white lines are at those levels. Okay so those are the levels in play and we'll talk about setups in a few minutes. Let's talk about shifts in levels now and for SPX I mentioned before the key gamma strike or the absolute gamma strike dropped from 4000 to 3900 and that is that's pretty significant. The 4000 level in SPX has been the absolute gamma strike for quite some time and we'll look at the gamma level charts in just a couple minutes and it'll become more clear what I'm talking about. So that's SPX that was the only change in level and then for SPI the put wall actually dropped down from 3390 to 380 so a drop in the put wall for SPI and then an increase in the call wall from 397 yesterday to 430 so that those are two levels that have been the the call wall levels for the last few days so call wall for SPI is back up to 430 and then for QQQ just a minor shift the volatility trigger moved up from 295 to 297. Okay so let's take a look at those gamma charts now and again this will provide more clarity on the levels so this is showing the absolute gamma levels this is for SPX and this chart is showing the market makers gamma at different strikes and this is the zero line and above this line this is showing positive gamma or call gamma and below that line negative gamma or put gamma shown with the teal bars so black bars are the positive gamma call gamma above teal bars are the negative gamma or put gamma below so recall for for weeks maybe months really the 4000 level has been the key gamma strike or the absolute gamma strike that is the strike with the largest absolute gamma and that can act as a magnet or support and resistance and now that has shifted down to 3900 so now the absolute gamma strike or key gamma strike is at 3900 and the put wall is down at 3800 that's the strike with the largest net negative gamma and that can be expected to act as support and then the call wall is right there at 4065 and that is otherwise not a very significant strike it's just by definition the call wall is the strike with the largest net positive gamma and that can be expected to act as resistance so note the call gamma or the gamma is pretty evenly distributed between 3900 and 4000 almost equal amounts of put gamma and call gamma and then there is a somewhat of a dominance of put gamma below the 3900 level all right that's spx let's take a look at spy so for spy 390 is the key gamma strike the absolute gamma strike and that was yesterday that was the put wall as well and now the put wall has dropped down to 380 again the strike with the largest net negative gamma and then the call wall is way up here at 430 so i would say below 400 let's say 392 well let's let me change that i'd say really the thing to notice here is the dominance of put gamma below the 390 level that's what stands out the most all right let's take a look at the combo charts and this shows the combined gamma for spx and spy levels combined into one number in terms of spx and here is the this is around the the volatility trigger the 3950 and put gamma below and some call gamma above and the volatility trigger is spot gamma's proprietary gamma flip level and below that level that indicates that market makers position on the gamma curve is negative that means that traders are long puts market makers are short puts and they have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure and this can work that can work the other way around if price increases and implied volatility drops then they can buy back their short futures and that is what has been going on today the put vendor rally all right so that is in terms of spx and that is uh well we'll leave it at that let's take a look at nasdaq so for nasdaq we look at qqq so here's qqq the key gamma strike at 300 again the largest absolute gamma and the put wall remains at 285 and then the call wall at 310 okay so those are the gamma levels let's take a look at the some data now the gamma notional is what i usually point out and this is showing market makers position on the gamma curve for spx in the left column spy in the middle column and qqq on the far right and this is indicating for all these indices the spx spy and qqq market makers position on the gamma curve is negative and again indicating that they will be trading in the direction of price to hedge their delta exposure and these levels the changes from yesterday uh were actually mixed so for spx the number became slightly less negative just very slightly yesterday the gamma notional was minus 706 and today it's minus 699 yesterday spy became more negative uh spy became more negative today from yesterday yesterday spy gamma notional was minus 2285 today it's minus 2440 so slightly more negative and then for qqq became less negative yesterday gamma notional for qqq was minus 401 today it's minus 276 so again this is market makers on the position on the gamma curve and this is uh it's quite negative uh for all these indices especially the spx and spy all right there's a question in discord all right so uh truman makes comments if market makers are let's talk about indices first so spot gamma assumes that traders are long puts and or short calls so that means that market makers are short puts and market makers are short puts and long calls so in a negative gamma environment they have a positive delta position and as price drops they have to hedge with price to hedge their delta exposure and in a positive gamma environment they are short call their long calls so that's positive delta and as price increases they have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure so they will be trading against price as as price increases and then if price drops they can buy back their short futures right so that's that's for an index all right i hope that answers your question if they are short puts or calls so generally spot gamma assumes that again market makers are short puts and long calls and the zero gamma level is just what it says the the zero gamma at level of zero gamma uh spot gamma price uh places more importance on the volatility trigger and that's actually the flip level okay let's move on so we've looked at the uh the gamma levels here let's take a look at the the vantam model which actually illustrates what I was just talking about and this is showing how market makers delta notional changes with changes in price and implied volatility and that's shown by the green curve which is showing again the market makers um how market makers delta notional changes with changes in price shown on the horizontal axis and implied volatility shown by the green curve and that is the vana effect the change in delta with a change in implied volatility and this is showing that as price decreases market makers delta notional increase and this is typical of a negative gamma environment and again they have to sell futures to hedge their delta exposure and it works the other way around as price increases their delta notional decreases and they can buy back their short futures so again in a negative gamma environment they're trading with price and let's take a look at spy there's the there's the vana model for spy and remember the gamma notional for spy is uh over three times the gamma notional for spx so this is steeper and then there's qqq and recall qqq has been pretty strong this week definitely um with the situation going on with with financial stocks regional bank stocks uh traders have piled in large cap tech stocks and that has helped to reduce the gamma notional for for qqq all right so that is the vana models and let's wrap up the positional analysis uh this is the this is my key gamma strike list and this is just a list of the stocks of my watch list and I track the key gamma strike from the previous day to the current day so the e column is showing the key gamma strike from yesterday and the current key gamma strike the d column is showing the key gamma strike for today and I compare the numbers and I color code them and green indicates that the number of the key gamma strike increased from the previous day and I take that as a bullish signal that means that traders are positioning themselves for higher prices right market makers are traders are positioning themselves and accepting higher prices and they're they're buying calls that are further out of the money increasing that key gamma strike so that's green indicating the increase from the previous day red indicating a decrease from the previous day all right there's another question from truman um all right so let's talk about indices again so in a negative gamma position that means that market makers are that's below the volatility trigger their position on the gamma curve is negative and that means that traders are long puts and market makers are short puts and then above the volatility trigger again we're talking about an index spot gamma assumes that traders are short calls and market makers are long calls and that's a positive gamma position and that's above the volatility trigger so right now at at least at the beginning of the day market makers position on the gamma curve was negative all right so that's our positional analysis and based on this uh i kind of had a mixed mixed thesis for today and first of all i was uh was bearish for the s and p 500 based on the drop in the put wall for spy and the key gamma strike for spx with a couple of caveats that depends on the boobed in vixx and the financials and then for tech stocks i was bullish just based on based on this yesterday the increase in the key gamma strike and all these stocks are uh uh tech stocks that's that's what i trade and a lot of the most of these are the large cap tech stocks apple amazon uh google microsoft and then notice today the increase uh in the key gamma strike for these stocks that did not did not increase yesterday so this is this is bullish again traders are um looking for and accepting higher prices as they uh as they buy calls and position themselves all right so let's take a look at the uh s and p 500 we'll start with our setups now let's go back to spot gamma and this is the the s and p 500 combined signal and notice now they have um spot gamma has made a change to this uh previously this symbol was the s and p 500 s spx plus spy that's how you found this and now they're calling it the s and p 500 and it's a combined signal of spx spy and xsp and the way you can find this if you don't have it on your watch list is just come up here into the search bar and just type s and you can find it that way so there it is the s and p 500 let me go back to that i want to show what i was looking at this morning so this is what i was looking at it uh this morning is this uh divergent setup and i posted this in discord and this turned out to be just a a small blip a small head fake but anyway it led to um you know i had no idea what was going to happen later on really um so anyway i saw this it was good for about two points and spy or about 20 points and es this divergence hero stop starts dropping and then es spy uh follows so let's go take a look at book map now and i'm going to see this was what i was talking about just a little little blip here a reversal at the vwap down to the 3900 level so good you know for 15 20 points something like that or you know a little bit less than two points and spy and then price reversed higher and i think there were several keys to that you know first of all you can see an order flow that aggressive buyer start to come in see this see the green dots here starting to come in cvd rising then these buy stop orders fuel the move higher let's go back and take a look at hero now so we'll scroll here a little bit and you can see the shift in hero traders start as price drops down to that 3900 level they start taking bullish options positions and price moves higher and then finally about that time there were a couple of other clues as well first of all vixx let's zoom in let's see well first of all note that vixx has pretty much been dropping since this high of 2921 yesterday and that means that traders were buying very expensive puts yesterday and now they're they're paying the price of paying up for those puts so let's now let's zoom in on oops zoom in on today so there's the reversal in vixx this is around around 1020 about the same time that that espx spy starts to turn higher so that's an additional clue and then let's take a look at this is the xlf the financials ETF and I think this was another very important clue that the xlf reversed higher about that same time so we you know we already know and we'll we'll see in a minute that nasdaq stocks tech stocks were were strong and there were some great setups and you know we saw in my key gamma strike list that there was a bullish thesis for those stocks anyway so I think the key for the s&p 500 was the drop in vixx and also the the rise in financials here so the you know again we know the tech stocks are strong and the financials are joining the party not holding the s&p 500 back so I think that was uh you know those were the clues the keys to the the reversal higher in the rally in the s&p 500 so multiple clues again vixx xlf hero rising and bullish water flow in in book map right so that's the s&p 500 and now let's take a look at some stocks so there were some great great long setups in in a number of these tech stocks so let's just start with apple we'll zoom in so we can just look at the morning session here and there's a strong correlation between options trades hedging flow and price action and let's go take a look at book map we'll take a look at apple now and thanks rj you're welcome all right here's apple nice strong uptrend again remember traders are taking positive delta positions and they got to the call wall target here at 155 notice the high liquidity there if if you're not familiar with book map this dark orange is showing the history of the resting orders liquidity in the order book and this liquidity attracts price and there it is is at the 155 call wall so nice uptrend there in apple let's go back let me take a look at hero again and we can separate out puts and calls and this is showing that calls the rising orange line this is showing that traders are buying calls and this is driving price action in one way you can tell of course is the the strong correlation between the orange line and price which is the white line and you can also look at this notional value and see that this is quite a bit larger than the blue line which is showing that traders are buying puts but there the call buyers are dominating and that has been driving price action higher or at least it was this morning let's zoom out and we can see that price levels off as traders stop buying calls and then they continue to buy puts and prices stalled around that 155 call wall level all right so that's apple nice long setup and floyd's garage and youtube asks pomba positive gamma expires tomorrow we can take a look at that so that you know that could lead to some potential setups uh call gamma unwind so and i would look for that in single stocks and for single stocks market makers are always at a negative gamma position all right so here's amd and let's zoom in on the morning separate out puts and calls and calls driving amd as well let's go take a look at book map and the semiconductors that i track amd and nvidia were very strong today and there's something interesting to note here is the the breach of the call wall showing here just after right after the open that's the 90 call wall and key gamma strike and recent uh recent data presented by spot gamma to subscribers has indicated that for a single stock again the single stock a breach of the call wall can actually act as an accelerant for a moving price higher and let's take a look at at equity hub and and see why that may be the case so this is amd and equity hub and spot gamma provides several different views what this is showing is the dominance of put gamma below this level in orange and that is the 90 level and that is also the key gamma strike and the call wall so put gamma put dominance below in red orange and then call gamma in green above so amd moved up above the 90 level and now is firmly in the call dominated region let's take a look at this put and call impact chart i'm going to zoom in on this and this is going to be somewhat like the gamma levels charts that we were looking at for spx spy and qqq so this is showing this key gamma strike and that's pretty obvious that it's the strike with the largest absolute gamma as well as the call wall the strike with the largest net positive gamma so as price moves up above that level all these calls are gaining value they're becoming more in the money more gaining more value and remember in for a single stock spot gamma assumes that traders are long calls market makers are short calls and as price increases they have to buy stock to hedge their delta exposure so as traders continue to buy calls like we just saw on hero and these calls go in the money they're gaining value market makers have to continue to buy stock to hedge their delta exposure and this is showing these the slope of this line we'll focus on the orange line here is showing the rate of change of gamma and this is showing that's going to level off oh let's say above 100 above this level somewhere between 100 and and this is you know like 105 to 109 something like that all right so that's amd and this is this is an explanation of that that breach of the the call wall and how that can act as an accelerant and then amd is a a perfect example of that breach of the call wall very positive bullish order flow price targets up above 92 93 94 and then the primary target at 95 notice the very dark color there that is the showing the large orders at that level all right so that's amd let me check for questions market makers in a negative gamma position so forage garage i don't understand your question let's let's take a look at let's go back to equity hub now change that back to total signal we'll go to equity hub and what i look at is this next expiry gamma percentage and let's just sort the list by that number and this is showing the next expiry gamma percentage and anything over 30 percent is typically pretty significant right so this right here all of these i would look at all these and then i would look at at the charts in the equity hub just like i have for amd here and if i see a a stock like amd firmly in the in the call gamma region i would look for a potential call gamma unwind in these stocks so the way that works is these calls are all going to most of these calls are going to expire tomorrow and so they will quickly lose value especially court towards the end of the day and that is the uh then market makers delta exposure will decrease as those calls lose value that's the charm effect the change in delta as time passes so market makers as their delta exposure decreases no longer need their long stock edges and they can sell their stock edges and sometimes if traders especially if traders don't continue to buy calls tomorrow then that can lead to a a nice short setup for that call gamma unwind okay so floyd's garage i hope that answers your question and rj asked is the key gamma strike the same as the absolute gamma strike yes same thing just two two names for the same thing and a break of that level does a break of this level create acceleration no not necessarily but in the case of the case of amd it's at the same strike which is not unusual and that uh spot gammas research and stats indicates that it's a break of a wall that can that can cause acceleration all right so let's what tomorrow we'll go um we'll go through this well let's actually let's take a quick look and see so nvidia may be the same situation is amd snowflake no put dominated tesla no uh put dominated amd yes we just looked at that apple may be some uh call domination above the 160 level amazon may be call dominance above the 105 level meta good chance call dominance above the 195 level and meta is trading in this call dominated region and microsoft call dominated above 270 so i would look if you're looking for a call gamma unwind i would focus on nvidia amd meta and microsoft all right let's move on let's go to there are some other setups that i want to cover amd amazon traders buying calls again is a pretty common theme let's go to book map another strong rally here in amazon up to the 100 call wall key gamma strike and notice amd hit the call wall key gamma strike very early in the day around 1045 and then other stocks like amazon here rallied up to that level and seemed to have stalled um around that level may be moving higher now um but anyway that was the primary target for this morning let's go back and take a look at hero so traders so it seems like if you have it on puts and calls and try and make a change it it uh doesn't act well so i always need to remember to change it back to the all all trades or a total signal so notice here that again as traders stop buying calls around lunchtime 12 o'clock eastern price levels off and they are they're buying puts also so that's why price is stalled at that um at that one 100 level all right let's change it back we'll make any changes update take a look at meta all right let's take a look at and karma trades ask can i repeat why tesla's put dominate based on the composite view because the color of the composite view it was all uh light red meaning a lighter position but the red orange uh anything from orange ish to dark red indicates put dominated in a shade of green indicates call dominated all right so there's meta let's go take a look at uh take a look at book map in meta headed the other in the other direction uh initially headed down and meta has been quite strong this week maybe uh traders were initially taking profits uh hero led down and up for this rally uh and it looks like meta reversed higher uh just around the same time as the s and p 500 with the 200 call wall key gamma strike as a primary target right rj asked do i look at vix does it use right i'm not sure you i understand your question um so vix options are based on the the vix futures i believe and i don't look at i don't look at vxx i typically just look at vix so options on vix are based on the futures and somebody uh somebody correct me if that's that's not right but that's my understanding all right so that's meta let's take a look at microsoft and somewhat similar to um meta a little bit of a chop a little bit of a a drop down in the morning and remember yesterday microsoft uh led the way higher and then it took a while to get going on microsoft let's take a look at a hero for microsoft and notice the chop flat hero in the morning and then start to rise and price follows so that's microsoft and let's just separate outputs and calls so really calls driving but not not as clear as uh some of the other stocks that we looked at total signal provides a better signal and let's take a look at nvidia and you're welcome karma trades and floyd's garage and youtube you're welcome as well all right so here's nvidia and strong correlation as usual between hedging flow and price action mainly calls driving you can see by the rising orange line and again note the strong increase in the morning hero levels off starts to drop down and price levels off and let's go take a look at book map and this is um turn this down this is the absorption indicator just kind of obscuring price here and we'll turn down sweeps this automatic mode sometimes uh you just have to make an adjustment to to see the appropriate number of uh sweeps and absorption so very strong uptrend here reversal higher at the 240 key gamma strike note the rising cumulative volume delta and first target at the 245 liquidity next target at the 250 call wall and now price continues higher let's nvidia take a look at qqq it looks like i need to add more lines to my my price line spreadsheet so another strong uptrend and reversal higher around 1020 at the vwap let's take a look at at hero and this is not as clear actually kind of a let's just zoom in on the morning so somewhat of a early morning confirmation up till about 11 o'clock and then traders started taking negative delta positions fading this move higher so let's see what they're doing so they've been buying puts pretty much since the open and rj i was actually just going to look at that so let's let's first of all go back to the total signal and no not necessarily notice the so i'm looking at this kind of teal green line that's the zero dte that's the zero dte compared at around 117 million versus the total all expirations at 685 so this is really uh most likely uh options that expire tomorrow unless we can uh confirm this in in think or swim all right for a call volume and this may be hard to see so this is showing call volume is dominated by the 305 strike that expires tomorrow and then puts and this is uh this is showing puts that expire today at the 304 strike are dominating volume so that is puts that expire today calls that expire tomorrow that's what thinkorswim is showing the the option stats for qqq all right so they were much easier to read setups in the in the single stocks rather than qqq and also the smp 500 um then finally let's wrap it up with tesla and there's uh as usual a strong correlation between hedging flow and price action it took a while for tesla to get going here so really the key reversal higher was uh was around 1020 when the smp 500 uh reversed higher and traders are buying calls and selling puts so let's uh we'll go to book map and we'll uh uh take a quick look at tesla and then we'll take a final look at the smp 500 so here's tesla and the choppy action the reversal at the 180 key gamma strike around around 1030 1020 and then price moves higher and note the the shift to the green dots here shift higher in the cvd and bullish order flow up to the uh and again that's off the call wall up to this 185 liquidity and also like many other stocks trading up to the upper edge of the expected move for the week all right let's take a final look at the smp 500 here's the spy we'll we'll wrap it up with spy showing the strong move up around 1020 up to and past the 3950 spx 3950 resistance level and the 395 volatility volatility trigger up to the upper edge of the expected move and the 396 strike and now price is moving lower and we'll just take a quick final look at at hero and let's go to the smp 500 signal and that has been uh traders have been fading this move higher oh since about uh 12 31 o'clock maybe even 12 o'clock noon assume in a little bit of this so traders started taking negative delta positions around 12 o'clock and then price seems to be finally responding okay that's all i have for today uh let me do a final truck for questions and matish asks do you manually add the levels to each stock or there are they extrapolated from spot gamma somehow and uh the levels do come from spot gamma but i add them manually i use an add-on in and book map called price line this is available in the book map marketplace and i fill out these levels under spreadsheet whatever i want so i'm showing spy levels i like to show the round number levels also i note the key spot gamma levels and then i'm also showing the spx level so i just calculate the ratio of spx to spy and then i show the location of the spx levels as well so i do that in a i enter all that information or spreadsheet and i'm just using that price lines add-on so there is uh you know that i have to change the levels manually in my spreadsheet they're not updated in cloud notes like the like the es futures so i hope that answers your question okay that's all i have i think i've answered all your questions and remember tomorrow is the options expiration with an am settlement for spx also a p.m. settlement and then everything else expires at the end of the day so thanks again and i will see you tomorrow bye