Categories
Commentary

Daily Brief For March 3, 2022

Editor Note: In light of travel commitments, there will be no Daily Brief published tomorrow, March 4, 2022. Thank you for the support and see you next week!

What Happened

Overnight, equity index futures were sideways to lower while commodity and bond products remained bid. Cross-asset volatility measures remain heightened in the face of uncertainties with respect to geopolitical tensions and monetary policy action.

To note, in light of the economic war waged on Russia, participants received positive news from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell who ruled out a 50 basis-point hike.

Moreover, ahead is data on jobless claims, productivity, labor costs (8:30 AM ET), ISM services, factory orders, core capital equipment orders, and Fed-speak by Jerome Powell (10:00 AM ET), as well as John Williams (6:00 PM ET).

Graphic updated 6:30 AM ET. Sentiment Neutral if expected /ES open is inside of the prior day’s range. /ES levels are derived from the profile graphic at the bottom of the following section. Levels may have changed since initially quoted; click here for the latest levels. SqueezeMetrics Dark Pool Index (DIX) and Gamma (GEX) calculations are based on where the prior day’s reading falls with respect to the MAX and MIN of all occurrences available. A higher DIX is bullish. At the same time, the lower the GEX, the more (expected) volatility. Learn the implications of volatility, direction, and moneyness. SHIFT data used for S&P 500 (INDEX: SPX) options activity. Note that options flow is sorted by the call premium spent; if more positive, then more was spent on call options. Breadth reflects a reading of the prior day’s NYSE Advance/Decline indicator. VIX reflects a current reading of the CBOE Volatility Index (INDEX: VIX) from 0-100.

What To Expect

Positioning: Skipping the fundamentals section and will follow up on (and add to) some notes established in Wednesday’s commentary.

Mainly, cross-asset volatility is spiking as investors are seeking protection against the uncertainties posed by geopolitical tensions and monetary policy action.

Graphic: Via @EffMktHype. “Rate vol through the roof, FX picking up steam while equity vol arguably still cheap in comparison despite being at the high end of its 1-year end.”

As explained, however, the equity market’s pricing of risk (which we can take as being reflected by the CBOE Volatility Index [INDEX: VIX]) is not moving lock-step with that of measures in FX and rate markets.

“The fear in one market tends to feed into the fear of another; regardless of the cause, it seems that equity and bond market participants are not (quite) on the same page,” is the direct quote.

In the subsequent text, I did little to mention the implications of liquidity supply at the index level. This realization came to me while writing some commentary for SpotGamma (who just launched its Hedging-Impact of Real-Time Options indicator or HIRO).

Moreover, the evolving monetary frameworks and intention to take from the max liquidity – which pushed participants out of the risk curve and promoted a divergence from fundamentals – has the effect of removing market excesses that have found their way into volatility markets.

Graphic: Taken from The Ambrus Group’s Kris Sidial. Annual listed option volumes.

Taking a look at the U.S. high yield OAS (option-adjusted spread), participants see a “risk-off” bottom; deteriorating credit conditions are a bearish leading indicator and that’s likely been reflected by the bond market’s pricing of risk (but not equity markets, as noted above).

Graphic: Via St. Louis Fed. ICE BoA High YIeld OAS.

Tempering equity market volatility is likely supply, particularly at the index level, whereas elsewhere, at the single-stock level, underlying components are volatile.

As explained in the SpotGamma note: “We’re using the VIX as a proxy for equity market volatility while underlying components are actually very volatile.” 

“There is a decline in correlation, and this is due to suppressive counterparty hedging of the most dominant customer positioning.”

The dominant positioning at the index level is best explained as follows:

  • Customers have positive directional (delta) exposure to the equity markets.
  • The indexes (in which there are tax advantages, cash-settlement, among other things) provide participants exposure to a diversified and liquid hedge, easy to get in and out of.
  • To hedge positive delta exposure against drops, customers will purchase downside put protection. Puts carry a negative delta and their gains are multiplied to the downside (positive gamma). 
  • To reduce the cost of this hedge, they sell upside call protection (also a negative delta trade). This “offset” so to speak can be initiated as a ratio to the protection carried on the downside (e.g., 2 calls for 1 put, and so on), and this feeds into skewness, also.

Options counterparties, who are on the other side of this customer activity, have positive exposure to direction. 

In selling a put, the dealer has positive exposure to the direction (meaning the position makes money, all else equal, with trade higher), but their losses are multiplied with movement to the downside (negative gamma). 

To hedge this put exposure, all else equal, they must sell into weakness and buy strength.

On the call side, however, the counterparty has positive exposure to delta and gamma (meaning gains are multiplied to the upside).

To hedge this call exposure, all else equal, they must buy into weakness and sell strength.

When, in the normal course of action, protection decays (given that time and volatility trend to zero), counterparty positive delta exposure decreases.

Graphic: Via SpotGamma. “SPX prices X-axis. Option delta Y-axis. When the factors of implied volatility and time change, hedging ratios change. For instance, if SPX is at $4,700.00 and IV jumps 15% (all else equal), the dealer may sell an additional 0.2 deltas to hedge their exposure to the addition of a positive 0.2 delta. The graphic is for illustrational purposes, only.”

This solicits the buy-back of short futures hedges (static negative delta against dynamic positive delta options exposure) that can support the market.

As we’ve seen, a feature of falling markets is the demand for protection. When this protection is monetized (or decay ensues), options counterparties add to the market liquidity (i.e., buying back short futures hedges).

A feature of rising markets is the supply of protection (and more active hedging of call options). 

Further, as markets rise, volatility falls. Participants’ demand for yield drives participants further out the risk curve (i.e., they sell more volatility) and this can solicit even more supply.

Pictured: SqueezeMetrics highlights implications of volatility, direction, and moneyness.

As explained in the SpotGamma note: “The counterparty is left carrying more positive exposure to delta and gamma (meaning gains are multiplied to the upside). As time and volatility trend to zero, the sensitivity of these options to underlying price (gamma) increases.”

“When gamma increases, counterparties add more liquidity (i.e., sell [buy] more into strength [weakness] against increasing [decreasing] positive delta exposure).”

Amidst this most recent leg higher, volatility has fallen (some) and the heavily-demanded put protection amidst earlier trade lower has solicited decreased hedging. The buyback of hedges has bolstered sideways to higher trade.

Pursuant to that remark, however, participants are still adding to their negative delta options exposure. They’re doing this via call sales (downward sloping HIRO line, below).

Graphic: SpotGamma’s Hedging Impact of Real-Time Options (HIRO) indicator.

Moreover, given the build in open interest in options at higher strike prices – through naive assumptions and data collected from HIRO, among other measures – we surmise options counterparties are tending to add to the market liquidity and this is stabilizing.

Graphic: Updated 3/2/2022. There is rising interest in options at higher strike prices.

“As the highly-demanded put protection decays, dealers have less exposure to positive delta. To re-hedge this, dealers buy back (cover) existing short (negative-delta) futures hedges,” SpotGamma further explains. “At the same time, as markets trend higher, … the additional interest in options participants supplied on the call side solicits increased hedging.”

From above, we surmise counterparties are long and therefore tend to sell (buy) into strength amid increasing (decreasing) positive delta exposure. 

As short-dated activity clusters in the area just north of the most recent week-long consolidation area, and this protection decays, dealer exposure to positive delta (gamma) falls (rises). 

“Taken together, dealers add to the market liquidity. When there is rising liquidity, volatility (a measure of how ample liquidity is) falls.”

It is options market activity and associated hedging – the supply of liquidity – that’s tempering equity market volatility relative to that of rates and FX.

Graphic: Via SpotGamma. “There’s been a big pop in put volumes for the higher yield bond ETFs: JNK, HYG, and LQD. This syncs with the idea this sell-off is based mainly on rates with a side of geopolitics.”

Hope that better explains index-level volatility and the decline in correlation by constituents.

As an aside, these forces are, too, amplified by the general trend toward “passive” investing. This is a topic for another time, though.

Graphic: Per Nasdaq, “we’ve seen patches of retail selling of stocks that have mostly lasted for less than a week (blue bars in Chart 2). Interestingly, ETFs (yellow bars) remained net buy every single day, albeit at lower levels than usual in the last week of January.”

Technical: As of 6:30 AM ET, Thursday’s regular session (9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET), in the S&P 500, will likely open in the middle part of a balanced overnight inventory, inside of prior-range and -value, suggesting a limited potential for immediate directional opportunity.

Balance (Two-Timeframe Or Bracket): Rotational trade that denotes current prices offer favorable entry and exit. Balance-areas make it easy to spot a change in the market (i.e., the transition from two-time frame trade, or balance, to one-time frame trade, or trend). 

Modus operandi is responsive trade (i.e., fade the edges), rather than initiative trade (i.e., play the break).

In the best case, the S&P 500 trades higher; activity above the $4,395.25 high volume area (HVNode) puts in play the $4,415.00 untested point of control (VPOC). Initiative trade beyond the VPOC could reach as high as the $4,438.00 key response area and $4,464.75 low volume area (LVNode), or higher.

In the worst case, the S&P 500 trades lower; activity below the $4,395.25 HVNode puts in play the $4,346.75 HVNode. Initiative trade beyond the $4,346.75 could reach as low as the $4,285.50 HVNode and $4,227.75 overnight low (ONL), or lower.

Click here to load today’s key levels into the web-based TradingView charting platform. Note that all levels are derived using the 65-minute timeframe. New links are produced, daily.
Graphic: 65-minute profile chart of the Micro E-mini S&P 500 Futures.

Definitions

Volume Areas: A structurally sound market will build on areas of high volume (HVNodes). Should the market trend for long periods of time, it will lack sound structure, identified as low volume areas (LVNodes). LVNodes denote directional conviction and ought to offer support on any test. 

If participants were to auction and find acceptance into areas of prior low volume (LVNodes), then future discovery ought to be volatile and quick as participants look to HVNodes for favorable entry or exit.

POCs: POCs are valuable as they denote areas where two-sided trade was most prevalent in a prior day session. Participants will respond to future tests of value as they offer favorable entry and exit.

Overnight Rally Highs (Lows): Typically, there is a low historical probability associated with overnight rally-highs (lows) ending the upside (downside) discovery process.

About

After years of self-education, strategy development, mentorship, and trial-and-error, Renato Leonard Capelj began trading full-time and founded Physik Invest to detail his methods, research, and performance in the markets.

Capelj is also a Benzinga finance and technology reporter interviewing the likes of Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, JC2 Ventures’ John Chambers, FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, and ARK Invest’s Catherine Wood, as well as a SpotGamma contributor developing insights around impactful options market dynamics.

Disclaimer

Physik Invest does not carry the right to provide advice.

In no way should the materials herein be construed as advice. Derivatives carry a substantial risk of loss. All content is for informational purposes only.

Categories
Commentary

Daily Brief For March 2, 2022

Editor’s Note: The Daily Brief is a free glimpse into the prevailing fundamental and technical drivers of U.S. equity market products. Join the 200+ that read this report daily, below!

What Happened

Overnight, futures were mixed. The equity indices auctioned sideways to higher, in line with most commodity products. Bonds were lower, as was the VIX, an implied volatility measure.

Pursuant to the VIX remark, volatility measures in the rates, foreign exchange, and commodity markets are surging amidst geopolitical uncertainties and monetary policy action.

Ahead is data on ADP employment (8:15 AM ET), Fed-speak by Charles Evans (9:00 AM ET), James Bullard (9:30 AM ET), and Jerome Powell (10:00 AM ET). Later, is a release of the Beige Book (2:00 PM ET).

Graphic updated 6:30 AM ET. Sentiment Neutral if expected /ES open is inside of the prior day’s range. /ES levels are derived from the profile graphic at the bottom of the following section. Levels may have changed since initially quoted; click here for the latest levels. SqueezeMetrics Dark Pool Index (DIX) and Gamma (GEX) calculations are based on where the prior day’s reading falls with respect to the MAX and MIN of all occurrences available. A higher DIX is bullish. At the same time, the lower the GEX, the more (expected) volatility. Learn the implications of volatility, direction, and moneyness. SHIFT data used for S&P 500 (INDEX: SPX) options activity. Note that options flow is sorted by the call premium spent; if more positive, then more was spent on call options. Breadth reflects a reading of the prior day’s NYSE Advance/Decline indicator. VIX reflects a current reading of the CBOE Volatility Index (INDEX: VIX) from 0-100.

What To Expect

Fundamental: Cross-asset volatility is spiking as investors look to protect against Russia-Ukraine and monetary policy action, among other things.

Graphic: Via @EffMktHype. “Rate vol through the roof, FX picking up steam while equity vol arguably still cheap in comparison despite being at the high end of its 1-year end.” Please note the spike in rate and FX vol versus equity vol (which is sideways to higher, mostly).

Very interesting is action in the rates market where there was a “5-sigma upward shift in MOVE on 3/1/22. [This] has happened 13 times prior in the last 22 years,” said one commentator.

Graphic: Via @EffMktHype. Merrill Lynch Option Volatility Estimate (INDEX: MOVE).

Taken together, the bond market’s pricing of risk – reflected by the Merrill Lynch Option Volatility Estimate (INDEX: MOVE) – is not in line (or moving in-step) with equity market risk, via the CBOE Volatility Index (INDEX: VIX).

The fear in one market tends to feed into the fear of another; regardless of the cause, it seems that equity and bond market participants are not (quite) on the same page.

Moreover, this is in part beyond a decline in liquidity (the variable that’s been connected with the creation of wealth through higher asset prices over time), and has much to do with participants “de-risking” amidst a wide distribution of potential outcomes, another commentator explained

These fears are in the face of emerging risks to growth (given Russia-Ukraine and beyond); the question is whether there is a dovish surprise and this lends to assuaging participants of fear.

Graphic: Via @EffMktHype. “Forward OIS have coalesced since end-Jan and started to aggressively price out rate hikes.”

Taking a look at the U.S. high yield OAS (option-adjusted spread), participants see a “risk-off” bottom; deteriorating credit conditions are a bearish leading indicator. 

Will there be further deterioration that feeds into an eventual repricing of equity market risk? Or, will there be a pullback on hawkishness like the market has started pricing?

Graphic: Via St. Louis Fed. ICE BoA High YIeld OAS.

Positioning: Pursuant to the remarks made on equity implied volatility, March 1, 2022, was “the first day since late January that the options market [was] pricing up volatility a noteworthy but not extreme amount (on a closing basis).”

This is, per SpotGamma, amidst participants’ heightened demand for downside (put) protection; in purchasing protection, traders indirectly take liquidity as counterparties hedge exposure in the underlying.

The effects of this hedging are more notable given reticence on the part of counterparties.

“Essentially, with markets swinging there is a hesitance amongst liquidity providers to step in. This creates an environment in which the absorption of orders deteriorates,” SpotGamma explains. “Given this, the hedging of options exposure further amplifies market moves.”

A heightened VIX, in the face of an equity market that is not trading much weaker, is a clear reflection of this so-called reticence.

Pictured: SqueezeMetrics highlights implications of volatility, direction, and moneyness.

Going forward, bearing in mind the continued passive buying support alluded to in past commentaries, if participants were to be assuaged of their fears, that would likely coincide with less(er) demand for downside protection and compression in volatility.

The implications of this? Reduced demand for protection coincides with less counterparty negative gamma exposure (as counterparty put buying [a negative delta, positive gamma trade] coincides with the addition of liquidity [purchase of underlying, a positive delta trade]). 

In counterparties being less exposed to losses on the downside (via reduced negative gamma exposure), their (re)hedging may bolster attempts higher (i.e., open the door to the upside).

The likelihood of this dynamic coming to fruition is low(er), up until the passage of the Federal Open Market Committee event March 15-16, 2022, and options expiration (that same week).

Graphic: Fear and demand for protection concentrated in shorter-dated contracts most sensitive to changes in implied volatility and direction results in pressure from hedging. The compression of volatility likely coincides with support of attempts higher (as this removes pressure).

Technical: As of 6:30 AM ET, Wednesday’s regular session (9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET), in the S&P 500, will likely open in the upper part of a balanced overnight inventory, inside of prior-range and -value, suggesting a limited potential for immediate directional opportunity.

In the best case, the S&P 500 trades higher; activity above the $4,285.50 high volume area (HVNode) puts in play the $4,346.75 HVNode. Initiative trade beyond the $4,346.75 HVNode could reach as high as the $4,398.50 overnight high (ONH) and $4,415.00 VPOC, or higher.

In the worst case, the S&P 500 trades lower; activity below the $4,285.50 HVNode puts in play the $4,227.75 overnight low. Initiative trade beyond the ONL could reach as low as the $4,177.25 HVNode and $4,137.00 untested point of control (VPOC), or lower.

Considerations: The market is in balance or rotational trade that suggests current prices offer favorable entry and exit. Balance-areas make it easy to spot a change in the market (i.e., the transition from two-time frame trade, or balance, to one-time frame trade, or trend). 

Modus operandi is responsive trade (i.e., fade the edges), rather than initiative trade (i.e., play the break).

Click here to load today’s key levels into the web-based TradingView charting platform. Note that all levels are derived using the 65-minute timeframe. New links are produced, daily.
Graphic: 65-minute profile chart of the Micro E-mini S&P 500 Futures.

What People Are Saying

Definitions

Volume Areas: A structurally sound market will build on areas of high volume (HVNodes). Should the market trend for long periods of time, it will lack sound structure, identified as low volume areas (LVNodes). LVNodes denote directional conviction and ought to offer support on any test. 

If participants were to auction and find acceptance into areas of prior low volume (LVNodes), then future discovery ought to be volatile and quick as participants look to HVNodes for favorable entry or exit.

Gamma: Gamma is the sensitivity of an option to changes in the underlying price. Dealers that take the other side of options trades hedge their exposure to risk by buying and selling the underlying. When dealers are short-gamma, they hedge by buying into strength and selling into weakness. When dealers are long-gamma, they hedge by selling into strength and buying into weakness. The former exacerbates volatility. The latter calms volatility.

Vanna: The rate at which the delta of an option changes with respect to volatility.

Charm: The rate at which the delta of an option changes with respect to time.

POCs: POCs are valuable as they denote areas where two-sided trade was most prevalent in a prior day session. Participants will respond to future tests of value as they offer favorable entry and exit.

Volume-Weighted Average Prices (VWAPs): A metric highly regarded by chief investment officers, among other participants, for quality of trade. Additionally, liquidity algorithms are benchmarked and programmed to buy and sell around VWAPs.

Rates: Low rates have to potential to increase the present value of future earnings making stocks, especially those that are high growth, more attractive. To note, inflation and rates move inversely to each other. Low rates stimulate demand for loans (i.e., borrowing money is more attractive).

About

After years of self-education, strategy development, mentorship, and trial-and-error, Renato Leonard Capelj began trading full-time and founded Physik Invest to detail his methods, research, and performance in the markets.

Capelj is also a Benzinga finance and technology reporter interviewing the likes of Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, JC2 Ventures’ John Chambers, FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, and ARK Invest’s Catherine Wood, as well as a SpotGamma contributor developing insights around impactful options market dynamics. 

Disclaimer

Physik Invest does not carry the right to provide advice.

In no way should the materials herein be construed as advice. Derivatives carry a substantial risk of loss. All content is for informational purposes only.

Categories
Commentary

Daily Brief For February 16, 2022

Editor’s Note: The Daily Brief is a free glimpse into the prevailing fundamental and technical drivers of U.S. equity market products. Join the 200+ that read this report daily, below!

What Happened

After auctioning up into a key supply area, overnight, equity indices were responsively sold.

Ahead is data on retail sales and import prices (8:30 AM ET), industrial production and capacity utilization (9:15 AM ET), business inventories, and the NAHB home builders’ index (10:00 AM ET), as well as the release of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) minutes (2:00 PM ET).

Graphic updated 6:40 AM ET. Sentiment Neutral if expected /ES open is inside of the prior day’s range. /ES levels are derived from the profile graphic at the bottom of the following section. Levels may have changed since initially quoted; click here for the latest levels. SqueezeMetrics Dark Pool Index (DIX) and Gamma (GEX) calculations are based on where the prior day’s reading falls with respect to the MAX and MIN of all occurrences available. A higher DIX is bullish. At the same time, the lower the GEX, the more (expected) volatility. Learn the implications of volatility, direction, and moneyness. SHIFT data used for S&P 500 (INDEX: SPX) options activity. Note that options flow is sorted by the call premium spent; if more positive, then more was spent on call options. Breadth reflects a reading of the prior day’s NYSE Advance/Decline indicator. VIX reflects a current reading of the CBOE Volatility Index (INDEX: VIX) from 0-100.

What To Expect

Fundamental: The market has de-rated substantially at the single-stock level.

“Stocks have been de-rating for almost a year now as investors began to anticipate the inevitable tightening from the Fed, given the robustness of the recovery and building imbalances,” Morgan Stanley’s (NYSE: MS) Michael Wilson says.

Graphic: Via Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC). Taken from Bloomberg. “Perhaps most strikingly, fund managers are now more thoroughly underweight in technology stocks than at any time since 2006.”

“We think this de-rating is about 80% done at the stock level with the S&P 500 P/E still about 10% too high (19.5x versus our 18x target). In other words, the de-rating is more complete at the stock level than at the index level, at least for the high-quality S&P 500.”

At the same time, the bond market’s pricing of risk – reflected by the Merrill Lynch Option Volatility Estimate (INDEX: MOVE) – is not in line with the pricing of equity market risk, via the CBOE Volatility Index (INDEX: VIX).  

Graphic: MOVE Index. Taken from Lisa Abramowicz.

That said, fear in one market tends to feed into the fear of another; regardless of the cause, equity and bond market participants are not on the same page. 

Graphic: Via True Insight. Taken from The Market Ear.

Moreover, prevailing monetary frameworks and max liquidity promoted a large divergence in price from fundamentals. Growth in passive investing – the effect of increased moneyness among nonmonetary assets – and derivatives trading imply a lot of left-tail risks.

The “provision of liquidity and the creation of wealth through higher asset prices are intimately connected over time,” John Authers of Bloomberg explains.

Falling liquidity, while obviously necessary now that the emergency has passed and inflation is rising, could well signal problems ahead.”

Graphic: Via CrossBorder Capital. Taken from Bloomberg. 

To establish the point, these shifts in liquidity have large effects on bond markets, too, and that’s what participants are likely pricing in via MOVE.

A “flatter yield curve tends to be followed quite swiftly by rising credit spreads. While there is no great issue with solvency at present, this suggests that credit may already be causing problems by the end of this year.”

Graphic: Via Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC). Taken from Samantha LaDuc

“The U.S. high yield OAS (option-adjusted spread) is breaking out above resistance to suggest a year-long risk-off bottom for this credit spread,” Bank of America explains. 

Deteriorating credit conditions are a bearish leading indicator, increasing the risk that the S&P 500 (INDEX: SPX) completes the head and shoulders top highlighted in the chart below.”

Taken together, it is the above-mentioned dynamics that will ultimately make it hard for the Fed to continue with rate hikes, Authers adds.

Graphic: Via Bloomberg, “there is a 50-year history that the Fed never hikes rates once the fed funds rate has risen above the five-year yield. That point could come before the end of 2022, and suggests that it will be very difficult to continue with tightening to the extent that the Fed currently believes necessary to bring down inflation to its target.”

To conclude this section, I quote Alfonso Peccatiello, the former head of a $20 billion investment portfolio and author of The Macro Compass: “If the Fed pushes the hawkish narrative further, we might see deeper cracks in the walls.”

Graphic: Via The Macro Compass, “Once real yields approach equilibrium levels, subsequent S&P500 returns tend to be poor.”

Positioning: In the past weeks this commentary expressed a more bullish tilt. 

This tilt is not entirely incorrect. Indeed, there are (as pointed to in past commentaries) few metrics that suggest that there have been strong(er) levels of accumulation.

Graphic: Via EPFR. Taken from The Market Ear. A “nice steady tune of >$50bn per month into global equities.”

However, other positioning metrics point to an increased potential for instability, and implied volatility, though heightened, may not provide much of a boost if further compressed. 

As options modeling and analysis provider SqueezeMetrics explains, “I don’t see the upside catalyst in the data right now. VIX back at 25 isn’t compelling from a vanna-rally perspective (back to 20 seems possible, but how much more?).”

“Have enough puts been bought to propel prices from vanna rally and subsequent vol rolldown? Mehhh.”

To put it in simpler terms, “it is a lot easier to knock [the market] down than it is to lift up.”

What’s known for sure is that this week’s put-heavy options expiration (OPEX) “may make gamma exposures less negative,” according to options analysis provider SpotGamma.

For context, delta is an options exposure to direction. Gamma is the rate of change in delta. ​​

“In an environment characterized by negative gamma (wherein an options delta falls with stock price rises and rises when stock prices fall), options expiries ought to make gamma less negative.”

Therefore, with a reduction in negative gamma, “there will be a removal of [counterparties’] linear short (-delta) hedges which may further bolster attempts higher.”

Technical: As of 6:30 AM ET, Wednesday’s regular session (9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET), in the S&P 500, will likely open in the middle part of a balanced overnight inventory, inside of prior-range and -value, suggesting a limited potential for immediate directional opportunity.

In the best case, the S&P 500 trades higher; activity above the $4,438.00 key response area (balance boundary, high-volume area, and prior overnight low) puts in play the $4,483.00 overnight high (ONH). Initiative trade beyond the ONH could reach as high as the $4,499.00 untested point of control (VPOC) and $4,526.25 high volume area (HVNode), or higher.

In the worst case, the S&P 500 trades lower; activity below the $4,438.00 key response area puts in play the $4,393.75 HVNode. Initiative trade beyond the HVNode could reach as low as the $4,365.00 POC and $4,332.25 HVNode, or lower.

Considerations: Tuesday’s trade built out areas of high volume via the cave-fill process in locations where prior discovery left weak structure – gaps and p-shaped emotional, multiple distribution profile structures (i.e., Friday’s knee-jerk liquidation of poorly positioned longs).

Click here to load today’s key levels into the web-based TradingView charting platform. Note that all levels are derived using the 65-minute timeframe. New links are produced, daily.
Graphic: 65-minute profile chart of the Micro E-mini S&P 500 Futures.

Definitions

Cave-Fill Process: Widened the area deemed favorable to transact at by an increased share of participants. This is a good development.

Overnight Rally Highs (Lows): Typically, there is a low historical probability associated with overnight rally-highs (lows) ending the upside (downside) discovery process.

Volume Areas: A structurally sound market will build on areas of high volume (HVNodes). Should the market trend for long periods of time, it will lack sound structure, identified as low volume areas (LVNodes). LVNodes denote directional conviction and ought to offer support on any test. 

If participants were to auction and find acceptance into areas of prior low volume (LVNodes), then future discovery ought to be volatile and quick as participants look to HVNodes for favorable entry or exit.

Vanna: The rate at which the delta of an option changes with respect to volatility.

POCs: POCs are valuable as they denote areas where two-sided trade was most prevalent in a prior day session. Participants will respond to future tests of value as they offer favorable entry and exit.

Options Expiration (OPEX): Traditionally, option expiries mark an end to pinning (i.e, the theory that market makers and institutions short options move stocks to the point where the greatest dollar value of contracts will expire) and the reduction dealer gamma exposure.

Volume-Weighted Average Prices (VWAPs): A metric highly regarded by chief investment officers, among other participants, for quality of trade. Additionally, liquidity algorithms are benchmarked and programmed to buy and sell around VWAPs.

About

After years of self-education, strategy development, mentorship, and trial-and-error, Renato Leonard Capelj began trading full-time and founded Physik Invest to detail his methods, research, and performance in the markets.

Capelj is also a Benzinga finance and technology reporter interviewing the likes of Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, JC2 Ventures’ John Chambers, FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, and ARK Invest’s Catherine Wood, as well as a SpotGamma contributor developing insights around impactful options market dynamics.

Disclaimer

Physik Invest does not carry the right to provide advice.

In no way should the materials herein be construed as advice. Derivatives carry a substantial risk of loss. All content is for informational purposes only.