CBOE

Decent-Door-8993

The whole CYA line from Schwab tracks perfectly with how these things always roll out, new regs drop but the brokers drag their feet updating internal policies because nobody wants to be the first to blink. The 30 day window is clearly spelled out in that CBOE circular, so it's not like this is ambiguous fine print territory. What gets me is the lack of transparency, you'd think they'd at least say "we're reviewing the updated guidance" instead of pretending the question doesn't exist. Classic move of hoping you'll just accept the old penalty and move on. Glad you got yours lifted at the 30 day mark though, that's the real confirmation everyone needed.

RubiksPoint

I got it from CBOE [here](https://www.cboe.com/markets/us/futures/market-statistics/historical-data/futures/)

RubiksPoint

CBOE has an index called SHORTVOL that goes very far back. I used to back test on this fairly frequently.

Nearby-Guest-7684

Yeah this happens more than people think. When CBOE or your broker's data feed goes down, you're just stuck can't see prices, can't adjust, can't hedge. thats actually one of the reasons I started looking at on-chain options like Hypercall (built on Hyperliquid).

fomoandyoloandnogrow

Ikr it’s even crazier that the CBOE is in Chicago too

Sasaman36

Yeah this happens more than people think. When CBOE or your broker's data feed goes down, you're just stuck can't see prices, can't adjust, can't hedge, maybe only if you try on-chain alts like hypercall (built on hyperliquid)

Backrus

No idea - I'm not really a bond trade, you have to find somebody smarter. When it comes to vol, I track those: - [VXV/VIX Ratio](https://ibb.co/0p8qW5rP) (not updated because CBOE stopped updating their data source on Sep 22) - [inverse MOVE vs S&P](https://ibb.co/Mxd7qxBB) - [DSPX/COR3M](https://ibb.co/N2JRR5jL) (same thing) - [HYG/SPY div](https://ibb.co/rKpjwjy5)

iron_condor34

I've made the same point before with the CC etf's or comparing the PUT and BXM indexes from CBOE compared to the SPX. People will hear what they want but falling into that income trap is bad. Better for us though with all the single name stock vol people here love to sell. Plus, those etf's and bigger investment firms selling vol too on single names. Makes things cheaper lol

Equivalent_Camel_484

Right. The 390 figure is more of a regulation that needs to be enforced by the broker and from the conversation I had with my broker after being dinged with the 390 rule, it was a conversation of "we didn't want to label you, we're required by CBOE rules to label you; call us in 30 days and you'll be good." The part about the markout, toxic flow and adverse selection is appears to be driven monetarily, partly by bad actors taking advantage of broker trading mechanisms sometimes.

watercooling

Hyperliquid is basically a blockchain orderbook; permissionless meaning anyone can deposit and trade long/short with leverage without KYC, as well as build apps on top (including deploying markets). Actually pretty great tech, especially for people without access to US financial infrastructure. It’s outperformed all through the crypto bear market since October, I faded the token HYPE at $8 but still hit a clean 2.5x. Now they’re going for US regulatory compliance, Trump mentioned it by name recently (of course it’s an insider traders dream for reasons already mentioned, plenty of 8-9 figure oil trades have been made before Iran announcements lol), it’s definitely going to eat some of the retail trader market share from CBOE/CME.

MajesticBread9147

Small ones that are looked over imo are: Trekor minerals [$TGB] a company that has owned A copper mine in BC for years but recently opened a mine in Arizona using a technology that's basically fracking but for copper, yet it's more environmentally friendly and uses significantly less resources. No big pit or tunnels. They pump a weak acid into the ground, and then pump that back up with even more pressure to get everything and make sure it doesn't get into the water. This means that their cost per pound is super low, particularly regarding their fuel usage. Energy Recovery Inc [$ERII] who manufactures pressure exchanger technology that are able to be added to cyclical-high pressure systems, primarily desalination plants and water filtration and recovery from industrial uses. Water filtration requires very high pressure liquid and their devices can be added on to the part of systems after the "high pressure" part is no longer needed to transfer that energy back to the beginning of the cycle, thus massively increasing efficiency. Their pressure exchangers can run in desalination plants for 30 years before maintenance is needed, and can reduce energy needs in desalination plants by 60%. They are in a cyclclical business dominated by large projects, but enjoy a neae-monopoly in that space. So a project being delayed by a quarter means stock drops due to large earnings miss, but then it jumps up the next one. They're currently being held back by the Iran war, but they've pointed out that during Covid despite order slowdowns demand jumped the next year to maintain their expected CAGR. Some major ones that I think are undervalued are American Express which should be self-explanatory and CBOE which specifically cites the proliferation of options trading by retail investors as a headwind for them.

NervousChemistry7401

CNBC live shot in CBOE and you hear everyone screaming “buy!” You know what to do.

duboilburner

I don't think there is as much liquidity in futures options as there are in the actual index options. The problem with futures options is futures as a whole are done through CME, including their options. CME doesn't release accurate position data flows. Only CBOE does that, and CBOE only does it for SPX and VIX--nothing else. So, GEX analysis for anything other than SPX or VIX is going to be with either the naive model or an inference model, which simply isn't going to be accurate. /ES futures you can get useful levels thanks to the accurate SPX options positions if you have that data. Market makers delta hedge their SPX options book with /ES futures.

Sean_VasDeferens

CBOE has been trading SPX 24/5 for a few years now.

duboilburner

I count 4, not 5. There might be more now, I don't know. It's pretty easy to spot naive gamma models. They're "too neat" with a smooth progression from positive to negative gamma as you go down in strikes. Once you're in "negative gamma," there is no random positive gamma individual strikes with the naive model. The naive model is only showing you where things are going from call dominated to put dominated, which is why it looks the way it does. Once you see the difference between the models, it becomes \*very\* easy to spot. Because the real dealer positions are not anywhere near as neat as that. The accurate models will tell you exactly how much market makers are short or long and of what type of contracts. I had been an UnusualWhales subscriber for a long time, and was there when they introduced Periscope. I had listened to Brent Kochuba a number of times thanks to him appearing on Tastylive's "Jones & Friends" show forever ago (at least as far back as 2021, maybe 2022). I happened across VolSignals randomly on twitter in early 2025 and saw him, time stamped and everything, demonstrate knowing when price was going to stop, pause and eventually reverse intraday. So, I joined his chat to see if I could find out more. Turns out he was using OptionsDepth at the time for the accurate data and swore by it. He has since created his own model with his own developers--many of whom are relationships he had from when he was a market maker himself, and starting selling subscriptions to it towards the end of 2025. CBOE sells the accurate positioning data, the above 4 are just the companies I know of who parse it and display it in their own way--and it's generally cheaper to buy from them and use their already processed product than it would be to pay CBOE directly yourself. They're able to defray the costs by selling subscriptions. I do like OptionsDepth and VS3D for their gradient maps that update with the every 10 minute position updates. SpotGamma may have something similar--I'm not sure, but Periscope does not. Periscope just has the greeks by strike and positions by strike. The charm gradient graphs in particular are very useful from OD and VS3D once you understand what it's telling you about what market makers need to do as time passes closer to expiration.

Popular_Cap8269

I looked on CBOE, but didn’t find it. Do you have the link please?

planeage

SPX or XSP (both are index, cash settled, and European style). XSP is the CBOE 1/10th scale S & P 500 index (just like SPY with a lower management fee so it's like $2 or $3 higher than SPY at any given moment. You sorry have the benefit of being about to trade XSP options 23/5 on Robinhood, meaning you can trade the options at 2:00 AM on Tuesday if you so desire

Ken385

With XSP, there is no routing difference. All orders will be routed to the CBOE, as it is single listed there.

Life-Trade-6514

they've been moving it to 4:15 recently once CBOE closes

LaconicB

With index options on CBOE, not much of a difference that I’ve found. I’ve only used SPX and XSP.  I’ve tested the same strikes with brokers like Schwab and tastytrade, and it’s all the same. I might have a better fill with Tastytrade by 1 cent but when it’s time to exit, I have a better fill at Schwab by 2 cents. 

Ken385

If you are trading XSP (or SPX) your broker doesn't really matter. All orders will be sent to the CBOE as these products are single listed here. These orders are as not desirable for the payment for order flow buyers because of this. You will get possible price improvements through the CBOE's AIM (Automatic Improvement Mechanism) for single orders and through COA (Complex order auction) for spreads. One advantage of Robinhood is you will have access to the after hours seesions in XSP an SPX.

LaconicB

You’re talking about index options that trade exclusively on CBOE. They do not have PFOF, the exchange charges a fee for those. 

Nelsonsrightknacker

CBOE Interest Rate 10 Year T No (^TNX) 5.0000 +0.0040 (+0.08% 5%

Nelsonsrightknacker

CBOE Interest Rate 10 Year T No (^TNX) 4.9980 +0.0020 (+0.04%) GREEN

Nelsonsrightknacker

CBOE Interest Rate 10 Year T No (^TNX) 4.9880 -0.0080 (-0.16%)

Got_Engineers

That is interesting and expected. I can’t remember by what the source was from but It was from CBOE. I believe it was over the last few years. The most profitable trade by sharpe ratio was selling puts. There is also an insane amount of covered call ETF and market makers that exist in that shorter too longer dated timeframe such as tenors of less than one month. I believe there’s distinct levels of market makers that exist across micro structure, time frames and the covered call people are always there waiting. So it doesn’t surprise me that the covered call is on top of the list is it has the most eyeballs . If you assume this list is correct in these are the best strategies on paper, you also can think about the game theory aspect of the people or participants in these markets on these strategies. Most of these top rank strategies would have the most players and participants and eyeballs. You know such as the case because there’s always gonna be multipliers more people trying to sell you options than buying them from you. So you have to ask yourself if I know all this information how can I still win? For a retail trader I think the biggest edge is exist in directional trading strategies alone because you’re not competing with as many people. The people selling the cheapest most depressed short dated options are not doing it because they want to. They’re doing it because they’re managing their books. Almost every other of these risk premia strategies you’re competing against everyone. Focusing on long call and outs or risk reversals on short dated timeframes, you’re probably competing with someone that has to be there because of their own book. So if you know, they have to be there it’s much easier to anticipate. I digress

RuleSafe6767

Sure; Ive watched AMZN trade on CBOE's exchanges almost daily for years. You can see the orderbook here (and watch it in realtime): https://www.cboe.com/us/equities/market_statistics/book/amzn/ Click the EDGX, EDGA, BZX, and BYX exchanges to see the daily volume. When AMZN volatility drops combined with price nearing a multi-month VWAP low, high volume days like this means institutions are loading up (and have exhausted the dark pools; so they take from the lit markets). Now, this is no guarantee that this is some kind of bottom, but it usually means institutions are comfortable with the price, and they're not going to care if it goes a bit lower. These high volume days usually span a week or so. Historically, Ive watched these play out in the 180s, 200s, and 220s. Usually price has fallen around these events, but with enough time, they have usually proven to be pretty good. If the market keeps selling off, my guess we could see AMZN touch high 220s but probably not much worse.

RuleSafe6767

Above average volume on CBOE exchanges for AMZN today. Bought call spreads.

Nelsonsrightknacker

CBOE 5.01 % just saying

Nelsonsrightknacker

5.01 +0.05 (+0.91%) IT happened again CBOE !

tinim9

I asked Claude AI agent this: *"Schwab filled 10 SPX options contract $10 cheaper than intrinsic value. Please look at the attached images and let me know your take on this issue.*" Below is the response. OP, you have case. Looking at your images: you had a **stop-market** sell order on the SPXW 7690 put (stop = $85.00), and it filled in three pieces at 11:05 AM — $75.30, $74.90, and $74.90 — for an average fill around **$74.94**. Here's the intrinsic value problem: * At **11:05 AM**, SPX was at **$7,594.84** (image 3). Intrinsic value of the 7690 put = 7690 − 7594.84 = **$95.16**. * At **11:06 AM**, SPX was at **$7,605.16** (image 2). Intrinsic value = 7690 − 7605.16 = **$84.84**. Either way you slice it, your contracts filled roughly **$10–20 below intrinsic value** at the moment they executed. That's the issue you're flagging, and it's a legitimate one — for a cash-settled, European-style index option like SPX/SPXW, the price should almost never trade meaningfully below intrinsic value, because there's no early-exercise arbitrage but market makers still generally won't sell below intrinsic (they'd be handing away a "free" $10–20 per contract, ×10 contracts ×100 = $10,000–20,000). **What likely happened:** 1. **Stop-market orders have no price protection.** Your order was a *stop*, not a *stop-limit*. Once SPX hit the level that triggered your $85 stop, the order became a plain market order and filled at whatever the prevailing bid was — not at $85, and not tied to intrinsic value at all. 2. **The chart shows exactly the kind of whipsaw that causes this.** Between \~10:40 and 11:15, SPX was swinging violently (down to the 7590s, back up, down again). During fast, volatile moves like that, option quotes/bids can go stale, gap, or get temporarily thin, so a market order can print well away from fair value for a few seconds. 3. **Multiple small fills at the same lousy price (8 contracts at $74.90) suggests you hit a thin/stale bid**, not necessarily a "flash crash" print — likely a market maker's resting bid that hadn't updated fast enough during the swing, and your market order swept it. **What this does** ***not*** **necessarily mean:** it doesn't automatically mean Schwab did something wrong — the exchange, not the broker, determines whose bid gets hit, and Schwab is obligated to route for best execution among *displayed* quotes, not to guarantee intrinsic-value pricing. But a fill that far below intrinsic, especially across multiple fills, is exactly the kind of thing brokers and exchanges will review as a **potential erroneous trade / "clearly erroneous execution."** **What I'd do:** * Call Schwab's trading desk (not just chat) and specifically ask for a **trade execution review / clearly erroneous trade claim**, citing the SPX level at 11:05 AM ET vs. your fill price. * Ask Schwab to check whether **CBOE (SPX's listing exchange)** flagged that print as erroneous — exchanges have rules (e.g., CBOE Rule on erroneous trades) for options executed a set dollar/percentage amount away from theoretical value in fast markets. * Get the **time & sales / NBBO snapshot** for SPXW 7690P at 11:05 AM from Schwab — if the NBBO bid was actually higher than $74.90 at that instant, you have a strong case your order was filled outside the NBBO, which is a real violation. I'm not a lawyer or financial advisor, so treat this as informational, not a guarantee of outcome — but the numbers you've shown are a legitimate basis to push Schwab for a review or adjustment.

Galadon17

And VIX as well, also CBOE exclusive

papakong88

SPX Pros: * Higher liquidity, however, I do not find it a problem for NDX SPX Cons: * Lower premium * Price increment at 5 cents vs NDX at 1 cent - a disadvantage for spreads * Additional CBOE fee of 0.75 per contract - NDX has none

FamiliarPermission

Note they said: "subject to regulatory review". CBOE made a different announcement last year about allowing trading of expiring AM-settled index options on their expiration date and they said that would be effective September 2025. That still hasn't happened. Link to that article on their official website: https://www.cboe.com/notices/content/?id=55365

Ready-Molasses-7093

so happy to see AM expiry options now. i really hope they do this for more underlyings, especially NDX and RUT. we love you CBOE

scotty9090

Here’s the CBOE’s page on it: https://www.cboe.com/tradable-products/sp-500/xsp-options/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PMI-Retail-S&P-500-Suite---SPX/XSP-Non-Brand---US/NL/HK&utm_term=NA&utm_content=XSP-NB-EXT&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23423593416&gclid=Cj0KCQjw--7UBhCpARIsAGJBptjGrSVsfVPvsnX2YFdz3iV5ieGzWHTEJvnbpdUjdPBmYmQt0J3lf9saAsGiEALw_wcB

Got_Engineers

CBOE had research a while ago, where they said selling puts has been the most profitable trade on Wall Street by sharpe ratio.

Im_a_good_Gentle-man

nobody cares about CBOE closing bell wtf

BullshittingApe

Replicating this site would be a same-day job for Claude — everything on it is off-the-shelf SaaS scaffolding wrapped around a simple rules engine, with zero proprietary tech, IP, or hard-to-source data. What the site actually is It's a single-page marketing site + gated dashboard for a $37/mo SPX/ES "gamma wall" scoring tool. Strip away the copy and it's four components: a landing page, an 11-field scoring readout (Wall Strength, GEX Regime, Flip Proximity, Directional Bias, Wall Shift/Migration, Risk Warning), a Stripe paywall, and a scheduled job that recalculates the scores through the trading day. Why nothing here is proprietary The data isn't theirs. Gamma exposure (GEX) is computed from public options open interest and Greeks — the same inputs every GEX tool (SpotGamma, GammaEdge, unofficial free trackers) already uses. There's no unique dataset here, just a standard options-chain feed (e.g., CBOE, Polygon, Tradier, or a free options API) run through a gamma-exposure formula that's published and well-documented. The "scoring" is just labeled thresholds. Fragile/Moderate/Strong/Dominant, the confidence score, "flip proximity as a multiple of expected move" — these are all deterministic bucket rules on top of GEX math, not a trained model or secret sauce. Claude can write that logic directly from the plain-English descriptions already sitting in the page copy. The frontend is a template pattern. Hero, "how it works" 3-step, feature breakdown with screenshots, single pricing tier, FAQ, disclaimer footer — this is the standard indie-SaaS landing page structure, almost certainly built fast with Next.js/React + Tailwind + a component library, deployed on Vercel. Nothing about the layout, animations, or copy tone is technically defensible. The infra is commodity. Stripe for billing, a cron job or serverless function for the intraday refresh, a database row per session snapshot. All boilerplate any competent dev (or Claude) assembles from memory. None of these steps involve novel engineering — it's assembling known primitives. Want me to build a working clone right now?

kmouratidis

After today my only hope is for an Iranian missile to hit CBOE's headquarters and wipe out my option trades.

Fit_Equal6932

From the CBOE's perspective they count how orders show up on the exchange, a broken up order will count as multiple. Here is the technicality. Let's say there are 10 contracts at a $1 and another 10 at $1.10, you send an order to lift 20 contracts with a limit price of $1.10, the exchange sees it as a single order but would print two fills for it. In this case you used up 1 order. Let's say the wholesaler did split up the order and gave you fills from multiple exchanges then you would have utilized multiple orders since each exchange will count the one it saw. Most people never have to deal with this. A lot of people who trade a lot do scalping with small contract sizes and are fine with the simple assumption. But if you are also putting on large sizes and sending a lot of orders then you need to be aware of all these subtleties.

fujimonster

and all of them have that rule -- it's a CBOE rule, the 390 per day average rule

mookie_uke1619

The market will gain and lose a percent every day to trade flat daily through the foreseeable future. Options are priced beyond the range. Any move is a loser. Sit this out until the algorithms and CBOE options writers are no longer able to fleece the retail trader.

iron_condor34

"I keep reading about delta-neutral strategies. Is delta neutrality particularly useful when IV is low, or am I conflating two separate concepts?" All delta neutral means is you're trying to take on no directional exposure of the underlying. Isolating for the movement of the underlying you're trading. And changes in implied vol. But, there will be some directional exposure taken due to once the underlying moves, your deltas will obv change. Then you'd come up with an idea of when to hedge your deltas. "• How do you approach low-IV environments? Do you simply sell less premium, or switch strategies/exposures?" You're a retail trader. You can go and look for areas of the market that are moving around. If stocks aren't moving, go look at bonds, or metals, etc. You can keep selling vol but then it really becomes a game of sizing and risk. Also, short vol can be pretty good when vol is "low" because you make money when the underlying isn't moving. You have to come up with the distinction if it's worth it to sell. Looking into volatility risk premium would be worth your while. With the Vix; I wouldn't blindly trade seasonality outside of maybe holidays. It can be a pretty good trade to be short vol into a holiday. September maybe historically good for volatility; doesn't mean it's always given to go up. You also can't trade the VIX index. You can trade VIX options, futures or the vol etp's. Your best bet is to pay attention more to the futures. Spot VIX maybe at 14 but September VX futs are trading at 16.9 and OCT is 18.73. That's what you're trading. There's good material online to read about the VIX. CBOE has the white paper on it plus the VIX decomposition that came out last year.

Antifragilitee

Haven't read that one — on it now, thanks. From my results and your Summary it sounds like we may have converged on the same headline: implementation (especially when you sell) dominates the strategy design?? On granularity: my archive is EOD only — every listed contract with bid/ask, volume, OI and greeks at each close, which for $590 is absurd value. Intraday exists (CBOE DataShop etc.) but it's an order of magnitude more money. Worth knowing for my numbers: the 50x trigger is checked on daily closes, so the big monetisations (86x, 107x) are close prints — a live intraday trigger would have seen different (possibly better, possibly worse) fills on the actual panic days. And yeah, happy to talk more — here or DMs!

ThatsAllFolksAgain

Options should be outlawed. They should change the CBOE operations using the polymetric betting model. Break the link between shares and options. The options have just become too easy to manipulate for the likes of Citadel and Jane Street. This legal theft must be stopped.

RuleSafe6767

Anyone picking up cheap AMZN on CBOE EDGX weekends trading right now? It traded as low as 223, but is now around 256. You can see the orderbook and trades: https://www.cboe.com/us/equities/market_statistics/book/amzn/, click the EDGX exchange

AphexPin

CBOE is a completely different feed. OPRA is not 'wrong', you have austigmatism and should see a doctor ASAP. You can get OPRA for $200/mo. It's what most people do. And the OF is unsigned, and it's most the options volume. Pull your head out of your ass.

D4vidWebb

Where do you get the data? From a CBOE API or do you scrape it or something like that? Genuinely interested. Looks good :)

vandalizethethief

Hey man, just go look at this website. I would never share this filth unless it was surprise. owned by SoFi who is like an abusive bank. First, it’s “check out my high interest saving account”. Then it was don’t you want to pay me $120 a year for access to that interest? What, hell no. Then you offer me 1% match on taxable accounts now it’s 2% percent but it’s given up front so they have horrible clawbacks. I had no idea and deposited $10k to buy automates, mainly CAIE and CAGE plus a little bit of long term bonds that I figure if they go tits up then I will be worried about looters not my portfolio. Don’t sign up for anything just look at what AI trading is good at it and all great traders are good at it because it works quickly but this is more established strategies you can copy and adapt. Basically, you want money or to be famous on some The drawdowns suck though but stick to the tried and true quant models https://www.composer.trade I also called out Hyperliquid and PURR months ago and mentioned them by name in a NASDAQ goes to 23/7 or whatever. It got an insane amount of upvotes but I said “because of Hyperliquid”. Now look at these bums over at the CME, CBOE and NASDAQ. Scared shitless of perps. Faster, less fees, better design and now they can’t have their fees because as a token holder you basically get 99% of Hyperliquid’s revenue of fees through 24/7 buybacks. We profit, they profit and it’s the most share/token holder company I’ve come across in a while. That is their selling point. No VC money, 11 guys, all geniuses at HFT and MM at Citadel just bootstrapped. It blew up overnight and then rode the crypto Trump boom but set itself apart when it took over oil trading with crude and Brent futures built into a perp, 24/7. No one wants to get fucked by Trump on a Friday. Turns out you don’t have to & quickly oil futures opened at Huperliquids perp pricing for Brent and crude. They did a great job on trading the pre-IPO of CXMT (biggest Chinese DRAM company) within a few percent which is much more accurate. Sigh….too much BTC ETH SOL HYPE trading, not enough sleep hence all the “caffeine” and rambling

Illustrious_Rub2975

Fair enough if you want to reduce your original argument strictly to “there is a better way to estimate positioning than naive OI assumptions,” I don’t disagree. Better participant/open-close information obviously improves the inference. That was never the interesting disagreement. But you’re now claiming I invented everything beyond that, when you literally wrote: “You don’t need the 500 underlyings to have predictive power trading SPX for example.” You also said GEX “shows biases in how the market moves” and that traders can use those biases “to improve the outcomes of many different types of trades.” So predictive usefulness was not a phantom claim I introduced. You explicitly brought it into the discussion yourself. Likewise, you didn’t merely say the CBOE data produces a *better estimate*. You said it allows firms to “compile and track actual market maker positions precisely. So no guessing.” Again, that is a substantially stronger claim. If your position now is simply: **naive OI GEX is badly specified, richer transaction classification produces a superior estimate of listed SPX dealer positioning, and that positioning should be interpreted as a market-state/hedging-flow tool rather than a directional signal** then we’re actually much closer to agreement. But once you say it has “predictive power,” describes exploitable movement biases, and can improve trade outcomes, you’ve moved beyond measurement methodology and made an empirical claim about the information contained in that measurement. At that point asking what incremental predictive information it actually contains is not a deflection. It is the obvious next question. And no, you don’t have to teach me how to trade it. But “go learn from someone else whether it works” isn’t evidence for a claim you already made about its predictive power. I’m perfectly happy to drop the illiquidity tangent because you’re right that it wasn’t the original topic. But you can’t retroactively narrow your own comments and then accuse everyone else of inventing the parts you actually wrote.

fuckagriculture

it's also pretty useless. The CBOE released a paper on it, dealer hedging only makes up at most 0.2% of daily volume. [https://www.cboe.com/insights/posts/0-dt-es-decoded-positioning-trends-and-market-impact?utm\_source=chatgpt.com](https://www.cboe.com/insights/posts/0-dt-es-decoded-positioning-trends-and-market-impact?utm_source=chatgpt.com) For heatmaps I think OI based ones are probably better for getting an idea of how the market will move with positioning

Ken385

There are 18 different options exchanges. Each has its own rules on order of fills in its book. Some offer retail priority, some offer price time, some are pro rata. They also differ by products; SPX is different than SPXW on the CBOE. So, you can 't say the book is first in first out. You can be first on one exchange and an option can trade later on another exchange without you being filled. MM's typically quote wider markets in less liquid options. If you place an order that they consider a good buy/sell, they will typically join you on other exchanges.

horrorpages

Most of these services are providing naive output via low-cost data providers. They slap an $80-300/month price tag on their product hoping retailers don't know the difference. There's maybe only a handful (I only know of 2, VolSignals comes to mind) that are using legitimate positioning and the best available CBOE data for SPX/VIX. Expect to pay on the upper end for those services. I'm still skeptical however (from the futures side). When the levels hit, they hit nicely. And, all the GEXers come to its defense. But, they never show us that the majority of this stuff is failure. Even worse, most of the junk I see are "experts" with their post-mortem market analyses for why a certain level responded a certain way based on a certain Greek with a certain statistical value at a certain strike. You'll see contradictions daily. I'd prefer random lines and psychological levels to get the same edge without the mental overload.

duboilburner

This is muddied by the fact few sources actually have accurate dealer gamma exposure. The only source for \*actual\* dealer positioning from CBOE only exists for two products: VIX and SPX. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING else is almost guaranteed to be made up data via the naive model that assumes all calls are sold short to dealers and customers buy all puts for protection. Very inaccurate and borderline useless assumption. So, even for the couple of places that DO have accurate dealer positioning (UnusualWhales' Periscope, VolSignals3D, OptionsDepth, SpotGamma) it is still just information that can help inform your trading, but it is not 100% deterministic. I have found it, with the help of interpretation from someone who was infact an ex-MM, to be useful and I have decided to not take some trades that I would have attempted to risk in the past because it gave enough information to say the bounce I would have bet on likely wasn't going to go far. And it was right. The accurate data can show you where customers feel safer in selling puts or selling calls, making dealers net long those strikes, and it also can give you bounds of the range we're likely to stay in. I've seen a lot of pivot points happen at important levels generated by the data. It gives you handy targets for getting in and out of trades that does often work quite well--whereas without the data, I might be prone to holding on too long and having it go against me. It's still not going to teach you how to trade. You will want to use it in addition to other skills and ability to read the tape, watching what implied vols are doing and maybe even watching correlated assets when trading SPX. It's not an end all be all, especially in this environment where we have an administration that is actively manipulating the market \*and\* insider trading off the manipulation. The guy I learn from did say that summers 2023 and 24, it was like shooting fish in a barrel with the real dealer positioning. But we're not in that environment anymore. Summers with lighter liquidity tend to work very well for these models, but it's a lot less clear when you have an administration manipulating things. So yes, maybe it's not worth paying for the info in this environment, but then again, with that attitude, maybe it's not worth trading at all given the added unpredictability that is having a "human VVIX" for a president.

Illustrious_Rub2975

You’ve got one legitimate point buried under a lot of overclaiming: OI-based “naive GEX” is a crude proxy, and richer participant/open-close data can improve the inference of who is carrying what. Fine. The problem is that you keep treating every step after that as if it automatically follows. Better transaction classification does **not** automatically mean you know the complete economic dealer book. And knowing dealer positioning more accurately does **not** automatically mean the resulting GEX measure has predictive power. And predictive information does **not** automatically mean there is a tradable edge after costs, conditioning and competition. Those are separate empirical claims. You literally said that with the CBOE data you can “compile and track actual market maker positions precisely. So no guessing.” That is much stronger than saying the data is better than naive OI. SPX sits inside a much larger ecosystem: futures, ETFs, futures options, FLEX, OTC exposure, structured products, dispersion, variance exposure and cross-hedging. Better visibility into listed SPX flow can absolutely improve an estimate, but it is not synonymous with observing the dealer’s complete economic risk or future hedge demand. You also seem to oscillate between what GEX supposedly does. At one point you argue it has predictive power for SPX; elsewhere you correctly say it does not give a buy/sell signal or predict a “pin,” but instead describes biases in how the market may move through certain ranges or times. That latter claim is much more defensible. But then test **that** mechanism. Show that your richer GEX estimate adds incremental out-of-sample information about conditional volatility, price response, mean reversion/trend amplification, strike-crossing behaviour, or hedge-flow sensitivity after controlling for the obvious state variables. Simply saying “you’ve only seen naive GEX” is not evidence. The illiquidity exchange makes the inconsistency even clearer. You said: “Why would I look for edge where there is none?” Specifically referring to those illiquid products without obvious hedging mechanisms. Then when challenged, your position became: “There are thousands of pieces of data I don’t look at that ‘may’ contain edge. You can’t look at everything.” Of course you can’t look at everything. Nobody expects you to. But **“I haven’t investigated it” and “there is no edge there” are completely different statements.** And the Mars analogy doesn’t rescue that. Low liquidity does not imply no edge. If anything, weaker participation, poorer price discovery and limited arbitrage capacity can create larger gross inefficiencies. Whether those survive spreads, impact, capacity and sizing constraints is the actual empirical question. That is really the recurring issue throughout your replies, you demand evidence from everyone else, but when it comes to your own preferred framework you repeatedly jump from: **better data → better positioning estimate → meaningful market mechanism → predictive power → tradable edge** without actually demonstrating each link. Maybe the richer GEX data really does contain useful information. I’m completely open to that. But “the real GEX works, you just don’t understand it” is not an argument. Show the incremental predictive value.

MrJohnDoe_R

This is all true for everything except SPX. CBOE provides intraday data fro SPX and categorizes trade by participant so one can rebuild dealer's positions book and calculte greeks using those positions. This works pretty well for 0DTE SPX but everybody have to remember that MM are not only participant on the market and one news can change positions significantly.

IrishJohnnie

The research you cited predates the tagged version of this dataset by a few years. How much did you spend for the data? What is your test methodology to prove that the tagging is not accurate? The CBOE has access to all of the metadata around a trade that we don't.

003E003

ALL the cheap "Gex" services you see are using what is called [Naive GEX](https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+naive+gex&sxsrf=APpeQnsW26fpfxLoUL4KL87i1b0mM43YKw%3A1787540415249). Which means they are using freely available Open Interest data OPRA and then making some assumptions (guessing) about whether market makers are long or short that Open Interest. The assumptions they make are very very very flawed so the resulting data is garbage. Some claim to have a methodology for their guessing but it is also flawed and it is still guessing. But the data is free and the story sounds compelling because there is actual truth and logic to gamma hedging influences. It is just that the data is bad and the details are dumbed down so option noobs think they can understand it. By cheap I mean under $200 a month. A select few companies actually purchase a different data stream for the CBOE (about $20k a month) which tags exactly which customer type (MM, customer, dealer, etc) buys or sells every transaction. With that you can compile and track actual market maker positions (the only ones we care about for gamma hedging) precisely. So no guessing. It is a complex thing to learn the intricacies of. It is not just....here is the call wall, that is resistance. That is not it....at all. If you are interested to learn, start somewhere like this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydrkaO4-rtQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydrkaO4-rtQ) And your comment raises a great point when you say "how I was trying to use it". This data is a tool. The tool works. But every tool doesn't work for every task. A hammer works for a nail but not for a screw. The key to the whole thing is developing a trading strategy which best utilizes this tool. Easier said than done. But just because you have not found the right strategy does NOT mean the tool doesn't work. And just because the tool works doesn't mean it works for every strategy.

Fit_Equal6932

It's funny that you approach everything as a challenge. I will tell you this though that you haven't yet looked at the illiquid tickers which occasionally pick up options volume and don't have any natural hedging mechanism in terms of a futures or an ETF product. The impact from options positions in those sort of tickers can have a meaningful effect, go study it. If anything it seems like you don't understand SP500 ecosystem as well considering the way you are arguing, you are literally taking the most complex product ecosystem that is traded widely in a global market with lots of layers and opacity (things like OTC trades, TRS swaps, FLEX options which only print EOD) and believing that a CBOE provided order flow segmentation can give you meaningful levels is just a load of crap. People using that $300 a month service that you seem to advertise here in a sneaky way is what you claim is meaningful yet the whole market has access to it. Good luck with your beliefs, you clearly don't look at the data or validate any assumptions.

IrishJohnnie

A bunch of this research is obsolete because the CBOE started publishing which market participant is holding the positions in as fast as 1 minute intervals, at least for SPX (see https://datashop.cboe.com/cboe-options-open-close-volume-summary). They also have a new trade-by-trade dataset for some exchanges that is not real time yet https://datashop.cboe.com/enhanced-us-options-trade-by-trade-execution-detail). I that sometimes it is dog instead of its tail probably because we don't know the rest of their portfolio.

Fit_Equal6932

If you are talking about this: [https://datashop.cboe.com/cboe-options-open-close-volume-summary](https://datashop.cboe.com/cboe-options-open-close-volume-summary) Yes then this does provide some extra information that OPRA feed lacks. This is truly meaningful only for SPX since that is a product where CBOE has a monopoly and is the only exchange that trades it therefore they can provide useful position level data. It will be worth a look so thanks for pointing it out but my general approach will still be of healthy skepticism since the SP500 market structure has many layers. This is raw data and one would need to see if any useful metrics can be built on top of this.

Fit_Equal6932

There is no way for you to build the complete dealer book including the 500 underlyings to understand what risk they are carrying. They manage their overall exposure in totality. For you to make a counterpoint present you need some data. CBOE and is happy to sell you data too, doesn’t mean there is any predictive value. Customer type still doesn’t let you get a handle on the open interest. Infact once can try to do this with the extra attributes available in the OPRA feed messages and the order book but it doesn’t get you anywhere.

003E003

Yes your GEX assumptions are simplistic and problematic...... But it is NOT true that we can't do any better. You can... and some services do....pay for the correct data from the CBOE that tells us what customer types buy and sell every transaction. Vol Signals is one company that does this and actually has actually position and gamma data.

vandalizethethief

I think this is more a reaction to Hyperliquid and their 24/7 perpetual futures which currently combine the speed & execution of a centralized exchange with the benefits of defi (transparency & privacy). Hyperliquid did over $220 billion in perp volume in July. One example is oil traders hedging over weekends due to Friday news dumps & the pros noticing that the CL and Brent futures open at perp prices. They pose a huge existential threat to CBOE, NASDAQ, and CME in no rolling contracts, settlement, delivery etc…and the lowest fees around. Market share in futures, options, etc….are starting to show signs of weakness.

Be-ur-best-self

This is insane. What could Trump do? Send the marines to the trading pits at the CBOE?

Breathofdmt

Why would anyone pay you when the API is 80-160 dollars for personal use I actually made one of these dashboards for myself and offered it widely, made it 18 months ago when the AI tools were less capable. Now everyone and their dog has a vibe coded GEX platform and its embarrassing at this point so I keep it just for personal use. Good luck trying to turn a profit and dealing with customer service. You'd be lucky to get 20 bucks a month. I've seen around a dozen pop up in the past 6 months. Unpopular opinion here, obviously, given the responses but I don't think the "naive" GEX is useless, gives you a good overview of the structural levels in the market, especially if you look at stocks, ETFs, etc. Good for developing targets and pivots too. I use it for futures though and it's not a standalone edge, just a worthwhile way to find levels. The CBOE C2 data is just SPX and VIX. Again, competitive space now since the barriers to entry are lower and you're competing in the most efficient market in the world. Now, if you could prove your edge with it and that's part of the service, people might pay attention but I doubt that's why you're here.

New_Emergency_5547

Good question. The #1 reason is **rapid "what-if" hypothetical stress-testing** without friction: 1. **Zero Login / Paywall Friction:** Most visualizers either lock 4-legged strategies behind monthly subscriptions, force account signups, or have sluggish interfaces with delayed data. 2. **Hypothetical Parameter Sandboxing:** Live quote tools tether you to current market bids/asks. A sandbox lets you model pure theoretical scenarios before market open — e.g., *"If I enter a 45 DTE Iron Condor and IV drops from 60% to 35% while the stock tests my short call wing in 14 days, what does my exact P&L curve look like?"* 3. **Instant Leg Tweaking:** You can override IV or days independently on individual legs to model earnings crush or volatility skew. That said, connecting a free delayed stock/option chain lookup API (like Polygon/CBOE) is on the roadmap so users can auto-populate live tickers as well as sandbox them manually.

MrJohnDoe_R

>"We use the standard convention: dealers are treated as **long calls, short puts** against customer flow" This assumption is simply wrong. If customer has spread it has both long and short position at the time. Without knowledge who helds the position one cannot reconstruct Dealer-positioning. It's just Open Intereset heatmap. The only exchange that reliably tags position data is CBOE for SPX. That's the reasons why paid services provide Dealer-positioning and gamma exposure for SPX only.

just-in-time-paralel

CBOE is going to cure cancer When stocks go up 170% in one day, cancer is cured as a side effect. CBOE is the next stock that will cure cancer. At this point it should be obvious that far out of the money calls on traditional blue chips like pharma is the way. People with cancer will need to pay for their cancer treatments. How? By buying calls.

just-in-time-paralel

CBOE is going to cure cancer When stocks go up 170% in one day, cancer is cured as a side effect. CBOE is the next stock that will cure cancer. At this point it should be obvious that far out of the money calls on traditional blue chips like pharma is the way. People with cancer will need to pay for their cancer treatments. How? By buying calls.

ShimmyxSham

Is there a CBOE bets group?

Juhkwan97

Yeah you might have to wait til they do another run of them. They came to Seattle last year but I didn't go. I'd suggest googling CBOE and CME to see what they offer. I know they do conferences but they might be for more industry level type people....

TheWeebles

I used to work for a primes brokerage at an investment bank. they've been trying to get me back for about half a year now. I told them only if I can work from the Tokyo office and support US Equities/Derivatives. If this is successful it won't stop. Would go NYSE/CBOE then MEMX/MIAX in US and might get adopted worldwide. I would imagine weekend trading as well. That would take years however, but that is my guess

YourUncleBuck

NYSE and CBOE were already planning to do the same and have been already approved.

vandalizethethief

Yeah, here is the list by [CBOE](https://www.cboe.com/notices/content/?id=61230). I guess they want to test it out some more before going live. This was approved in May or something by the SEC. I mean no one should. It's just not a positive EV trade unless your confident of something most people missed (can't be noticed by AI) or are tracking big options trades & just copying the big money.

vandalizethethief

What? Im talking about the [CBOE](https://www.cboe.com/notices/content/?id=61230), the fucking people who make the damn options market.

TradersUni

Yea I understand. GEX is a calculation. I've learned that from the videos i've been watching, open interest x gamma per strike. I've tried the EOD historical GEX data on just a few historical trading days and it's not as accurate as I would like it to be for backtesting. I've heard of tools like VolSignals, Quantwheel, Quantdata, and some others. My goal is to just find a good trustworthy tool to backtest GEX levels on to see if it's suitable or not. And possibly overlay it on my tradingview chart so I don't have to keep going back and forth. (Not totally necessary but convenient) CBOE datashop can run into the hundreds and the thousands.

__Lukewarm

Damn, I knew I shoulda bought CBOE

OurNewestMember

Not understanding is fine. Not having authoritative documentation is not fine. Expiration - it's 8 pm ET on expiration day, per OCC by-laws (p 144 in the latest revision) Termination - best defined in sec 1256(c)(1). ("by offsetting, by taking or making delivery, by exercise or being exercised, by assignment or being assigned, by lapse") Delivery - T+1 for both the long and the short leg (this should come from CBOE and the OCC) Let me know where you think my "not understanding" is among these. Feel free to point me to authoritative documentation that corrects my mistake :) I agree we don't have documentation about the delivery of cash (which I plainly said). The closest related thing we have is 1256(c)(1). Sec 1233 (which obviously depends on settlement because that's when the property is borrowed) makes it clear that it does not apply for cash deliverables, so that doesn't help us for SPX/SPXW. Basically, I think we should be able to point to text of the IRC (or punished guidance from the secretary of the Treasury) that explains the use of the index option settlement date for the short, exactly like sec 1233 does for stocks. A hyperlink to either IRS.gov, federalregister.gov or the IRC -- that is literally what I'm trying to find.

iron_condor34

The CBOE one? I've read it before. Have you read the CBOE decomp paper on it?

Repulsive-Floor-3987

The CBOE announcement says it's 7:15-9:25am and 4-4-15pm - not around the clock. Or am I overlooking something?

Jagged_Tide

So what is the CBOE thing exactly?

CuckedbyPowell

looks like it's been delayed, CBOE just updated their website saying crossing out monday and now it says TBD

ThetaEdgeHQ

Worth separating two things people are conflating here. GEX is not a data feed you buy, it is a calculation on top of the options chain (open interest and gamma per strike). So the thing that costs money is historical open interest and greeks, not "GEX" itself. dolthub has some free EOD options data, ORATS and CBOE DataShop sell the clean historical chains. Once you have the chain you compute GEX yourself, which also lets you control the assumptions instead of trusting someone else's line. And the assumptions are the whole ballgame, which is why bradley is seeing it lag. Retail GEX bakes in a guess that dealers are long calls and short puts, and the published flip level lives or dies on that sign convention. When you backtest price reaction around a GEX level you are really backtesting the accuracy of a dealer positioning assumption, not a law of physics. That is most of why the correlation looks weak. The bigger trap for your exact tickers: GEX built from end of day OI will systematically misplace levels on SPY, QQQ and SPX, because those are precisely the names where same day 0DTE flow dwarfs the resting OI, and none of that intraday flow is in the EOD snapshot you backtest on. So an EOD historical GEX backtest on SPX is close to measuring the wrong book. If you are serious about backtesting those you need intraday chain snapshots, which is exactly the expensive part nobody is selling cheap. On the "does it provide an edge" question: it is a map of where dealer hedging can amplify or dampen a move, useful as context for how price behaves once it reaches a level, not a predictor of which level it goes to. Pair it with expected move so you have both the where and the how far.

YTLupo

Im not sure, because right now they (NASDAQ / CBOE) are trying to prevent fills for that

IrishJohnnie

Except the CBOE has all the information they need to come up with this. If you actually read the link I sent, and the schema that comes with it, it tells you who has what. The trades data you're talking about needs to be inferred if it's BTO, STO, BTC or STC. No one, outside of the CBOE, will know the actual trade because they don't make this field public.

Tough_Bug_783

Half fair. What CBOE actually sells is order data. The expensive open close feed tags trades as customer or firm, which makes the same guess better, but it's still a guess about dealer books, not a copy of them. Nobody sells actual dealer positions. If a service says they read dealer books straight from CBOE they're describing their model generously.

IrishJohnnie

> Dealer positioning is inferred from the OI Probably for the cheaper services. The more expensive ones gets this straight from the CBOE.

makmanos

I've lived through all that, I was working one of the biggest market makers at the time, and what I remember the most is how many people got burned on AMZN stock. The euphoria of the market every time the "wiz" spoke, (aka Alan Greenspan) the smugs of CNBC (Kramer, the asshole on CBOE's floor whose name I don't even care to remember now) I remember of course books after book being written for some of the biggest catastrophes we've lived the most spectacular one that of LTCM 10 years before the '08 disaster -so much for the UChicago gang of Options pricing- which at the time I had hardly taken note of - result of the geniuses of Greenspan, Summers and Rubin. I don't remember the suicide epidemic you seem to describe though (apart from Madoff's son after the scandal broke out)

aguslucas

Did this hold? I had a couple of SPX options at the same time, and CBOE has adjusted one of them from $17 to \~$6.6 after the fact

shadowhand00

Sounds like CBOE is busting some of the short seller situations that I saw yesterday proactively. But you're right they will most likely let this ride. But its possible.

ThetaEdgeHQ

Worth separating two different numbers here. The 6.4k you saw seconds before close was your position marked at that last dip, which is just a live quote reacting to the 10 point drop. Settlement is a different number: SPXW weeklies are cash settled off the official 4pm closing value of the index, not off the lowest intraday print you happened to catch. So your actual cash is the intrinsic at that official close, strike minus settlement value, times 100. If the index bounced back into the bell, the settlement lands lower than the 6.4k spike you saw. It is real cash and it will hit your buying power once it settles, usually overnight, you just want to price it off the settlement value on the CBOE page rather than the number that flashed at the dip. Congrats on the trade either way.

RandomRedditor5689

This a fair bit of nuanced / wrong / misleading information in this post. This contra-exercise is a very important aspect of options that not many people really understand. Its important to be precise. a.) No broker will accept your instruction 90 minutes after the close, that is the CBOE cutoff ... most brokers have an earlier cut-off , like 5:00 pm EST or earlier. check with your broker ahead of time b.) The price movement doesn't have to be "way past" your strike , you just need it in the money enough to make exercise economical consider after hours bid/offer on the stock c.) The broker does not "exercise and sell your option" , the broker exercises the option with the exchange and closes out the resulting stock position for you in the market immediately (e.g. exercises a long call and sells shares or exercises a long put and buys shares) d.) "You get to collect whatever the bid, spread? is when it's exercised." you collect the difference between the option strike and the price the shares are sold for in the market (for an exercised call) or the difference between the option price and where the shares are bought in the market (for an exercised put) e.) "This is another reason why the hood sells off your calls and puts at 2:30 ct time" ... that is not the reason.

calebsurfs

Headlines like this make me wish I could buy calls on Citadel or Jane Street because they are going to make a killing this quarter. Currently holding CBOE and CME as maybe the next best thing though.

CloverPeterson53

You are correct there is no way around that without paying for the CBOE open-close data. where i'd push back slightly: the assumption isn't random, it's directionally right more often than not for retail-heavy flow. but "more often than not" is doing a lot of work in that sentence and it absolutely breaks on names where the customer side is net short calls. i've watched it be wrong. honestly the most useful thing is where the size actually sits, and the call/put split at each strike. that's just open interest, no convention required. the net GEX number on top is the part carrying the assumption (but still a measurement) appreciate you writing that out anyways

duboilburner

Problem is vast majority of dealer gamma exposure models are making an assumption that \*all\* calls are sold short to market makers, and all puts are bought by customers, thus making market makers short the puts. This is called the 'naive' model. If you were to learn how a market maker actually hedges for gamma as we move through a certain type of exposure, it wouldn't apply to most of the gamma models you see because virtually no one has actual accurate market maker positioning. They're all just taking the naive assumption that dealers are long all the calls and short all the puts. The only tickers you can get accurate positioning for from CBOE is SPX and VIX. A few other services also buy that from CBOE and then come up with various ways of displaying the data for end user consumption--but you have to pay for that information either way. So, when someone says "we're in negative gamma" on a specific non-SPX and non-VIX ticker, I just assume they mean that spot is in a region of strikes that is put-dominated, but we don't actually have accurate info on what dealers are actually long or short to say if we're in negative or positive gamma.

duboilburner

Yeah, I used to use SPYvsGME dotcom for that. But then I realized most "GEX" was built using naive assumptions: that all calls are sold short to dealers, making dealers long the call gamma, and that all puts are bought by customers, making dealers short the put gamma. But this isn't accurate to what's actually going on. Unfortunately, the only tickers you can actually obtain the accurate positioning for in terms of what dealers are actually long and short is SPX and VIX, and for those, you do indeed have to pay CBOE a tidy sum of money to get it (or another service that buys the data from CBOE and calculates a way to display it, such as Unusual Whales' Persicope, OptionsDepth or VS3D). So, if you are to take what an actual Market maker would tell you they would do to hedge certain exposures as we move through them, it would not apply to the naive model because it's not what the market makers actually have on their books. Not saying it's not somewhat helpful info. You can at least see which strikes have the most exposure and if it's mostly puts or calls, but we don't actually know if dealers are actually net long or net short gamma at each strike using the naive model.

TheESportsGuy

You have to guess which side the market maker is on, and joke's on you because a lot of times the answer is "both." You'll see this trash marketed as GEX, and yes, some days/weeks/months positive gamma pins the market, but you can't know which days those are going to be without guessing right a bunch, so your options are hope-you-get-lucky-guesses or pay the CBOE for MBO data, parse it all, and calculate actual GEX...And that's assuming their true GEX is fully qualified through CBOE positions alone... And then you're hoping that your assumption MMs are hedging fully delta neutral holds up and that somehow you can beat them and all of the other people who understand this dynamic to a good price. I gave up at "pay the CBOE for MBO data". Not before I wasted a bunch of time and money on SpotGamma watching this all play out. There's a reason you can't backtest or programmatically connect to their software. It'd be too quick and easy to prove that there's no edge in any of the things they provide. They are getting delayed CBOE MBO data though, which is interesting to analyze even if I have to scrape it.

Got_Engineers

TradingView has live option prices you just have to pay for the CBOE feed it’s like $10 a month. Than you just add them to a watchlist.