=== /gex — DEALER GAMMA REGIME · IWM === QUESTION: Is the market set up to BLAST in a direction, or chop in jagged broken shards? VERDICT: NO CLEAR GAMMA REGIME Net dealer gamma at this price is close to balanced, so hedging is not steering the tape either way. NO CLEAR GAMMA REGIME. Net dealer gamma at this price is close to balanced and price is away from the centre of mass, so dealer hedging is not shaping the tape much in either direction. Little of it expires today, so this neutral configuration is a durable one rather than a same-day quirk. DIRECTIONAL LEAN: DOWN WEAK DOWNWARD LEAN. Two asymmetries in the book point the same way: there is more open room between price and the heavy strike BELOW it than there is up to the heavy strike above, so the concentrated hedging is the nearer obstacle overhead rather than underneath — and the gamma centre of mass sits below spot. This describes where hedging is and is not concentrated, not a call on direction, and it is much weaker than the regime reading above it. -- DOES THE OPTION BOOK CALM OR AMPLIFY THIS MOVE? (regime curve, forward book) -- at spot the book is AMPLIFYING moves (dealers short gamma — hedging runs WITH the tape, an accelerant). dealer gamma at spot: -$212.7M per 1% move. flip (regime boundary): 296.96, 0.39% above spot 295.82. MODELLED, NOT MEASURED. Each contract is repriced with Black-Scholes gamma while its implied vol and days-to-expiry are held FIXED and spot is hypothetically moved (a sticky-strike assumption); r=0; same-day options are floored to 1 day of time so their gamma stays finite (they are removed entirely on the forward book); the contract universe is identical to the per-strike chart (+/-15% of spot, nearest 6 expiries); OI-weighted, never volume; calls +1, puts -1, netted per contract. -- WHAT TIME AND VOL FORCE DEALERS TO DO (same signed book, forward book) -- as of 2026-09-04T20:23:01+00:00 · remaining time to the banked texp instant, 5-minute floor · source: gamma/data/chain x-block + header texp/rate/q; OI-only; never volume CHARM at spot: -$52.12B dollar-delta per year = -$142.7M per calendar day. Time passing is forcing dealers to BUY the underlying to stay hedged (they are decaying into a shorter delta). Under the usual dealer-side convention only — if the convention is wrong, they sell instead. of which 0DTE — / rest -$52.12B (0 same-day contracts). charm flip (where time-decay hedge flow changes sign): 305.74, 3.35% from spot. VANNA at spot: +$12.19B dollar-delta per 1.00 vol = +$121.9M per vol-point. If implied vol FALLS 1 point, dealers would have to BUY the underlying to stay hedged (and SELL if vol rises). Under the usual dealer-side convention only. chain's own xcharm/xvanna (not fused; archive 12h floor): -$52.12B / +$12.19B LATE-DAY GAMMA absent: this snapshot is already past 15:45 ET (or past 15 minutes before expiry) — a late-day reprice is not invented from a later clock CONVENTIONAL AMPLIFIERS / ABSORBERS (most-negative / most-positive dollar-gamma inside ±2% of price). Not VolSignals tests — we cannot see who is actually short. amplifier 1 290.00 -1.97% -$121.6M per 1% 35,600 net contracts amplifier 2 295.00 -0.28% -$64.7M per 1% 10,255 net contracts amplifier 3 292.00 -1.29% -$46.1M per 1% 9,709 net contracts absorber 1 298.00 +0.74% +$80.8M per 1% 10,499 net contracts absorber 2 300.00 +1.41% +$70.4M per 1% 16,435 net contracts absorber 3 297.00 +0.40% +$44.1M per 1% 5,025 net contracts 0DTE ACTIVITY (not a position): in-band 628,972 contracts of volume across 194 listed lines; 21 lines still report OI 0 with volume > 0. Never used as a weight. including outside the ±15% band: 630,581 contracts, 92 oi=0-with-volume lines. ! WHICH SIDE ARE DEALERS ACTUALLY ON? These greeks cannot see it. Every sign here infers dealers long calls and short puts. When customers have been BUYING calls, dealers are short them and a "long" line is actually a short — the absorb/amplify label flips. Nothing on this page confirms the direction. VolSignals, 2026-08-31: 20 of 36 SPX 0DTE lines over 300 contracts carried the opposite sign under this convention. ! These numbers are not an input to verdict.regime / decay / pin / lean. MODELLED, NOT MEASURED. Same signed book as the per-strike GEX chart (±15% of spot, nearest 6 expiries, OI-only, never volume). Time remaining is the clock to the banked expiry instant, not a 1-day floor — so 0DTE gamma and charm into the close are visible here and hidden on the regime curve above (that curve keeps the 1-day floor so it stays comparable to the banked history). The late-day gamma slice is the SAME open-interest book with less time left — not a forecast of trades or of price. 0DTE contracts with oi=0 do not appear. The dealer-side sign is the usual convention (customers sell calls / buy puts) and is often wrong; VolSignals showed 20 of 36 large 0DTE lines carrying the wrong sign under it. Read the NUMBERS as concentrations; read the DIRECTION as an assumption. -- THE RANGE THE OPTION MARKET IS CHARGING FOR -- daily breakeven 0.50% (front at-the-money implied vol 7.99% (expiry 2026-09-08) / sqrt(252)) gamma-conditional range median 1.41%, middle half 1.03% to 2.13% (quintile 3 of banked history, n=25) NOTE: shown for completeness. Part B found the gamma reading adds nothing to the breakeven above. wall-to-wall corridor 2.70% (put wall 290.00 to call wall 298.00) last session delivered 0.78% (5-min sampled) = 1.55x the breakeven ! THIS READING SPANS A WEEKEND. The breakeven divides by sqrt(252) TRADING days, but the next session carries three calendar days of risk. Measured on the banked data, a Friday reading is followed by a range 1.50x the breakeven versus about 1.01x on other weekdays — so treat the figure above as understated here. -- OVERNIGHT: RTY AGAINST THE FROZEN WALLS -- RTY has traded down 0.10% since the cash close, which puts IWM at about 295.52. That sits 0.84% below the call wall at 298.00 and 1.87% above the put wall at 290.00. The wall levels themselves are frozen from the last session's settled open interest and do not move until the next session settles. E-mini Russell 2000 (RTYU6) 2,972.30 179s old as IWM-equivalent 295.52 (-0.10% since the cash close at 295.82) vs frozen call wall 298.00 price is 0.84% below it vs frozen put wall 290.00 price is 1.87% above it vs frozen gamma centre 293.00 price is 0.85% above it vs frozen zero-gamma cross 253.00 price is 14.39% above it CONVERSION: RTY shown as IWM-equivalent: RTY now 2,972.30, RTY at the Fri close 2,975.30, so 295.82 x (2,972.30 / 2,975.30) = 295.52. The move in the future since the cash close, applied to IWM's price at that close — the basis and the index/ETF ratio cancel out, so no ratio is estimated. SCALE: shared — the overlay is in the same units as the wall levels ! The wall levels and the futures price are deliberately from DIFFERENT CLOCKS. Wall levels come from settled open interest, which the clearing house publishes overnight and does not revise during a session — so a wall is a constant until the next settlement, not a stale reading. Futures trade around the clock. Comparing the two is what shows whether price is drifting toward or away from the level while the cash market is shut. ! Overnight futures liquidity is far thinner than the regular session. A wall approached at 03:00 on light volume is not the same event as one approached at 14:00, and neither this page nor the dealer hedging behind the wall treats it as one. measured: overnight bars average 183 contracts per 5 minutes against 1,527 in the regular session (12.0%). ! The dealer hedging that would enforce a wall is largely NOT ACTIVE while the cash market is shut, so an overnight approach to a level is not the same event as a daytime one. The caveat about which side dealers are actually on applies here more strongly, not less. ! This overlay adds no predictive power, and this app measured that: when price reached the call wall it closed back below only 37.2% of the time against 38.0% for an arbitrary level the same distance away. The overlay shows WHERE price is relative to a frozen level, nothing more. -- MAJOR SUPPORT & RESISTANCE (forward book) -- These are where dealer hedging CONCENTRATES. They are not levels price is obliged to respect: a big enough directional move overwhelms even a massive wall of gamma. MEASURED: reaching the call wall, price closed back below it 39.4% of the time (n=282); the put wall held 43.1% of 195. Neither beat a level the same distance away with no gamma in it, so these rows are ranked by concentration, not reliability. 303.00 +7.18 pts +2.43% RESISTANCE secondary call concentration (3rd largest) 2.6% of book 11,040 net contracts A further band of call hedging above price, lighter than the wall but closer to the tape than the numbers alone suggest. The same mechanics apply, at smaller size. 302.00 +6.18 pts +2.09% RESISTANCE secondary call concentration (2nd largest) 3.4% of book 14,167 net contracts A further band of call hedging above price, lighter than the wall but closer to the tape than the numbers alone suggest. The same mechanics apply, at smaller size. 300.00 +4.18 pts +1.41% RESISTANCE call wall (largest) 3.9% of book 16,435 net contracts The heaviest call hedging overhead. On the usual assumption that dealers are LONG these calls, staying hedged means selling into rallies as price approaches — which is what would slow a move here. 295.82 <<<< PRICE IS HERE 285.00 -10.82 pts -3.66% SUPPORT put wall (largest) 12.1% of book 50,479 net contracts The heaviest put hedging below. On the usual assumption that dealers are SHORT these puts, staying hedged means buying as price falls toward it — which is what would cushion a move here. 280.00 -15.82 pts -5.35% SUPPORT secondary put concentration (2nd largest) 9.9% of book 41,187 net contracts A further band of put hedging below price, lighter than the wall. The same mechanics apply, at smaller size. 275.00 -20.82 pts -7.04% SUPPORT secondary put concentration (3rd largest) 9.4% of book 39,328 net contracts A further band of put hedging below price, lighter than the wall. The same mechanics apply, at smaller size. 253.00 -14.47% REGIME BOUNDARY — not support, not resistance The strike where the running total of dealer gamma changes sign. Above it dealer hedging leans against moves and damps them; below it hedging leans with moves and amplifies them. It is a boundary between two behaviours, NOT a level price is repelled by — and this page reads the live regime from the gamma right around spot rather than from this level, because spot-versus-flip is much weaker than it is usually treated as. 293.00 -0.95% MAGNET — the opposite of a barrier The gamma-weighted centre of the book: the level hedging flow pulls price TOWARD, rather than a level that pushes price away. Price sitting on it is the pinned configuration. ! WHICH SIDE ARE DEALERS ACTUALLY ON? This is the one thing gamma exposure cannot see, and it decides whether a wall brakes or accelerates. Every number here INFERS it from a convention — that customers sell calls and buy puts, so dealers end up long calls and short puts, which is what makes a call wall behave like a ceiling. When that convention is wrong the sign flips with it: if customers are BUYING calls, dealers are SHORT them, and staying hedged means buying INTO a rally through the same strike — the level becomes an accelerant instead of a brake. On the book these levels are drawn from, 17% of the gross gamma sits at the front expiry — the short-dated, retail-facing end of the chain, where that assumption is least safe. Nothing on this page can confirm the direction, so read the labels as where hedging is concentrated, not as which way it will push. ranked by: netted contract count at the strike (call open interest minus put open interest), as a share of the netted contracts across the whole band -- LEVELS (forward book) -- The session has closed, so the same-day contracts in the final snapshot are already dead. This verdict is built on the FORWARD book — the gamma that still exists for the next session. spot 295.82 as of 2026-09-04T20:23:01+00:00 (post_close) net gamma in +/-1% band +$53.5M across 7 strikes [THE REGIME MEASURE] = 20% of the gross gamma in that band, netting LONG (flat below 20%) net dealer gamma at the single nearest strike +$12.3M at 296.00 whole-book gamma -$194.5M call wall 298.00 (0.74% above) put wall 290.00 (1.97% below) walls by CONTRACT COUNT call 300.00 put 285.00 [the stable read] gamma centre of mass 293.00 (-0.95% from spot) zero-gamma cross 253.00 NOTE: the zero-gamma cross is a LEVEL, not the regime boundary. The regime above is read from the NET GAMMA IN THE +/-1% BAND around spot. -- HOW FAST THIS REGIME DECAYS -- 17.0% — share of the FORWARD book's gross gamma sitting at its front expiry (2026-09-08) [drives the 'slow decay' in the verdict; fast at 50%] 57.9% of the gross gamma on the SESSION book expired at 2026-09-04's close 108% of the at-spot gamma disappeared with that expiry (-$150.0M on the session book -> +$12.3M on the forward book) -- WHERE THIS SITS VERSUS ITS OWN BANKED HISTORY -- net dealer gamma at spot 51.1 percentile Dealer gamma at spot is unremarkable — it sits about where it usually does. Hedging flow is neither strongly absorbing moves nor strongly adding to them, so the option book is not the dominant force in the tape at this price. share of the book at the front expiry 17.0 % of the book Only a small share of the gamma sits at the front expiry. Most of the hedging structure carries past it, so the levels on this page have a longer shelf life than usual. room between the walls 48.9 percentile The gap between the walls is about its usual width. Neither an unusually tight corridor nor an unusually open one. distance to the zero-gamma cross 93.8 percentile Spot sits further from the zero-gamma cross than usual, so the strikes around price are dominated by a single sign of gamma rather than straddling the change. last session delivered vs what options charged 80.6 percentile The tape delivered more movement than the option market charged for. Realised volatility ran ahead of what was priced. -- PART B: THIS APP MEASURING ITS OWN CLAIM -- THESIS HELD: NO NOT ESTABLISHED. Dealer gamma tracks the volatility regime, but it did not beat what the option market had already priced. - RAW, the thesis looks right: the most negative-gamma quintile was followed by a 1.79% median range and the most positive by 1.56% (pooled rho -0.083, p=0.0076). - CONTROLLED, it disappears. Measure the same range in units of what options charged for it (range / IV breakeven) and the relationship is rho 0.038, p=0.22 — nothing. Negative-gamma sessions ARE high-implied-vol sessions: median breakeven fell from 1.66% in the short-gamma quintile to 1.38% in the long-gamma quintile. Gamma was reading the thermometer, not adding to it. - The BLAST-vs-SHARDS part specifically shows nothing: path efficiency (how much of the day's travel became net progress) against gamma is rho -0.016, p=0.60. - The FAILED-BREAKOUT prediction runs the wrong way. Long dealer gamma is supposed to produce MORE failed breakouts; measured, long gamma faded 33.1% of breakout attempts and short gamma faded 34.3%. - No directional signal beat the base rate: 53.0% of next sessions closed up, and not one of the four asymmetries did better. + ONE reading did keep a signal after the calendar was removed, and it is the DECAY RATE rather than the level: the 0DTE share of gamma. Ranked inside each (root x weekday) cell — which removes the weekday effect completely, not just its linear part — a higher 0DTE share went with the next session realising MORE range than options had charged for: pooled rho 0.087 (n=910 across 35 cells), and POSITIVE on all 7 roots tested. It is called SUGGESTIVE and not established, for three reasons: only 0 of 7 roots reach significance on their own, the pooled p-value is overstated because the roots share market days, and the sample is five months of one year. QUINTILES OF DEALER GAMMA AT SPOT -> WHAT THE NEXT SESSION DID (pooled, within-root cuts) Q n next range middle half breakeven ratio path eff failed breakouts 1 216 1.79% 1.09-2.90% 1.66% 1.07 0.467 34.0% of 191 2 208 1.78% 1.23-2.56% 1.78% 1.00 0.476 32.6% of 181 3 200 1.86% 1.16-2.79% 1.75% 1.04 0.438 34.7% of 190 4 208 1.71% 1.01-2.65% 1.52% 1.09 0.509 29.8% of 191 5 208 1.56% 0.91-2.36% 1.38% 1.09 0.432 36.8% of 182 Q1 = most NEGATIVE dealer gamma (blast end) Q5 = most POSITIVE (jagged/pinned end) ! POOLED SIGNIFICANCE IS OVERSTATED. The roots share the same market days and SPY/SPX/QQQ are close to the same trade, so a pooled n is not that many independent observations — the effective n is nearer the per-root session count. ! SPXW is excluded from every pooled set: same underlying as SPX, so its outcome rows are duplicates. ! THE WEEKEND ARTEFACT. breakeven divides by sqrt(252) TRADING days, so a Friday reading is compared against a Monday session carrying three calendar days of risk. Measured below as friday_artefact. Friday rows carry weekend_span=true. ! 2026 only. The OI-weighted gamma archive starts 2026-03-02 (the OCC open-interest purchase window), so there is no multi-year sample and no other market regime in it. ! This measures ASSOCIATION on banked sessions. It is not a trading result and carries no costs, slippage or capacity. ! DIFFERENT CONSTRUCTION FROM THE LIVE READ. These hit rates are measured on the DAILY DOLLAR-GEX AGGREGATE, because that is the only per-session gamma that exists back through 2026-02. The live panel on this page is built on per-strike NETTED CONTRACT COUNTS from the 5-minute chain recorder, which only starts 2026-08-05. Dollar gamma at a strike explodes as spot approaches it and collapses as it leaves, so the aggregate is exactly the weaker construction — this table does not validate the live measure exactly, and it is not claimed to. -- HOW FRESH, AND WHAT IS STALE BY DESIGN -- options chain 2026-09-04T20:23:01+00:00 expected every 5m [held at the last regular-hours reading — correct once the market closes, not a failure] profile build 2026-09-04T21:50:39Z expected every 10m [held at the last regular-hours reading — correct once the market closes, not a failure] open interest 2026-09-04 expected every 1d [settled once overnight — a day behind by market structure, not by neglect] daily history 2026-09-04 expected every 1d [settled once overnight — a day behind by market structure, not by neglect] RTY futures 2026-09-07T05:05:00+00:00 expected every 5m server clock now 2026-09-07T05:07:59Z (skew baseline only — NEVER a data timestamp) chain_day 2026-09-04 chain_asof 2026-09-04T20:23:01+00:00 chain_phase post_close chain_built 2026-09-04T21:50:39Z chain_cadence every 5 minutes in regular trading hours, plus a pre-open and a post-close bracket open_interest PREVIOUS session, settled overnight by the clearing house. It does not move intraday — a market-structure fact, not a defect. history_last 2026-09-04 history_gex_window from 2026-03-02 (the OCC open-interest purchase); continues past 2026-08-04 from the live chain recorder rather than ending there validation_built 2026-09-06T09:20:03Z open-interest census 860 known, 0 MISSING (excluded, never zeroed), 262 genuine zeros -- STANDING CAUTION -- Gamma is not destiny. A large enough directional move overwhelms even a very big wall of dealer gamma — the hedging flow described here is one force among several, and it is the one that gets run over when something bigger arrives. Everything on this page describes how the option book is positioned; none of it is a statement about what price does next. generated 2026-09-07T05:07:59Z · full JSON: /apps2/gex/api.php?sym=IWM&full=1