SPX Strike Profile
Market-maker exposure at every strike, as a ladder of bars, minute by minute.
What it shows
One horizontal bar per strike, centred on zero, for the metric you pick: GEX (gamma), DEX (delta), VEX (vanna) or CEX (charm). The bar is the market maker's dollar exposure at that strike for the front expiry (0DTE on SPX), with optional expiry columns beside it. A thin outline on each bar marks where it stood the minute before, so growth and shrinkage are visible.
What it is built from
Each bar is the market maker's dollar exposure at that strike: positive where market makers are long options, negative where they are short. Built from licensed CBOE one-minute SPX and VIX data with market-maker positioning, recomputed every minute.
Reading
How to read it
- A positive gamma bar means market makers are net long options at that strike; their hedging works against price there, so price tends to slow or stop.
- A negative gamma bar means market makers are net short options there; their hedging goes with price, so price tends to move through.
- The largest positive bar is the dominant strike: in the case-study sessions it acted as the target and then the ceiling or floor.
- A large positive bar directly beside a large negative bar is a vertical (a spread): one strike bought by the market maker, the next sold.
- An outline wider than the bar means the strike shrank in the last minute; a bar longer than its outline means it grew.
Controls
What each control does
| Control | Options | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Chart / Table | Chart, Table | Chart draws the bar ladder; Table draws the strike-by-expiry grid (see SPX Strike Profile - Table). |
| Metric dropdown | GEX, DEX, VEX, CEX | Switches the exposure drawn: gamma, delta, vanna, charm. |
| Net | Call/Put (C/P) | Net, Call/Put | Net draws one bar per strike; Call/Put splits it into its call leg and put leg (GEX and DEX). |
| 0DTE only | on / off (amber when on) | Shows the front-expiry ladder on its own. On VIX the button reads 'Next expiry - <date>'. |
| Hover info (eye icon) | on / off | Turns the strike hover tooltip on or off; bars stay clickable either way. |
| Account type picker | MM, Firm, BD, Cust, Pro (multi-select) | Whose position the bars are built from. Default MM. Selecting several adds them together; Reset returns to MM. |
| Settings > Strike > Range | SPX +/-50, 100, 200, 500, All (default 200); VIX +/-5, 10, 20, 50, All (default 20) | How many points either side of spot are drawn. |
| Settings > Strike > Step (+ / -) | SPX 5, 10, 25, 50, 100; VIX 0.5, 1, 2, 5 | Strike spacing on the vertical axis (zoom in = finer strikes). |
| Settings > Display > Scaled | on / off (default on) | Bar opacity follows bar size so small bars fade. |
| Settings > Display > Uniform | on / off (default off; Net mode only) | All bars take the positive colour regardless of sign. |
| Settings > Display > IV | Off, IV, $, Both | Adds per-strike implied volatility and/or contract price columns beside the bars. |
| Settings > Display > Glow | on / off (default on) | The top positive gamma strikes glow as price approaches them, brightest at the strike. |
| Sum picker ('S 0DTE' / 'S n exp') | presets 0DTE, Wk, 2W, Mth, All; or tick individual expiries | 'Sum into primary bar': adds the chosen later expiries into the main ladder. |
| Expiries picker ('n expiries') | per-expiry checkboxes, Select all / Deselect all, Reset | Which expiry columns are drawn beside the ladder; a column can be expanded into its own bar ladder. The pick is saved per slot. |
| Click a bar | - | Opens 'Intraday Evolution' for that strike: its value through the session so far, an 'Expiry Breakdown at Current Time (Gamma)', and 'Send to chart' (adds the strike to Gamma Flow By Strike). |
Read it with
- Premium Flow — a strike building on the ladder and the MM call line rising are the same event seen twice
- SPX Surface - Gamma — the ladder is the book now; the surface is that book re-priced across price and time
- Gamma Flow By Strike — tracks the ladder's top strikes through time
Good to know
- The bars are the market maker's side. The legend names the colours: 'Positive Gamma' and 'Negative Gamma'.
- Gamma is largest near the money and near expiry, so a strike's bar grows as price approaches it and as the close approaches.
- A vertical can sit inside one strike's call and put legs: switch to Call/Put to see the legs.
- SPX monthly (third-Friday) AM-settled expiries get their own column, marked AM, beside the PM-settled column for the same date.
A real session
See it happen
13:38 ET
One dominant strike: 7700 peaks at +$17.92B while no candle trades at 7700 from 10:07 to 14:47. Point at the single long positive bar above price.
Case 08 · Sep 8, 2026
One strike held price for four hours and forty minutes
16 slides
The walk-through, slide by slide
Slide 1 / 16
From the product
Real frames
Shot off the live product, nothing redrawn. Click the right side of a frame for the next one, the left side to go back.
Product frame 1 / 18
These pages describe what the displays show and what the data did on the sessions shown. They are not trading advice, and a past session is not a forecast of a future one.