⛽ Futures Options — the options-on-futures market

One finished report, written after each nightly update: every futures root's implied-volatility situation, dealer regime and flow, grouped by asset class (equity index, volatility, rates, currency, energy, metals, grains, softs, livestock, crypto), and set beside its ETF twin.

💡 Why futures have their own page The futures option book is institutional and hedger-driven; the ETF book is where the equity crowd sits. Same underlying, different option market. A gap between the two is a gap in the market — and that gap is the line worth looking at.

The report fills the page and scrolls on its own. open on its own ↗ in the header shows it in a full tab. The page names the report's date in its subtitle. If no report has arrived yet, it says so — it is written after each nightly update.

What to look at first Cell tints Two eyes Twins The classes Sweep record Routine

What to look at first

A few sentences at the top: the median future's IV/RV against the median stock's, the share of roots where dealers are long gamma, how many have the near tenor above the far, how many are call-skewed, how put-heavy the tape is. The roots named in that list are marked ◆ in the tables below, so you can find them again.

What the cell tints mean

Tint / tag	Meaning
IV/RV ≥ 1.2	rich: options charge well above what the price delivered.
IV/RV ≤ 0.85	cheap: options charge less than the price delivered.
term inverted	The near tenor is above the far one — something is expected soon (backwardation).
call-skewed	Calls are bid over puts — typical of supply-shock markets (energy, grains, softs), where the fear is a spike up.
short gamma	Dealers amplify moves in this root.
put ≥ 60 % of tape	Puts were at least 60 % of the contracts traded.
turnover ≥ 2× own median	Trading far above this root's usual volume.
IV Δ5d ≥ 5 pts	IV rose by 5 or more points in five sessions.
twins split ◆	The future and its ETF disagree on a reading.

⚠ A tint is an attention mark, not a signalIt says "this reading is at an extreme", never "do something". Futures carry only a few dozen sessions of history, so an own-history percentile here is a short memory and prints its n.

Two eyes on one market

The same breadth numbers over the stock library's core and over each futures class, computed by one function — so a gap between two columns is a gap in the market, not in the arithmetic. The two tinted columns are the aggregates to compare first. Below them are four plain sentences: the index regime in two seats (ES.F against SPY), the premium, the skew, and the tape.

Twins — a future beside its ETF

Each cell reads future / ETF — for example ES.F beside SPY. A split is the line to look at, and those rows are pinned to the top.

One table per asset class

Each class opens with one summary line (how many roots have dealers long gamma, how many are call-skewed, the median IV/RV with counts rich / cheap, the put share of the tape) and then a table of its roots: price on the contract named under the root, roll-stitched changes, a sparkline, IV with its tenor, IV/RV, term, skew, gamma, tape.

Detail	How to read it
roll-stitched	At each change of contract the history is ratio-adjusted so the roll itself is a zero return (the dashed line on the sparkline). Contract rolls of the last five sessions are listed at the top.
IV	IV30 where the contract has a 30-day option, else the nearest constant-maturity tenor, else the front at-the-money. The tenor is printed. A monthly commodity contract carries one to three expiries, so its IV is often the front one.
IV/RV	IV over realised, with the single biggest session removed. "1-day" marks a realised vol that one session carries.

What the sweep has measured

A table of what each reading has been worth across 254 stocks over 13 years: for every claim, the edge over the base rate, how many names agree, and the hold-out result. The rows that survive the multiple-testing correction are pinned. It is the only place on the page with a measured record behind it — read it as what the stock side has learned about each reading, not as a score for any future above.

⚠ Direction was never predictable anywhere in the recordThe volatility readings are the ones that held up. Use the page to see where the option market is stressed or complacent, not to call a price.

🎓 Pro tipStart with the twins split rows. When a future's dealers are short gamma while its ETF's are long — the same underlying — the institutional hedgers and the equity crowd are positioned differently. That is the row to read first.

A routine that works

Read "What to look at first": rich or cheap, calm or stressed.
Compare the two eyes: stocks against futures.
Check the pinned twin splits.
Open the class that matters to you; look for the ◆ roots and the tints.
For one contract in detail, type its ticker (e.g. CL.F) in the Options Chart.