S&P 500 Stock Market Gamma Trading Levels Based on Options Open Interest
FOR OPTIONS & EQUITIES TRADERS
Find Trade Opportunities With SpotGamma Compass
Compass is SpotGamma’s proprietary scanner that enables you to discover new trade ideas and analyze how to trade your favorite names. Find trade opportunities across 3,500+ US stocks, ETFs, and indices to understand setups to capitalize on both volatility and directional movement.
as seen in
Find trade ideas & trade direction
"game changer! thank you. best addition to my trading setup this year."
- nam n., SpotGamma Subscriber
Key Features of Compass
Feature
why it matters
Guided View — See whether options are cheap or expensive across any name you choose, and whether the market is leaning bullish or bearish — plotted instantly on a two-axis grid
Cut through the noise to see the full volatility and positioning landscape in a single, easy-to-digest view
Explorer View — Discover custom relationships between 20+ metrics: IV Percentile, RSI, Call Skew, Proximity to key levels, Bollinger Band %, and more
Test hypotheses across multiple names to discover correlations and relationships, helping you identify interesting setups tailored to your trading strategies
Historical Trail — View how any stock has moved across the Compass grid over the past 3, 5, or 10 trading days
See whether volatility and directional conditions are increasing, peaking, or reversing across the recent trading timeframe
Hover Tooltips — Quickly understand support and resistance levels for each ticker on Compass, an overview of volatility metrics, and a potential trade setup
Receive the most critical context for structuring your trades — directly on the chart
Scanners & Watchlist Integration — Know how SpotGamma’s scanners line up with the options market volatility and directional bias, or plot your watchlist directly on Compass
Turn Compass into a systematic part of your daily workflow by surfacing important SpotGamma-flagged stocks — or your preferred list of names — directly on the Compass grid
Saved Views — Customize your Compass Explorer View axes so you can quickly cross-reference that same view each time you access the dashboard
Build consistency into your process by storing your preferred Explorer View setups
How You Can Apply Compass Today
Scan Your Watchlist Before the Open
Each morning, load your watchlist into Compass to see which names have unusually high or low implied volatility — and whether the options market is leaning bullish or bearish for each.
Find New Trade Ideas
By loading SpotGamma's proprietary scanners into the grid, you can surface high-conviction setups across the entire market. Traders routinely discover new names they'd never have considered, with favorable volatility and directional conditions to capitalize on each setup.
Optimize Trade Structure for Any Setup
Compass helps you identify how to trade the names: a high IV Rank suggests selling premium. A low Risk Reversal Rank can favor call spreads or puts. The Guided View tooltip spells it out directly — so any trader can come up with relevant trade ideas.
case study
Identifying MSTR Short Potential for 9:1 Returns
Case Study Snapshot: MSTR | Jan 29, 2026
The Setup
On January 9, 2026, Compass revealed that MSTR has relatively cheap options with downside potential.
Outcome & Why It Matters
Combined with SpotGamma’s HIRO indicator and key levels, one trader was able to structure a stock short that delivered a 9-to-1 return as MSTR fell to the anticipated price target.
Compass delivers this level of context for volatility and directional trading every trading day, across thousands of names.
For a detailed look at how Compass can be used to find trade examples, read the full case study:
Trader Capitalizes on 9:1 Downside Move
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Let Compass Guide You To Better Trade Setups
Compass is included with every SpotGamma subscription. Start scanning smarter today — and see which stocks the options market is flagging right now.
Access Compass along with SpotGamma’s daily pre-market Founder’s Note, key levels for 3,500+ names, and an engaged community of active traders.
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Compass FAQ
What is SpotGamma Compass?
Compass is SpotGamma's proprietary stock scanner that plots US equities across a two-dimensional grid to show you both the volatility environment and directional positioning for any name — based entirely on options market data. Compass helps to identify which stocks have the most actionable setups, and how to structure a trade around them.
What's the difference between Guided View and Explorer View?
Guided View uses fixed axes — IV Rank on the vertical axis and Risk Reversal Rank on the horizontal — to give you a standardized, instantly readable map of volatility and directional skew. It's best for a fast, structured scan of your watchlist or a SpotGamma scanner list. Explorer View lets you customize all three axes (x, y, and a z-axis that changes dot size) from a wide menu of metrics, so you can investigate specific relationships between data points and save your own repeatable scanning setups.
What is IV Rank and why does it matter?
IV Rank measures where a stock's current implied volatility sits relative to the past year's range. A high IV Rank means options are historically expensive — which typically favors premium-selling strategies. A low IV Rank means options are cheap relative to recent history — which can favor buying options outright. Knowing this before you structure a trade can significantly change your approach and your risk profile.
What is Risk Reversal Rank and how do I use it?
Risk Reversal Rank measures where call implied volatility sits relative to put implied volatility for the same stock, compared to the prior year. A low Risk Reversal Rank means puts are expensive relative to calls — suggesting the market has bullish positioning, and that traders might consider selling put spreads or buying calls. A high Risk Reversal Rank means calls are expensive relative to puts — indicating more bearish positioning, which may favor selling call spreads or buying puts. SpotGamma's backtesting shows that forward returns tend to be highest when Risk Reversal Rank is below 0.2.
How many stocks can I scan with Compass?
Compass can display any US-listed stock. SpotGamma's Guided View statistics are backed by data on 3,500+ US equities. You can populate the Compass grid from your personal watchlist, from any of SpotGamma's proprietary scanner lists, or by typing individual ticker symbols directly into the search bar.
What are the SpotGamma scanners I can load into Compass?
Compass integrates with SpotGamma's full suite of proprietary scanners, including: Volatility Risk Premium (names with unusually expensive options), Reverse Volatility Risk Premium (names with unusually cheap options), the Squeeze scanner (stocks with elevated short interest and gamma pressure), Highest Options Impact (names where hedging pressure is most significant), Earnings IV Crush candidates, and the six Key Level Movement scanners that track daily changes in Call Wall, Put Wall, and Hedge Wall levels.
What does the Historical Trail feature show in Compass Guided View?
The Historical Trail in Guided View lets you see how any stock has moved across the Compass grid over the prior 3, 5, or 10 trading days. This is particularly useful for spotting when a stock is breaking out of a persistent volatility or skew condition — or when it appears to be mean-reverting after an extreme reading. The historical trail adds a timing dimension to Compass instead of only showing the current snapshot.
How is Compass different from a standard stock screener?
Most stock screeners filter on price, volume, moving averages, or fundamental data. Compass is built entirely on options market signals — implied volatility, directional skew, proximity to key gamma levels, and options flow metrics. These signals reflect how institutional participants are actually positioning, which tends to be a leading indicator of price behavior rather than a lagging one. It's a fundamentally different data layer from what most retail screening tools provide.
Do I need to be an experienced options trader to use Compass?
No, Compass Guided View is designed to be approachable regardless of experience level. The hover-over tooltip on each stock includes a plain-language description of the current volatility environment and a suggested conservative trade idea — so even traders new to options can read the grid and understand the meaning. More experienced traders can layer in Explorer View and the full suite of scanner integrations for deeper analysis.
Which SpotGamma subscription tiers include Compass?
Compass is available with SpotGamma Essential and SpotGamma Alpha subscriptions. Both tiers also include Equity Hub, the Founder's Notes, and ongoing engagement through weekly subscriber Q&As plus our active Discord community.
