Scanning the Market with Heatmap

What Heatmap Shows You

Most MarketOptix tools focus on a single ticker. Heatmap zooms out and shows you gamma exposure across the entire market — hundreds of US equities and ETFs in one view.

Each tile represents a symbol. The size reflects relative magnitude (by market cap or total gamma). The color reflects the direction and intensity of gamma exposure: green for positive GEX, red for negative, with brightness indicating magnitude.

At a glance, you can see which sectors are in positive gamma (stable) and which are in negative gamma (volatile). You can spot outliers — individual stocks with extreme gamma positioning that might be setting up for unusual moves.

Heatmap is your starting point for the day. Scan the landscape, identify opportunities, then drill into specific tickers with the Price Levels.

Reading the Map: What to Look For

Start with the big picture. Are most tiles green or red? This tells you the broad market regime. When Heatmap is mostly green, the market tends to be calm. When it shifts red, expect broader volatility.

Next, look for outliers. A single deep red tile in a sea of green is worth investigating — that stock has unusual negative gamma that might be setting up for a large move. Conversely, a bright green tile in a red sector suggests relative stability.

Compare sectors. Tech might be in positive gamma while energy is negative. This helps with sector rotation decisions and identifying where the market's structural stress is concentrated.

You can toggle between GEX, DEX, and VEX metrics to see different exposure dimensions across the market. The VEX view is particularly useful before earnings season — it highlights which names have the most volatility sensitivity.

Custom Watchlists and Filters

Heatmap's watchlist feature lets you create custom symbol groups. Build a watchlist for your core holdings, a sector ETF list, or a "high conviction" list of stocks you're monitoring.

Custom watchlists make Heatmap personal — instead of scanning hundreds of symbols, you can focus on the 20-30 that matter to your portfolio and strategy.

Filter by market cap to focus on large caps only, or filter by sector to isolate specific industries. The combination of filters and watchlists lets you see exactly the slice of the market you care about.

Watchlists sync to your account and persist across sessions. You can create, edit, and delete lists directly from the Heatmap interface.

From Scan to Deep Dive: The Workflow

Heatmap is your starting point, not your destination. Here's the daily workflow:

1. Open Heatmap at market open. Scan the broad market — is the landscape mostly green (stable day ahead) or shifting red (volatility likely)?

2. Check your watchlist. Any names that changed color overnight? A stock that was green yesterday but red today had a structural shift — worth investigating.

3. Spot outliers. Click any tile to see a quick summary with key levels and regime. If it looks interesting, click through to the full Price Levels.

4. Drill down. Open the Price Levels for your top 2-3 ideas. Assess CW, PW, ZG, and the regime. This is where you form your actual trade thesis.

This top-down approach — market scan → sector → individual ticker → structural analysis — is how institutional desks approach market structure. Heatmap gives you that same workflow in a tool that takes 60 seconds to scan.