Who is on the other side of the trade, and what they are forced to do next.
Almost everything in a market is somebody choosing. Dealer hedging is not: a market maker who has sold options is obliged to trade the underlying to stay neutral, in a direction and size the book determines. That makes it the one flow you can reason about without guessing at intent.
The exposure is inferred, not observed. Open interest and the greeks per strike give an aggregate gamma, vanna and charm, on an assumption about which side of each contract the dealer is on. That assumption is the weak link in every version of this analysis, including this one, and it is why the sign of a large number matters more than its exact magnitude.
It describes the conditions a session opens into: whether hedging will damp moves or feed them, where the book is heaviest, and what expires. It does not forecast direction, and any tool telling you it does is selling you the correlation between positioning and price without the causation.
The aggregate option exposure market makers carry, and the hedging in the underlying that exposure obliges them to do. It is the part of order flow that is mechanical rather than discretionary, which is what makes it possible to reason about without guessing at anyone’s intent.
No. It is inferred, never observed. Open interest and the greeks per strike give an aggregate exposure only once you assume which side of each contract the dealer is on. That assumption is the weak link in every published version of this analysis, including this one, and anyone presenting the output as an observation rather than an inference is overselling it.
It does not, and a tool claiming otherwise is selling you the correlation between positioning and price without the causation. What it describes is the conditions a session opens into: whether hedging will damp moves or feed them, where the book is heaviest, and what expires.
Dealer gamma across the expiry curve, and a written read every session.
CREATE A FREE ACCOUNT, NO CARD