QQQ is 728.06 pre-open, up 6.61 on a Trump–Xi summit bid — a gap of 1.6 implied moves before the bell. Expiry took the book with it: total GEX fell from $11.8B to $1.3B and net GEX flipped to −$216.1M. Between spot and the 735 call wall there is almost no gamma at all. Thin books do not pin, they let price travel — and the strong magnet on the page is 715, not 735.
Spot is 728.06 on the bid, corroborated three ways: the watchlist bid at 728.06, the chart print at 728.06 and the InsiderFinance page at 728.12. The watchlist’s 721.45 last is Friday’s close, so the index is up 6.61, or 0.92 percent, before the bell. The extended session ran from a 724.43 low to a 729.14 high. Net GEX is −$216.1M on a 0.71 call/put ratio, with call GEX at $536.8M on 62,925 contracts against put GEX of −$752.9M on 153,629. Total GEX is $1.3B on 216,554 contracts. The run: $845.4M last Monday, $4.1B Tuesday, $2.9B Wednesday, $2.8B Thursday, $11.8B on Friday’s quarterly expiry, and $1.3B this morning. That is 11 percent of Friday’s gamma on 8 percent of the contracts, and the smallest book since last Monday’s $845.4M. The ratio went from 1.50 to 0.71. Friday’s book was net long by $2.3B. This one is net short.
Friday’s read called 716.61 zero gamma the line, 720 the magnet, and a pin near 720 as the default above the flip. The chart shows price still sitting just above the flip, around 716.5 to 717, into early afternoon — held, not broken. The last three hours ground up through value and the wall, and the close printed 721.45 — 1.45 above the 720 magnet and 15 cents under the 721.60 VAH, the upside path’s second target. The pin call was right about direction and a strike too low on location. Friday’s post also said the expiry book would not carry into Monday. It did not: the $11.8B rolled off, and this morning’s gap was built on a book one-ninth the size.
Written at 9:02 a.m. ET, twenty-eight minutes before the open. Spot is live and corroborated across the watchlist bid, the chart print and the GEX page. Today’s option chain prices the 0DTE expiry at 24.95 percent implied vol and a ±4.127 move. Re-pull at 9:30 — on a post-expiry Monday the 0DTE book is rebuilt from almost nothing, and the first hour changes it more than usual.
The Macro Tape
The week opens on the summit. The market-risk note on the wire: stocks and bonds advanced in an upbeat start to the week as oil prices fell and optimism grew ahead of a meeting between President Trump and China’s Xi Jinping. Xi’s state visit to the US starts Wednesday night. Lower oil and firmer bonds together are a different tape from Friday’s, when falling oil could not stop yields from climbing.
The Fed’s Goolsbee spoke this morning and leaned against the idea that rates are a problem: long rates are historically not particularly high and do not reflect a loss of confidence in the US; services inflation is a product of strong demand, not the oil shock; and the Fed should be open to making the SEP more informative. It is the first Fed voice since Friday’s post, and it reads as a Fed that is not worried about the long end. Williams, Jefferson and Barkin follow tomorrow.
Vol is quiet and the index complex is broad. VIX closed Friday at 14.87, under Friday morning’s 15.51. The 0DTE expiry is at 24.95 percent implied vol with a ±4.127 move, against 20.49 percent for tomorrow and 18.97 percent for Friday — the front is inverted, with today pricing more than the rest of the week. /NQ is up 1.05 percent and /MES up 0.65 percent. SPY is up 0.62 percent, DIA up 0.83 percent and IWM up 0.77 percent. Friday was a Nasdaq-only bid. This morning everything is green.
On single names, INTC leads the board, up 5.85 percent at 114.95, with AMD up 3.34 percent at 578.50. META is up 2.29 percent at 681.00. GOOGL has product news on the wire — $899-and-up Googlebook AI laptops, shipping October 4. AAPL is the only flat name on the screen.
The Gamma Map
| Level | Price | What It Is |
|---|---|---|
| Call Gamma | 736.00 | Top of the 0DTE heatmap, $5.0M — just past the wall |
| Call Wall | 735.00 | Only meaningful call bar above spot, roughly $30M; +0.94 percent; 1.68x the implied move |
| Implied High | 732.19 | Upper bound of the 0DTE expected move |
| PH | 729.14 | Extended-session high |
| VAH | 728.53 | Value area high |
| SPOT | 728.06 | Bid; inside value between POC and VAH; strong volatility signal at spot |
| POC | 727.69 | Point of control |
| VAL | 725.68 | Value area low; top edge of the call gamma block |
| PL | 724.43 | Extended-session low |
| Call Gamma | 724.00 | Heaviest bar in a 719–726 call block, roughly $60M |
| Implied Low | 723.93 | Lower bound of the 0DTE expected move |
| Prior Close | 721.45 | Friday cash close; the gap fill |
| Call Gamma | 719.00 | Lower edge of the call block |
| Put Wall / Magnet | 715.00 | Heaviest bar on the map, roughly $290M of put gamma; rated a strong magnet and a strong volatility trigger below; 3.16x the implied move |
| Put Gamma | 710.00 | Second put bar, roughly $80M |
| Zero Gamma | 707.90 | The flip; rated moderate support; 4.89x the implied move below |
The Line: 725.68
Zero gamma is 707.90, 20.16 points under spot. Against a ±4.127 implied move, that is almost five moves away. It is not the line today. The flip is the floor of the regime, not a level the open will test.
The level that decides the morning is 725.68 — the value area low, and the top edge of the only positive gamma near price, a 719–726 call block with its heaviest bar around 724. Above it, price is in accepted overnight value with nothing but thin air to 735. Below it, price leaves value and walks back into the gap, toward the 721.45 close.
The page’s net GEX is negative even though spot sits 20 points above the flip. That is not a contradiction — it is one strike. The 715 put bar alone is roughly $290M, about the size of the entire 719–726 call block combined, and together with the smaller put bars it drags the whole-book sum below zero. Near price the book is simply thin: a small call block under spot, one small call bar at 735, and very little between 728 and 735. The page’s first signal is strong volatility at spot, and the squeeze screener reads bullish squeeze likely at 68 out of 100. Neither is a forecast. They mean nothing is obligated to stop a move in either direction.
The strong magnet is 715, 13.06 points down and more than three implied moves away. That is where the gamma is. It is not where price is likely to go on a normal day, but it is where the book pulls if the gap fails and keeps failing.
Structure
POC is 727.69, VAH 728.53 and VAL 725.68. The value area is 2.85 points wide and sits entirely above Friday’s close. Price at 728.06 is in the upper half of value, 37 cents over POC and 47 cents under VAH. Extended range: 724.43 to 729.14. The overnight gapped, built value near the top of the move, and has held it.
Two clusters matter. Above: VAH 728.53 and the 729.14 extended high, 61 cents apart — the overnight’s ceiling. Below: VAL 725.68, the 724.43 extended low, the 724 call bar and the 723.93 implied low, all within 1.75 points. That lower cluster is the support shelf for the gap. It is also exactly one implied move under spot.
The wider frame: QQQ closed at 704.72 last Wednesday before the Fed. It is 23.34 points higher three sessions later, most of it made overnight. Friday’s close at 721.45 settled above the prior 720 wall. This morning adds another gap on top. A gap that holds is accepted. A gap on a book this thin has nothing underneath it until the call block at 719–726.
Cross-Asset
Semis stopped leading on Friday. This morning they are leading again, hard.
SOXL is near 132.47 against a 123.67 close, up about 7.1 percent. It is inside value, above its 131.21 POC and under its 133.64 VAH, with VAL at 129.00 and the period range 126.93 to 133.42 — near the top of its range, but not through it. SMH is up 1.75 percent at 583.03. INTC is up 5.85 percent, AMD 3.34 percent, ON 1.63 percent and AOSL 1.50 percent. NVDA is the laggard at up 0.60 percent. This is a broad semis bid, and it is not being led by the largest name.
Megacap is mixed. META is up 2.29 percent at 681.00, AMZN up 0.51 percent at 255.01, MSFT up 0.26 percent at 495.07, SNOW up 0.25 percent at 333.25, and AAPL flat at 336.03. MAGS is near 71.1 against a 70.46 close, up about 0.9 percent, above its 71.09 POC and under its 71.27 VAH, with VAL at 70.68 and the period range 70.69 to 71.50. Like QQQ, it is sitting in the upper half of overnight value.
The leveraged pairs confirm the breadth. TQQQ is up 3.10 percent and SQQQ down 3.12 percent. SPXL is up 1.92 percent and SPXS down 1.95 percent. VIX at 14.87 is under Friday morning’s 15.51. Friday, only Nasdaq was green and inside Nasdaq it was mostly META. This morning it is everything, with semis at the front.
The Opening Call
The burden of proof is on the upside to accept above 728.53 VAH and the 729.14 extended high. It is on the downside to lose 725.68 VAL and then the 724.43 extended low and hold under them. Between those, price is in value and the book has little to say.
The honest read is non-directional with a travel bias. A $1.3B net-short book does not pin. The absence of a floor is also an absence of a ceiling: nothing between 728 and 735 slows a move up, and nothing between 724 and 715 slows a move down once the call block is gone. The cross-asset picture favors the upside. The gamma picture does not care. Whichever side wins the first thirty minutes gets more follow-through than it deserves.
The detail worth naming: a 1.6-implied-move gap means a lot of today’s range has already been used before the bell. The 0DTE chain is pricing ±4.127 from here, not from Friday’s close. If the gap holds, the implied high at 732.19 is the realistic top. If it fills, 721.45 is 1.6 moves down — the full expected range and then some.
Upside Path
Trigger: Hold 725.68 VAL through the open, then acceptance above 729.14 on cash volume.
Targets: 732.19 implied high, then the 735.00 call wall.
Invalidation: Loss of 725.68 VAL.
The first job is clearing the overnight ceiling. VAH 728.53 and the 729.14 high are 61 cents apart, and acceptance above both puts price in open space. There is no call gamma between there and 735 to sell into, so a move that starts can run. The 732.19 implied high is the realistic first stop. The 735 wall is 1.68 implied moves up and is only $30M — a marker, not a wall in Friday’s sense. If the squeeze screener is right, 735 is where it stops, not where it starts.
Downside Path
Trigger: A clean break of 725.68 VAL and the 724.43 extended low on volume.
Targets: 723.93 implied low, then the 721.45 gap fill and the 719 lower edge of the call block.
Invalidation: Reclaim and hold 725.68.
A dip into 726 is the gap testing value. A trade under 724.43 that holds is the one that changes the day. That takes price out of overnight value and through the call block’s heaviest bar, and the 723.93 implied low is only 50 cents further. From there, the gap fill at 721.45 is the natural target, with 719 the last call gamma on the way down. Below 719 there is nothing positive until the 715 put wall — the strong magnet and a strong volatility trigger if it trades. That is more than three implied moves away and not a target on a normal day. It is where the book’s hedging turns disorderly if everything above it fails.
Catalysts
- 9:30 a.m. ET — cash open. Re-pull the book; the post-expiry 0DTE book is being built from scratch.
- 1:45 p.m. ET — Trump at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Summit headlines are the tape’s main driver this week.
- Already out: Fed’s Goolsbee at 6:30 a.m. ET — long rates not particularly high, services inflation driven by demand, open to a more informative SEP.
- Oil lower and bonds firmer into the Trump–Xi summit; VIX closed Friday at 14.87.
The Week Ahead
Tuesday, September 22 — Fed’s Williams at 10:05 a.m. ET and Jefferson at 10:20 a.m. ET. 2-year note auction at 1:00 p.m. ET; prior high yield 4.204 percent, bid-to-cover 2.600. Fed’s Barkin at 1:00 p.m. ET.
Wednesday, September 23 — S&P Global flash PMIs at 9:45 a.m. ET: services forecast 55.9 vs 56.5, manufacturing 53.6 vs 53.9, composite 54.7 vs 56.0. Fed’s Barr at 10:05 a.m. ET. EIA crude inventories at 10:30 a.m. ET, prior −0.640M. 5-year note auction at 1:00 p.m. ET; prior 4.393 percent, bid-to-cover 2.370. Xi’s state visit to the US begins at midnight ET, running through Thursday.
Thursday, September 24 — Fed’s Williams at 4:10 a.m. ET, Barkin, and weekly jobless claims. Costco reports after the close at 4:15 p.m. ET; EPS estimate $6.53, revenue $94.92B.
The main event is the Trump–Xi summit, and it is already in the price — this morning’s gap is the optimism trade. Micron reports September 30, the week after, which now matters more with semis back in front. No market holidays this week.
Levels are levels. Wait for the trigger, know your invalidation before you enter, and size to your own risk tolerance and account.
Hunt the Day. Own the Trade.
This is educational content, not financial advice. Options carry substantial risk of loss.
0DTE Hunter 
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