🗜 Gamma Squeeze — the conditions, counted
A squeeze is when dealers who must hedge are forced to chase the price, which makes a move bigger. This page checks the conditions such a move needs, in groups — Fuel (a bigger move), Up and Down (a lean), Pin (the opposite: a smaller move) — and counts how many are on.
New words? Glossary (gamma, flip, vanna, charm, skew, Bollinger). The top strip works as on every ticker page.
In 30 seconds
- Read the Fuel tile: how many conditions are on, and is that at the bar (default 3)?
- Read Compression: squeezed or open?
- Read the Phase line — a one-sentence picture of the day.
- If you want the detail, open The conditions today and see exactly which ones are on.
The four groups
| Group | The story it tells | Conditions (each against the ticker's own history) |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel | A bigger move | Dealer gamma unusually low · price below the γ flip · IV30 in its bottom fifth · IV below realised · Bollinger width in its bottom fifth · Bollinger inside Keltner (the TTM squeeze) · turnover unusually high |
| Up | Leaning up | Delta-weighted volume high · dealer charm high · dealer vanna high · 25Δ skew unusually flat (calls bid) |
| Down | Leaning down | Delta-weighted volume low · charm low · vanna low · 25Δ skew unusually steep (puts bid) |
| Pin | A smaller move | Dealer gamma unusually high · price unusually close to max pain |
"Unusually" means beyond about ±1σ of this ticker's own previous 60 sessions. A condition that could not be checked (for example the price-based ones when there are no bars) shows "—" and never counts as off.
The tiles
| Tile | How to read it |
|---|---|
| Fuel | Conditions on, of those that could be checked — and whether that is at or above your bar. |
| Direction | Up count · down count, and "leaning up / leaning down / no lean" once the gap reaches your direction setting. |
| Pin | Pin conditions on (of 2). |
| Phase | A description of the day — below. |
| Regime | Dealer gamma and where the price is against the flip. |
| Premium | IV against realised: cheap / fair / rich. |
| Compression | squeezed (Bollinger inside Keltner) or open, with the band width and realised vol. |
Two boxes in the header are yours to set: fuel bar ≥ (how many fuel conditions count as "fuelled", default 3) and direction |up − down| ≥ (how big the gap must be to call a lean, default 2).
| Fuel count | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 – 1 | No fuel: a quiet setup. |
| 2 | Some fuel. |
| 3 – 4 | Fuelled: the conditions for a bigger-than-normal move are present. |
| 5 + | Heavily fuelled: compression and short-gamma positioning together. |
The phase of the day
| Phase | The picture |
|---|---|
| LOADING | Dealers long gamma, turnover quiet: positioning builds under a lid. |
| TRIGGER | Gamma turned negative today, or turnover woke up: the lid is coming off. |
| ACCELERATION | Dealers short gamma and deepening, turnover high and rising: hedging chases the price. |
| EXHAUSTION | Turnover at an extreme and falling: the chase is running out of fuel. |
| NEUTRAL | None of the four pictures. |
The conditions today
| Column | How to read it |
|---|---|
| condition | Grouped under Fuel / Up / Down / Pin. |
| state | ON · off · — (could not be checked). |
| value | Today's reading: a z-score, a percentile, a ratio, or inside / outside. |
| test | The exact rule, e.g. "z ≤ −1" or "percentile ≤ 20". |
| why | The reason it is on the list, in one line. |
How the counts have moved
Top chart: fuel (amber), up (green), down (red) counts as steps against the price. Click pin in the legend to show it. Bottom chart: up minus down — above zero the up conditions outnumber the down ones.
| Pattern | What to look for |
|---|---|
| fuel climbing toward the bar over days | A squeeze setup forming. |
| fuel high, then price breaks out | Compare with past episodes on this ticker: did fuelled periods lead to big moves here? |
| up − down flipping sign often | Noisy direction; do not read into one day. |
Where the levels stand and The last sessions underneath give the put/call open interest, turnover, volume split and days to the front expiry, then the last sessions' counts as a table.
A routine that works
- Read Fuel, Compression and Phase: is a setup present?
- Look at Direction as a description of today's conditions, not a call.
- In the table, see which exact conditions are on — and which could turn on next.
- Use the counts chart to see with your own eyes how fuelled periods ended on this ticker before.