How Trade Tracer works.
All of it, explained.

Every market day produces more information than any human can read. Most services solve that by narrowing — one indicator, one screen, one data feed. We went the other way. Tracer ingests as much of the market as legally and affordably exists, every night:

• Options positioning — the full dealer gamma surface, skew, open-interest changes, and unusual-activity flags, from licensed institutional data.
• SEC filings — insider buys, 8-K events, buybacks, and quarterly accumulation, straight from EDGAR.
• Macro — yields, the curve, the dollar, real rates, and the Fed calendar.
• Sentiment and attention — where the crowd’s eyes are moving: discussion volume, news flow, search interest, short interest.
• Volume structure on the tape — moving-average state, anchored VWAPs, volume profile, relative volume.

None of these sources is trusted because it’s interesting. Each one enters as a measured input, and each one has to earn its keep — we score every locked level against the next session’s actual price action, and that scorecard is the standing judge of what stays in the mix.

Tracer doesn’t predict any of it. It reads all of it, and compresses it into a few defensible ideas by morning.

When you buy or sell an option, a market maker usually takes the other side. Market makers don’t want directional risk — they want to collect the spread — so they hedge, mechanically, by buying or selling the underlying stock. Millions of contracts, hedged at scale, every session.

Here’s the part that matters: how they hedge depends on where price sits relative to their book. In one zone, their hedging pushes against the prevailing move — they sell into rallies and buy dips, which dampens volatility. In another zone, their hedging pushes with the move — they sell as price falls and buy as it rises, which amplifies it. That’s how crashes cascade and how squeezes rip. Same mechanic, opposite effects, and the dividing line between the two zones is computable.

Trade Tracer computes two levels from this data every night, using the full options surface across expirations — not a single expiry chain, which is what causes the overnight level jumps you may have seen elsewhere. Both levels lock at the close and hold through the next session.

The Gamma Flip is the price where dealer hedging flips sign — from dampening moves to amplifying them. It’s drawn in purple on every chart, computed nightly from the dealer gamma surface, and locked before the open.

How to read it

Price above the Gamma Flip: hedging tends to dampen intraday moves. Rallies get faded, dips get bought — mechanically. Trends can grind, but violent moves in either direction tend to get absorbed.

Price below the Gamma Flip: hedging tends to amplify moves. Drops pick up speed as dealer selling adds to them; squeezes rip harder than they should. Even good setups get chopped between the swings. Most traders do better managing existing risk here than adding new risk.

Price sitting on the Gamma Flip: the regime is contested. The framework treats the next decisive close as the tell.

The honest edge case

Some days the options surface is one-sided and there is no meaningful flip near price — the market is deep in one regime. When that happens, Tracer says so: “no nearby flip.” We don’t manufacture a line just so the chart has one. An honest blank is worth more than a fabricated level.

The Weekly Wall is the price where dealer hedging concentrates most heavily — the strongest measured level on the chart. It’s drawn in orange, computed nightly from the same dealer gamma surface (weighted toward the nearest expirations, where hedging pressure is most intense), and locked before the open.

Where the Gamma Flip describes the whole regime, the Weekly Wall marks a specific price: the spot where the mechanical flows are thickest, and where price tends to react rather than drift through.

How to read it

Price above the Weekly Wall: the framework treats the line as the first reference underneath — the zone where pullbacks tend to meet mechanical flow. First touches from above tend to find a bid.

Price below the Weekly Wall: the framework treats the line as the first reference overhead. Rallies into it tend to stall on the first attempt.

Price sitting on the Weekly Wall: expect a fight. The heaviest hedging on the chart is concentrated right there, and the market usually picks a side within a session or two.

Repeated tests: each test consumes some of the positioning behind the level. A level that has been hit three or four times in a week is weaker than one being touched fresh — and a decisive close through it usually means the positioning has shifted. The next night’s lock will show the new picture.

What it’s not

• Not a buy or sell signal — it’s a measured reference level
• Not a price target — price has no obligation to reach it
• Not a guarantee — levels tend to matter; some days they don’t
• Not a stop loss — your stop belongs to your position size and risk tolerance, not to our math

Each level answers one question. The Gamma Flip: is the water calm or rough? The Weekly Wall: where is the strongest measured level, and which side of it am I on? Ask both and the read on any chart takes about 30 seconds.

Above both: calm regime with the strongest level underneath. The most constructive picture the framework can show.

Above the flip, below the Tracer: calm water, but the reaction zone sits overhead. Rallies into the Weekly Wall tend to stall on first touch — the framework favors patience over chasing into it.

Below the flip, above the Tracer: rough water with the strongest level underneath. Moves run harder in both directions; the Weekly Wall is where the fight happens if price comes down to it.

Below both: amplified regime and the strongest level overhead. The defensive picture. Cash is a position; the framework treats a reclaim of the levels as the signal that conditions have changed.

The Flow Line is the third line on the chart — drawn in blue, and marked BETA. It answers a different question than the other two: not where dealer hedging flips or concentrates, but where this week’s new options positioning flowed in — the strikes where large fresh positions were built over the last five sessions.

The mechanism, openly: every night Tracer snapshots per-strike open interest. The Flow Line is computed from the change in open interest across the trailing five sessions — a centroid of the strikes where the most new positioning appeared, weighted by each strike’s gamma proximity to the current price. Old open interest is furniture; the change is where new money just arrived.

Why that might matter: fresh positions are the ones with live defenders. The framework treats the Flow Line as a level with current skin behind it, on a swing timeframe — a few sessions, not a few hours. Like every level on the chart, it tends to matter; it is never a guarantee, a signal, or a prediction.

On names without enough snapshot history the Flow Line simply isn’t drawn yet. And when the build window is still shorter than five sessions, the line is labeled “· forming” — an honest flag that it’s measuring a short span, not the full window.

The Support Zone is a band, not a line — drawn in green, and marked BETA. It doesn’t add a new measurement; it asks a question of the measurements Tracer already makes: do the independent downside readings agree on an area below price?

The mechanism, openly: each night Tracer already computes several downside references — the put wall (the strike with the largest put-gamma concentration), the Gamma Flip when it sits below price, the Flow Line when it sits below price, and the expected-move floor (the market’s implied lower boundary). The framework takes the middle of those readings and keeps the ones that land close to it — within a quarter of the expected move. If two or more readings cluster in that same area, that band becomes the Support Zone. More overlapping sources, stronger shelf.

Some nights there is no zone — and that’s the design, not a gap. Scattered readings mean no agreement, and we say so: the framework draws nothing rather than inventing a band from readings that don’t line up. One lonely level below price is a level, not a consensus.

How to read it: price tends to slow where independent measurements stack up, because different kinds of positioning are defended in the same area. The framework treats the zone as a downside reference — a place to expect a reaction, not a floor that’s promised to hold. Nothing is guaranteed to hold, and the zone is never a prediction or an instruction.

The division of labor is strict, and it’s worth being precise about, because most services blur it on purpose.

What the AI does NOT do

• Doesn’t predict prices — it reads and synthesizes what already exists
• Doesn’t tell you to buy or sell — ever
• Doesn’t compute the levels — that’s math, and it’s deliberately kept separate
• Doesn’t claim to know what happens tomorrow — nobody does, including us
• Doesn’t replace your judgment as the trader

It reads. It synthesizes. It explains. The decision stays with you — which is exactly how it should work. What changes is that you no longer have to do the reading alone.

A theme is a story the market is funding — AI infrastructure, energy, space. The brief carries three at a time: the themes the AI reads as having legs for this cycle or the next, based on evidence, not vibes.

Themes are persistent. Each one carries a thesis, an evidence log (which sources support it and how fresh that support is), a momentum state — building, stable, or fading — and a roster of names. The nightly run updates that ledger: strengthens themes that gained evidence, weakens ones that lost it, retires the ones that are done. A theme that shows up in your brief has been earning its spot for a while, and you can see why.

How a stock makes the brief

Inside each theme, names are ranked on three requirements together:

• Technical setup — the tape structure supports the idea: trend state, volume behavior, where price sits relative to its locked levels.
• Fundamental setup — the filings and flows support it: insider buying, buybacks, accumulation, the business actually participating in the theme rather than name-dropping it.
• A real catalyst or story — something specific coming or unfolding: a launch, a contract, a policy shift, an earnings setup. A reason this name, now.

A great chart with no story doesn’t make the brief. A great story with a broken chart doesn’t either. The names that rank are the ones where the technicals, the fundamentals, and the catalyst point the same direction — and the reasoning is written out so you can disagree with it intelligently.

Trade Tracer is built for traders holding days to weeks. If you’re scalping, our outputs will feel slow. If you’re holding for years, we’ll feel too active. The sweet spot is the swing window.

Morning routine (5 minutes)

• Read the regime sentence first. It sets your posture for everything else — is dealer hedging dampening or amplifying today?
• Scan the three themes. Which are building, which are fading? That’s the context every name sits inside.
• Read the ranked priorities. Each comes with reasoning — why it ranks, where the risk lives, what would change the read.
• Open the chart on anything you’re considering. Check where price sits relative to its Gamma Flip and Weekly Wall before you decide anything.

During the day

• Don’t watch the chart all day. The levels are locked — they’re not going anywhere. Check in at decision points, not every tick.
• Use Ask the AI to pressure-test an idea against today’s locked levels and regime before you size in.
• Read Today’s Setups — the top-ranked names with the thesis, the technical read, and the levels behind each. Not instructions — a read to measure your own against.

Overnight

• Tracer re-reads everything and re-locks the levels. Tomorrow’s brief lands before the open.
• Review open positions against the new levels. A name that closed below its Gamma Flip is in a different regime than the one you bought.

Sizing is your call, not ours

The platform doesn’t tell you how big to go, and never will. Your size is a function of your account, your risk tolerance, and your conviction in the read. We publish the synthesis and the levels — the decisions are yours. If you’re unsure, default to small until you’ve watched enough cycles to know how the framework behaves in your hands.

Dealer gamma

The aggregate hedging position of options market makers. Because dealers hedge mechanically against the options they hold, their buying and selling either dampens price moves or amplifies them, depending on where price sits relative to their book. Both Trade Tracer levels are computed from this data, using the full options surface across expirations.

The Gamma Flip

The regime line — the price where dealer hedging flips from dampening moves to amplifying them. Above it, dips and rips tend to get faded; below it, moves in both directions tend to run harder. Not a directional signal: it reads the conditions, not the lean. Drawn in purple, computed nightly, locked before the open. On deeply one-sided days Tracer honestly reports "no nearby flip" rather than manufacturing one.

The Weekly Wall

The reaction zone — the price where dealer hedging concentrates most heavily, weighted toward the nearest expirations. The strongest measured level on the chart. Price tends to react at it rather than drift through: the framework treats it as the first reference underneath when price is above, and the first reference overhead when price is below. Drawn in orange, computed nightly, locked before the open.

Locked

Both levels are computed after the close and fixed before the open. They do not repaint, drift intraday, or get revised after the fact. Every locked level is scored against the next session’s actual price action.

The Daily Brief

The nightly synthesis, published before the open: three themes, roughly ten ranked priorities with written reasoning, and one regime sentence — plus locked levels on the tickers you follow.

Theme

A story the market is funding — AI, energy, space. Themes are persistent objects with a thesis, an evidence log, a momentum state (building / stable / fading), and a roster of names. They earn their place in the brief over time and are retired when the evidence fades.

Catalyst

The specific, checkable reason a name is interesting now — a launch, a contract, a filing, a policy shift, an earnings setup. Every ranked priority carries one. No catalyst, no ranking.

Regime — Aligned · Contested · Defensive

The three states a market or ticker can be in, same vocabulary and colors everywhere on the site. ALIGNED (green): price comfortably above its Gamma Flip — hedging dampens moves, conditions favor the framework’s ideas. CONTESTED (yellow): price sitting on the flip within ±1% — either side can take it; smaller size, more patience. DEFENSIVE (red): price below its Gamma Flip — hedging amplifies moves; cash is a position until the regime resets.

OPEX

Options expiration. Monthly OPEX is the third Friday of each month and reshapes dealer positioning as contracts roll off. Tracer computes across the full expiration surface, so the levels reflect these cycles instead of jumping when a single chain expires.