Legend

The read. The live map, the Live Card and the ladder — what dealer positioning looks like right now and how price is behaving around it. This is the screen you trade beside; everything else in Compass exists to support or check it.

The Map is the read.

Below deck. First the receipt: every fact the engine used to build the card, in plain labelled rows — what data was fetched, how old it is, which level was chosen and why — so the tool's work can be checked rather than trusted, and Export diagnostics packages it all up for support. Beneath it, the workbench: the Map is frozen on one way of calculating dealer positioning, deliberately, and this is where alternatives are tried side by side without changing what the Map shows.

The Engine Room is where you check the tool's work — and watch what it is trying next.

What you kept. The Map throws its own state away every few seconds by design, so anything worth a second look has to be caught at the time. Save puts the moment here, with the card exactly as it stood, and you write the note later when there is time. Nothing in here updates, which is the point: it is a record, not a reading.

The Chest is what you kept. Save it now, write about it later.

The long view, and the room formerly called Swing. The Map is built around a session: it asks what price is doing at a level right now. A position held for weeks or years asks a different question — what has been built into the ground underneath it — so it gets its own room. Two lenses: NEAR, the dates about to expire, drawn as what CHANGED; and FAR, sixty days and out, drawn as what is THERE, because a book that moves in months cannot honestly be shown as a daily change. It counts contracts, not exposure: a strike's gamma moves every day without a single contract trading, while open interest only moves when somebody actually opens or closes one. It shows you the ground; where you step on it is yours.

The Compass reads today. The Telescope reads the distance.

On the Telescope: the same strikes counted twice, with and without the expiration that is about to go. It answers what the board will look like after the front expiry, which is knowable today because expiring contracts take their hedging with them. A strike that loses most of itself was mostly this week's business; one that barely moves is built on later dates. It is calendar arithmetic, not a forecast.

Next week's board, visible today.

On the Telescope's ladder: the strike a far board is pointing at, and the one place in Compass that produces a target at all. It is never produced alone. Two separate readings of the same board have to land on the same strike — the heaviest structure standing above price, and that board's vanna king. Land on the same strike, or on next-door strikes of that board, and the bearing is confirmed. Where the king sits between price and that structure the bearing pulls in to the king, because price meets that first. Where the king sits BELOW price there is no bearing at all and the row says so in words, because a rule that answers confidently every time is a rule that is not reading anything. A bearing is a direction, not an arrival. It says which way the board points, never that price gets there, and it changes when the board does. The win is taken INTO it rather than through it: what is parked there is other people's orders, and a target set past them has to get through them first.

The direction, not the destination.

On the Telescope's far lens: a large pile of puts sitting well below price on the long dates, almost never touched. Funds buy downside protection months or years out and leave it there, so on an index it is on the board most of the year. It is not a view on direction and it is not a target. It gets its own row for one reason — it is big enough to take over the read if it is left in with everything else. On SPY it is the difference between a long book that looks put-heavy and one that is actually call-heavy where price is.

Protection, bought and parked. Big, permanent, and not an opinion.

On the Telescope: the strikes you have saved, across every symbol, with the neighborhood around each one — how much company your strike has on that date, and which strikes above and below carry more. It stores the contract and nothing else: no entry price, no size, no profit and loss. That is deliberate. It is a positioning panel rather than a broker, and these are positions meant to breathe rather than be marked every morning.

THE WATCH, not a ticker. What is parked around what you hold.

On the Telescope: what is parked either side of price on a chosen date. Writing a covered call or a cash-secured put is a strike-selection problem, and this describes the neighborhood on both sides — contracts parked, distance from price, and the call share. A strike with company around it sits inside structure; one with nothing near it sits in thin air. Both are legitimate choices. It never picks the strike, and it never says a level will hold.

Where the crowd is standing, on the date you are writing against.

The Map's legend. Every phrase Compass can display, in plain English, generated from the software itself rather than written separately — so the definitions can never drift out of step with what appears on screen. Downloadable to keep beside you while the vocabulary is still new.

The Legend is the Map's dictionary, and it is always current.

The Telescope's one-line answer, sitting above the beats. It answers the question a member walked in with rather than the one the board happens to answer, and it is built to a rule: an IF is a condition, a THEN is a prediction, and this writes the if. "If 730 holds, the shelf beneath it is 725" is arithmetic already on the screen. "If 730 holds, price goes to 740" is a forecast and does not ship. A position you have told Compass about outranks the headline here.

One line, written as an if. It never completes the sentence with a price.

The spoken name for a positive gamma regime, the same condition the card states as "Dealers cushion price moves". Hedging works against the move: selling into rallies and buying dips, which compresses range — measured at about 1.8x less ground covered than in negative territory, across a year and three products. It describes the net book, not any one strike, and it is a description of conditions rather than a forecast of direction.

Compress is the cushioning regime. Hedging leans against the move.

The spoken name for a negative gamma regime, the same condition the card states as "Dealers accelerate price moves". Hedging works with the move: buying as price rises and selling as it falls, which extends range — measured at about 1.8x more ground covered than in positive territory, across a year and three products. It describes the net book, not any one strike, and it says nothing about which direction the move will take.

Amplify is the accelerating regime. Hedging leans with the move.

The area Compass is currently watching — the level or band price is actually dealing with right now. Shown large and gold at top left. It is a Positioning Action Area: one of the four types in the TRT framework, the one built from where the options book sits rather than from chart structure, momentum, or where the market perceives value.

This is the level that matters at this moment, not the biggest number on the map. It is the positioning kind of Action Area, which is why it moves when the book moves.

The largest single gamma-weighted concentration of open interest on the map, the structural anchor. Where it sits, and how big it is relative to everything around it, is what makes it worth watching. Which way price reacts when it gets there is not something this reads: open interest shows that contracts are parked at a strike, not who is holding them, so it cannot tell you which way dealers must hedge. Watch what price actually does on the first touch. It is not a price target.

Biggest positioning on the board, and worth watching for that alone. Which way it breaks is for the tape to tell you, not the map.

Live price, with its distance above or below the Active Action Area beneath it.

Where price actually is right now.

The two chains on the card naming the reference levels under price and over it, read outward in order. Only the nearest one carries its distance, because the levels behind it are reference points rather than the thing price has to deal with next. A GK tag on any of them marks a Gatekeeper. These are where size is parked, not a forecast that price stops there: open interest shows that contracts sit at a strike, never who is holding them.

What is standing under you and over you, nearest first. Where size sits, not where price must stop.

What would have to happen for the current structure to be confirmed or invalidated — the condition, named in advance, so you recognize it when it arrives. Naming the condition is the whole job. It will not tell you to buy, sell, hold or size, and if this row ever reads like an instruction it is a defect.

This is what would need to happen — not what you should do.

TWO THINGS WEAR THIS NAME, and which one you mean depends on the room. On the Map, the ladder is the column of strikes beside price — what is parked at each level, sized and tinted, with the reads strip sitting directly above it. In the Telescope, THE LADDER is an act: the far read, every board out to the LEAPS. The Map's ladder answers "what stands at my price". The Telescope's answers "what stands at every horizon". Same word, two ranges.

On the Map it is the strike column. In the Telescope it is the far read across every expiry. Check which room you are in.

The sentence directly UNDER the reads strip and above the ladder, present from the first frame of every session and before any read fires. It joins two distance readings that are measured independently and can disagree. The first is this board's own: a typical hour on this product in this field has run a measured number of strikes, taken across a year of sessions. The second is market-wide and is NOT a property of this board — it comes from the volatility term structure, the market pricing the next month against the next three. When the near reading sits well under the far one, less room is priced in; measured across a year of SPY, QQQ and SPX, sessions opening from there gave roughly a third less room than sessions opening with the two closer together, and the difference was largest on amplified boards. When the two halves disagree the line joins them with 'but' rather than smoothing it over, because a board built to travel on a day priced for no room is a real thing to know before sizing. The board figure is measured per product and only SPY, QQQ and SPX carry one: a symbol without its own measured hour gets the words and no figure rather than borrowing another product's number.

How far an hour here usually travels, and how much room the day is priced for. Context, not a call.

The rare clause on the day's character line. It fires in the outer 5% of the last year, about a dozen sessions, and it needs a full year of banked sessions behind it before the words 'this year' are used at all — below that the clause does not appear rather than being computed on a shorter window and described as a year. The hover behind it says how many of the last roughly 250 sessions were priced further than today, as a COUNT OF SESSIONS and never as a percentile: 'the 1st percentile' is jargon, 'about three of the last 252 sessions' is the same fact and is how somebody would say it out loud. There is no rarer tier. Whenever this clause appears it is the rare thing, and a rarer-than-rare band on something that shows a dozen times a year would be a distinction nobody could learn to read.

One of the roughly twelve most extreme days of the year for how much room is priced in.

Directly under the day's character line. The measured travel of the hour just gone, against this product's own typical hour, in six bands: more than twice, well above, above, about, about half, and well under half the usual pace. This is the one figure on the screen that says whether the day is DELIVERING what its state suggests — a board can read amplified all morning and run at a third of pace, and that is a sizing fact rather than a contradiction. It says nothing at all when the tape has not moved, because printing 0.00 strikes against a measured typical would dress a shut market as a reading. An earlier version also weighed how smoothly price had been moving; that input was measured on 15 August 2026, carried no information about anything that followed, and was removed rather than kept as decoration.

What the last hour actually did, against what an hour here usually does.

On the date chip, beside the symbol and the expiration marker. Time remaining in the regular session, silent outside 09:30 to 16:00 Eastern and on weekends rather than counting down to a session that is not running. It is there because everything else on this screen is measured PER HOUR, and a distance means nothing without the time available to cover it: a flip twenty-three strikes away is about ten hours of ordinary movement, which is more session than exists, and it prints in the same unit as a flip three strikes away.

How much session is left, because every other number here is per hour.

The single line of state above the ladder. Left to right: the field at price, the tape, the opening range while it is relevant, the flip and the net. The named read moved off this line in 0.12.17 and lives on THE BOARD, where every read shows what it has earned. It answers what kind of session you are standing in and whether that kind of session has ever been worth anything. It never says which way to go, and most of the time it says there is no measured edge, which is the correct answer rather than a fault.

The strip says what kind of day this is. The card says where price is.

AMPLIFY in violet, COMPRESS in teal, CONTESTED in grey. Whether dealer hedging at this price extends movement or leans against it. Across a full year, a typical hour on an amplified board spans about 2.30 strikes on SPY and 2.93 on QQQ, against 1.31 and 1.65 on a compressed one — wider in effectively every month measured. It describes how wide the hours are, never direction.

Violet means the day has travel in it. Teal means it does not. Neither says which way.

The flip is sitting close enough to price that the board is not decisive either way, within 0.15% of price. Not a third regime: it is the statement that there is no answer right now, and no named read may fire while it shows. A field that has been called is held for 45 seconds before CONTESTED replaces it, so a brief wobble across the line does not blink the whole strip.

The flip is sitting on price. There is no answer right now, and saying so is the answer.

A compressed board with the tape moving, between 75 and 180 minutes after the open. Measured on SPY across a full year, and the only named read that has cleared its bar. The same test run at midday and after 15:00 ET comes out materially worse, so the window is a hard gate rather than a preference. The measured figure, its sample and its band are in the Logbook, where they can be checked against what the read has done since. It is a base rate, not a promise.

A move forming on a quiet board, in the window where that has historically carried.

Retired on 27 August 2026, and kept here because a withdrawn number should be as easy to find as a published one. It fired on an amplified board with price drifted to the edge of its last hour and no momentum behind it, and it claimed price came back half a strike inside 45 minutes 53% of the time across 1,074 fires. It does not. Two independent scripts measured 49.8% across 839 fires, 95% interval 46 to 53, and the forward record on this machine read 48.1% across 27 events. The month-to-month spread that looked like structure - 38.5% up to 60.0% - is what a 49.8% coin throws at seventy fires a month, to within two percent. The condition is real and still logs. The claim did not survive. Its 37 fires stay in the read log where they were written.

We published 53%, measured 49.8%, and took it back. The state is real; the edge was not.

An amplified board with the tape travelling fast. Measured on SPY: this state resolved either way at 49% across 2,423 fires, every bracket and both directions. A coin flip measured over a very large sample is a finding, not an absence of one. The range is real; the direction is not.

The tape is moving and the direction carries no edge. This is the read that saves money.

A compressed board with the tape moving, after 15:00 ET. It is MORNING PUSH's own condition at the other end of the day, and the same measurement comes out the other way: a move forming this late has historically been the pin reasserting rather than a trend starting. It carries no percentage of its own and will not borrow one.

The same board that pays in the morning does not pay at three o'clock. That is the whole read.

Shown in the FIELD chip's hover from noon onward. A compressed board where a trend of at least one strike formed by noon and the deepest pullback against it stayed under 1.5 strikes. It is not a hit rate: across a full year the deepest pullback on a day like this ran materially shallower than on an amplified one. The figures, the sample and the band are in the Logbook. It is about smoothness, not size.

The day a runner can be held. It is about how smooth the ride is, not how far it goes.

The whole board's net crossed zero and has held that side for at least fifteen minutes. The read is that the direction price moved into the cross continues. It is amber and carries NO percentage: across the full year the band around these still includes 50, so the condition is named and logged rather than rated. Fifteen minutes is the earliest honest call; anything sooner is reading the answer off the future.

The board rolled over and stayed rolled. We name it and log it; we do not rate it yet.

Every strike on the board added up: the whole board's verdict in one number, at the right end of the strip. The band beside it draws today's history of that number: teal while positive, red while negative, deeper colour a heavier board. The amber tick is a sustained cross, the sign held fifteen minutes, which is the same gate the NET CROSS read waits behind. The band makes no claim before that tick: a colour fading toward the middle is a story, not a read.

The whole board's verdict in one number, with today's history drawn under it.

Nothing measured is happening. This is the strip's most common state and it is the honest one: a tool that names a condition on every refresh cannot be calibrated. Validation is per read, not per product. A symbol with no measured numbers of its own is tagged 'reads: SPY only', because a number measured on one product is not a number about another. A symbol that owns some but not all of them — QQQ has its own FIELD measurement and none of the named reads — shows its field live and carries NO tag at all. That silence is the information: the absence of the 'reads: SPY only' warning is what tells you this product is measuring itself here. EARLY IN THE SESSION THE TAG IS A CLOCK INSTEAD. 'reads open' names the time the entry reads start, once the opening range is set and the tape has an hour behind it. Before then the map is fully live — the field, the flip, every level — and only the named entry reads are held back, because a read that fires on the first twenty minutes is reading the answer off a range that has not formed yet. The time is shown in your own clock, not Eastern. Until it arrives the field IS the read, and it is already telling you what kind of day is forming.

Nothing measured is happening. That is an answer, not a failure. Early on, the tag is a clock: the entry reads open once the opening range is set.

Hover any level on the ladder and Compass says what price has actually DONE there, which is a different question from how big it is. Two parts. First, today: how many times price came up into that level or came down onto it, and how many of those it got through. Second, the record: what price has done at levels of the same polarity approached from the same side, across every test Compass has logged. Below ten tests it says so and claims nothing. It never prints a percentage, because 'it got through on 7 of them' out of 21 is already the honest form and a percentage would make a small sample sound surer than it is. THE WORD 'REJECTED' IS DELIBERATELY ABSENT: a level that price did not get through is not the same as one price turned around at, and only the first was measured. A big level and a level that works are different things, and this is the second one.

What price has actually done at this level, not how big it is.

On the same hover as the level history. When one of four particular prices lands on the strike you are hovering, the panel names it: yesterday's high, yesterday's low, the first hour's high, the first hour's low. It attaches to the NEAREST strike only, so one price can never claim two, and at an exact midpoint between strikes it claims neither. THESE FOUR BECAUSE THEY MEASURED BEST: across three separate sets of sessions, on the ETFs and on the index, price arriving at one of them was followed by a move that paid before a move that hurt about fifteen points more often than chance, where a large strike standing alone came out below chance. It is drawn as a sentence rather than a line because these prices cluster exactly where the board's own levels cluster and a new line would land on top of an existing one; most traders have these marked on a chart already, so the value is the ladder agreeing with a line you drew rather than a line you did not have. IT NAMES A PRICE AND STOPS. No adjective, no direction, nothing about what happens next, which is what keeps it free of a claim. AND IT GOES QUIET RATHER THAN GUESSING: Compass holds no price history, it remembers yesterday from its own recording, so if it was not running from the open to the close yesterday it says nothing about yesterday instead of reporting the highest price it happened to see. The first hour is unaffected because that is watched today.

When a strike is also a price the market made. It says where, never what next.

The first half hour's high and low, and whether price sits above, inside or below it. Context only, and deliberately silent about what it implies: the first-hour study found every entry read inside that window is a coin flip, including the opening range break itself at 50% on 223 sessions. It leaves the strip two hours into the session.

Where the first half hour set its range, and which side of it price is on. Context, not a signal.

A fired read stays on screen after its instant condition lapses, stamped with its age, because the studies behind these numbers recorded EVENTS with a fifteen minute refractory while a strip re-decides a STATE thirty times a minute. It clears when price travels half a strike from where it fired, or fifteen minutes pass, or the field changes, or a newer read outranks it. Read the age: '2m ago' means it fired two minutes ago, not this second.

It stays put long enough to read. The age tells you when it actually fired.

Every read that fires is written to an append-only file with its outcome, scored the way the original study scored it: first passage to a bracket, half a strike in 45 minutes for the fade, one strike in an hour for the others. Nothing is ever rewritten. Below ten events no rate is shown, only a count, because a rate built on a handful of events is a rumor whichever way it points. Forty events is the bar at which a read can be promoted or retired.

The running record of whether these reads are actually working. It cannot be edited after the fact.

On the Logbook: every read Compass carries, whether or not it fired today, with what each has earned. Filled has a measured record and shows it; half is defined and logged but not yet measured, and carries no percentage; hollow is specified and not built. A product with no measured numbers of its own shows hollow and reports nothing, rather than borrowing another product's figures.

Everything the tool claims, and how each claim is holding up. It lives in the Logbook.

The single price where the whole board's size balances. Every strike pulls in proportion to how big it is, so it is not the biggest node, it is where the bulk of the board sits. It is not a level and there is often no strike there at all. It is not a target, not support and not resistance, because nothing is actually parked there. Two things it tells you: which side of the board's weight price is standing on, and whether the King agrees with the weight or is standing apart from it. When it sits level with price it says so and nothing more, because a side that close would change several times a minute. Not the same thing as the Book balance chip. That counts open interest across the strikes near price and says which side is heavier; this is one price for the whole board.

It is the balance point of the whole board. The King is the loudest single level; this is where the weight actually sits. When the two disagree, the King is standing apart from the board behind it.

Little open interest near price. Dealer hedging is not concentrated at this level, so there is not much for price to lean on or push against.

Not much parked here. Whatever moves price next, it will not be positioning at this level.

Price is sitting between two concentrations of open interest with very little parked where it currently is. The weight is at the edges of the band rather than around price.

There is nothing under price right now. The heavy stuff is at both ends of that band, so it can travel inside it without much friction.

Past this level there is no meaningful structure until the next one. It does not predict a move. It says that if price gets there, nothing in the book is positioned around it. When that next level is close enough to matter, READ names it: "thin air above until 775" means the gap runs out at 775. With no level named, nothing substantial is within reach.

Clear that and there is nothing above it until the next level.

Price is within a band where open interest is concentrated. This is where positioning has the most bearing on how price behaves, because it is where the size actually is.

Price is in the thick of it.

Price has left the band where open interest is concentrated, and the next concentration is the level named. Between here and there the book has little parked in it.

Price is outside the heavy area. The next real level is the one named.

One strike carries effectively all the nearby open interest, with nothing comparable on either side of it. What price does on contact with it is the whole question, because there is no second level to fall back to.

One level and nothing else nearby. Watch what price does when it gets there.

The point where the book's sign flips is not among the strikes on screen. The lean just described applies across the whole visible range, with no level inside it that would change the reading.

There is no dividing line in view. The whole board leans the same way.

Price sits between two named levels and the strikes separating them hold very little open interest. Movement between them meets less positioning than movement through either end.

Price is between two levels with not much in the middle.

A negative-exposure node forming the lower boundary. It is the bottom of the band with nothing absorptive behind it — the amplifying side of the book rather than the compressive one. Potential because it may well hold; what the name marks is what sits behind it.

Hedging here leans with the move rather than against it. Nothing under it is buying the dip.

A positive-exposure node forming the upper boundary. Positive is the compressive side of the book, so this is the top of the band and where the weight sits above price.

Dealer hedging leans against upside here — that's the arithmetic of the hedge, not a measured bounce.

A positive-exposure node forming the lower boundary. Compressive exposure sits behind it, which is what separates it from a potential false floor — the bottom of the band with weight behind it rather than nothing.

Dealer hedging leans against downside here — that's the arithmetic of the hedge, not a measured floor.

A negative-exposure node forming the upper boundary, sized 25-50% of the Raw King's magnitude. That size band is what earns the name: one of the larger things on the board, sitting above price on the amplifying side.

One of the bigger nodes up there, and hedging around it leans with the move rather than against it.

A negative-exposure node forming the upper boundary, sized outside the 25-50% band that would make it a Gatekeeper. Same side of the book, smaller — it is on the map because it is there, not because it is one of the big ones.

A small negative node up top. Same side of the book as a Gatekeeper, without the size.

A node sized 25-50% of the Raw King's magnitude — large enough to act as a real gate on price, not large enough to rival the King itself.

Big enough to matter, not big enough to be the King.

Shorthand for Gatekeeper in the Below/Above chain: a node sized 25-50% of the Raw King's magnitude — large enough to act as a real gate on price, not large enough to rival the King.

Big enough to matter, not big enough to be the King.

A negative node with a positive node directly above it, close enough to read as one structure. Nothing absorptive sits under the lower edge; the weight is all at the top. The shape is alive only while that upper node caps price.

Hedging leans against the move at the top node and with it at the bottom. The shape ends when the top stops capping.

A positive node with a negative node directly above it, close enough to read as one structure — the mirror of a Bearish Failure. Here the weight is at the bottom rather than the top. The shape is alive only while that lower node holds.

Hedging leans against the move at the bottom node and with it at the top. The shape ends when the bottom gives.

The Bullish/Bearish Failure structure, detected on the flow-signed map instead of the open-interest map. Open interest almost never prints a negative node above price, so the shape only became visible once strikes could be signed by who aggressively traded them. The line always reads 'potential', and always carries the condition that keeps the shape alive — the support for a Bullish Failure, the cap for a Bearish one — because a shape whose boundary gives way is no longer that shape. It hands you a condition to watch, never a direction to take. Hover the pattern name for what flow saw at each strike. Every appearance is graded by the scorecard against what price then does; the read stays beta until that record earns it.

A possible Failure shape seen through flow. Watch its boundary; it is not a trigger.

No meaningful positioning overhead. Nothing structural stands in the way if price rises — a pathway, not a target.

Clear air above. Doesn't mean it goes there.

A large positive node sits under price. That is a size and a place, read straight off the book — what is under price is weight.

Hedging around it leans against downside — that is the arithmetic, and it is where the name comes from. It is not a measured floor.

The largest exposure on the map sits above price. "Opposing" is where it stands relative to the current structure, not a force it exerts — raced 547 times, the Raw King came in at 50.3%, a coin.

The biggest level on the board is above you. Measured across 547 races it isn't pushing either way.

The Raw King's positioning is positive. A structural label describing how dealers must book — more call open interest than put at that strike, gamma-weighted. It is not a forecast, not the same as bullish, and not a claim about how dealers will hedge.

Call side is bigger at the King. Says where the size is, not which way it pushes.

The Raw King's balance is negative — more put open interest than call at that strike, gamma-weighted. It is not a forecast, not the same as bearish, and not a claim about how dealers will hedge. Open interest shows what is parked where; it does not record who bought it, which is what any hedging read would depend on.

Put side is bigger at the King. Says where the size is, not which way it pushes.

More call open interest than put open interest sits at this level, weighted by gamma. That is a statement about where contracts are parked, not about who is holding them and not a forecast. Open interest records that a contract exists; it does not record who bought it, so it cannot tell you which way dealers must hedge.

More calls than puts are parked here. It says where the size is, not which way it pushes.

More put open interest than call open interest sits at this level, weighted by gamma. A statement about where contracts are parked, not about who is holding them and not a forecast. Open interest records that a contract exists; it does not record who bought it, so it cannot tell you which way dealers must hedge.

More puts than calls are parked here. It says where the size is, not which way it pushes.

Across the strikes near price, call open interest outweighs put open interest overall. Describes the shape of what is on the board, not what price is likely to do with it. This is the mix near price. Balanced OI says the same thing about a single level, and the Balance Point is a different measure again: one price for the whole board.

The book near price leans to calls.

Across the strikes near price, put open interest outweighs call open interest overall. Describes the shape of what is on the board, not what price is likely to do with it. This is the mix near price. Balanced OI says the same thing about a single level, and the Balance Point is a different measure again: one price for the whole board.

The book near price leans to puts.

A cycle is one visit to a level. It ends when price has been more than 0.4% away from that level for at least a full minute; coming back after that counts as a fresh look rather than a continuation. On a $720 name, 0.4% is about 2.9 points, so price has to clear roughly 717 or 723 and stay there for a minute before the count starts again. Touch numbers are counted inside a cycle, which is why a level tested three times in one visit can read as a first touch after price has been properly away and come back.

One visit to a level. It ends once price has been well away from it for a full minute.

How many separate times price has entered the touch area at this level during the current cycle. A single sustained sit inside the area counts as one, because it counts re-entries rather than ticks, and the count resets when the cycle does. It is a statement of what has happened, not a claim about what the next test will do. Nothing in Compass is scored on it: no confidence value moves and the state machine does not read it.

How many times price has come back to this level this cycle. A count, not a verdict.

How much the level's own exposure has changed since price first reached it in this cycle, shown alongside the touch count when the change is 15 percent or more. It compares against the size recorded on the first touch, not a rolling window, so it answers what has happened to this level while price has been working it. A level can drain, hold or build across repeated tests. Compass reports which. Building is the ordinary case rather than a special one: across 720 re-tests on three products, the level was larger than at first touch about four times in five. And levels that had grown did not behave measurably differently on the next test from levels that had not. Read it as a description of what the level has done, not as confirmation of what it will do.

How much this level has grown or shrunk since price first got here this cycle.

The structure has persisted across repeated reads and is not showing meaningful rotation.

This level has been holding its position for a while.

A new dominant level may be forming. Confirmation takes repeated reads.

Something new might be taking over. Not confirmed yet.

The current dominant level is losing exposure — it has been shrinking meaningfully.

The level is still there, but it's draining away.

Another level is drawing weight. The hierarchy may be starting to rotate.

Something else is competing for control.

Dominance is shifting between levels. Structure is being redrawn.

Control just changed hands.

How many of SPX, SPY and QQQ share the same posture, shown as a count such as MV 2/3. Each index carries equal weight. 3/3 is alignment, 2/3 is the practical minimum, below that the indices are working against each other. Hover it for which one is out of step. The three are not three of the same thing: SPX and SPY are the same 500 companies with different crowds on them, and QQQ is the same names with the tech weighting cranked up, so a disagreement says which crowd is out rather than only that one is.

Two of the three agree. When all three line up, that's the cleanest backdrop.

Appears as e.g. 'Node 6890 building +180% / 3m' when a nearby node has grown or shrunk sharply in the last three minutes. Only shown when movement exceeds 50%.

Positioning is being built there right now, not sitting there from this morning.

Shown roughly 3:15-3:45pm ET, when Robinhood's mechanical margin-liquidation process tends to run. It is a known mechanical flow window, not a prediction of direction — treat it as context for why flow may look unusual, not as a setup.

This is the window where Robinhood's forced margin selling tends to hit. Context, not a signal.

The nearest resistance node above price has itself shifted to a lower strike over the last few minutes. The level moved, not price.

The resistance above just moved lower. The level moved, not price.

The nearest resistance node above price has itself shifted to a higher strike over the last few minutes. The level moved, not price.

The resistance above just moved higher. The level moved, not price.

The nearest support node below price has itself shifted to a lower strike over the last few minutes. The level moved, not price.

The support below just moved lower. The level moved, not price.

The nearest support node below price has itself shifted to a higher strike over the last few minutes. The level moved, not price.

The support below just moved higher. The level moved, not price.

Call and put open interest at this level are close enough that neither side dominates. It says the size parked here is evenly split, not that price is undecided. This is one level. The Book balance chip says the same thing about the strikes near price, and the Balance Point is a different measure again: one price for the whole board.

Calls and puts are roughly even at this level.

How much the level's own exposure has changed since price first reached it in this cycle, shown beside the touch count when the change is 15 percent or more. It compares against the size recorded on the first touch, not a rolling window. Building is the ordinary case rather than a special one: across 720 re-tests on three products, the level was larger than at first touch about four times in five. And levels that had grown did not behave measurably differently on the next test from levels that had not. Read it as a description of what the level has done, not as confirmation of what it will do.

This level is bigger than when price first got here. Usually it is.

How much the level's own exposure has changed since price first reached it in this cycle, shown beside the touch count when the change is 15 percent or more. It compares against the size recorded on the first touch, not a rolling window. Building is the ordinary case rather than a special one: across 720 re-tests on three products, the level was larger than at first touch about four times in five. And levels that had grown did not behave measurably differently on the next test from levels that had not. Read it as a description of what the level has done, not as confirmation of what it will do.

This level is smaller than when price first got here.

Across the strikes near price, call and put open interest are close to even. Describes the shape of what is on the board, not what price is likely to do with it. This is the mix near price. Balanced OI says the same thing about a single level, and the Balance Point is a different measure again: one price for the whole board.

The book near price is roughly even.

Price is moving toward the area but has not reached it. Nothing has happened yet.

On its way, but nothing has been tested.

Close to the area, no interaction yet.

Right next to it, hasn't touched it.

Price has reached the level and interaction has begun. This is the moment that matters.

It's at the level right now. This is the test.

Price has crossed back and forth repeatedly with no acceptance either way. Genuinely undecided — usually the worst moment to act.

It's arguing with the level. Wait for it to settle.

Price is above the level but has not held long enough to count. Crossing a level is not the same as accepting it — that distinction is deliberate.

It's through, but it hasn't earned it yet.

Price has held past the level long enough to be real, not just a wick through it.

It's through and holding. That one counts.

Accepted and now extending away. The level is behind price rather than in front of it.

It's cleared and moving away from it.

Traded above, now back under. Rejection is not confirmed yet.

It poked through and came back. Not a rejection yet.

Price held above and has now moved below. The hold has failed.

It had it, and gave it back.

Price is back at a level it previously lost, trying to take it again.

It's trying to win back the level it dropped.

Price has returned to the area after trading on one side of it.

It came back to check the level again.

Price is easing back toward the level while the structure still holds.

Drifting back toward it, but nothing's broken.

No single dominant reference near price. THREE THINGS SET THIS and any one of them is enough. FIRST, four or more competing levels sit close to price, so there is no obvious one to lean on. SECOND, the Action Area and the Raw King point at different places, or the band of heavy structure around price is not centered on the King; this is the one that surprises people, because the two marks can sit on the same row and it still reads split. THIRD, the Action Area is itself mid-rotation and has not settled. The card shows the largest of whatever fired, so seeing the words once does not tell you which one it was; the ladder does.

The map is arguing with itself. Either too many levels are competing near price, or the Action Area and the Raw King disagree, or the area is still rotating.

The last update is a few seconds behind. Not old enough to distrust the board, and worth knowing while price is moving, because every level on the screen is where it was a moment ago rather than where it is. A longer delay than this stops being a lag and becomes Stale data, which is the largest single deduction Map confidence makes.

The feed is a few seconds behind. The board is fine; it is just not quite now.

The feed has not updated recently. The largest single deduction to confidence, by design — old positioning is worse than no opinion.

The numbers are old. Don't trust this read until it refreshes.

Price is crossing the level repeatedly with no resolution either way.

It's arguing with the level. Wait for it to settle.

An interaction is underway but has not resolved into acceptance or rejection yet.

Something's happening, but it hasn't finished happening.

A new area is forming but has not established itself yet.

A new area is showing up but hasn't earned trust.

The watched area recently changed, so recent history applies to a different level than the current one.

The area just moved. Recent history is about the old one.

The largest exposure on the map sits above price and is at least half again the size of the area being watched. That is a size comparison and it is why Map confidence steps down: the biggest thing on the board is not the thing the card is describing.

The board's biggest level is above you and it is bigger than the area we are watching. That is why confidence is lower, not a call on direction.

High, Moderate or Low — how much Compass trusts its own map right now. It is built from whether the data is fresh, whether the Raw King has been holding still, whether the weight sits on one strike or is split across several, whether the Action Area is settled or still rotating, and whether price is in a formed state or mid-negotiation. High means the levels can be read literally. Low means the map is moving under you and the levels are provisional. It is NOT confidence in a trade, a direction, or a level holding. Low does not mean bearish; it means the picture is muddy and deserves less weight. The line underneath names the largest thing holding the reading up when it is high, and the largest thing pulling it down when it is not.

It's telling you how clean the picture is, not how likely you are to make money.

The member's own word for Map confidence, and the one they type. Same thing: High, Moderate or Low, describing how much Compass trusts its own map right now. Not confidence in a trade, in a direction, or in a level holding. The line underneath it names the single largest reason for the reading, and that line is the part worth reading.

It grades the picture, not the trade. Low means the map is moving under you.

Nearest uses only the front expiration. Weighted blends several expirations by how much each matters to that lens — gamma weighted toward the front, vanna toward 8-30 days where it actually lives.

Nearest is just this expiry. Weighted blends several, because gamma and vanna live in different places.

How many consecutive reads the same level has stayed dominant. A long streak means a stable structure.

How many refreshes this level has stayed on top.

Where the calendar sits relative to the monthly options expiration, the third Friday. March, June, September and December are quarterlies, when index and single-stock contracts expire together and the block is larger. Four phases: positioning concentrates over roughly the week into it, the block expires, the hedging built on it goes with it, and open interest rebuilds over the following weeks. Calendar arithmetic, not a forecast. It says what happens to the book on a known date, never what price will do about it.

Where we are in the monthly expiration cycle, and what that does to the book.

The 25 delta risk reversal: the implied volatility of the call roughly 25% likely to finish in the money, minus the put with the same odds. Every exposure lens describes what dealers are FORCED to do; skew describes what somebody was WILLING TO PAY for, which is different information. Negative is normal for equities, because downside insurance costs more than upside speculation. The level says little on its own, since every name has its own habitual skew. The change is the reading, and Compass does not yet track it across days.

What the options market is paying up for. Negative is normal; the change matters, not the level.

Open interest per strike against the previous recorded session. Open interest settles once a day after the close, so the day-over-day change is the slow-timeframe equivalent of watching the tape: the difference between a wall that has stood for a month and one built last night. Counts contracts, calls and puts separately. Compass can only compare days it recorded, and it starts recording a symbol and expiration the first time you open it.

What positioning was built or drained since yesterday. A count, not an opinion.

Large vanna concentrations beneath current price on the one to three week expirations. Gamma responds to price moving; vanna responds to volatility moving, and volatility tends to move when price falls, so heavy vanna below price marks where dealer hedging would change character if the market got there. Compass reports what is sitting there. It does NOT say whether price has already been down to it, because that needs price history it does not keep, and it does not tell you to wait. That rule belongs to the trader and has not been graded.

Where vanna is concentrated beneath price. A condition, not a verdict.

Charm exposure. Gamma is what dealers do when price moves; vanna is what they do when volatility moves; charm is what they do when nothing moves and time simply passes. Delta drifts as expiry approaches even on a still market, so hedges go stale and have to be corrected. Largest near expiry, accrues overnight and across weekends, and intensifies into a monthly. It is a drift, not a barrier: a large charm value is not support or resistance. Beta, and not yet graded.

What time decay alone is doing to dealer hedging. A current, not a barrier.

How much an option's delta changes from the passage of time alone, with no move in price or volatility. An out-of-the-money option's delta drains toward zero as expiry approaches; an in-the-money one's drifts toward one. Dealers hedge to delta, so when delta drifts the hedge is wrong and has to be fixed, which is a real order caused by nothing but the clock.

Delta drift caused by time passing. It makes dealers trade when nothing happened.

Whether the two lenses agree on direction, and if not, the likely reason — contracts rolling off, a vol move, or a genuine difference between time horizons. Only shown when they disagree or the relationship has just changed.

Gamma and vanna are telling different stories, and here's probably why.

VIX level and direction over five minutes. Context only — it is not scored into anything.

What volatility is doing. Nothing is calculated from it.

aligned — one clear area. watch — a challenger is emerging. split — two areas competing. confirmed — the crown has changed hands.

Whether one area is clearly in charge, or two are fighting over it.

Gamma exposure. How much dealers have to buy or sell as PRICE moves, strike by strike. It is the lens for what is happening now: where price meets resistance, where it gets pinned, where hedging turns from absorbing a move to feeding it. Gamma lives in the front expirations, so GEX is weighted toward the nearest dates. This is the lens to read when the question is about the next hour.

Where dealer hedging pushes back on price, right now. The intraday lens.

Vanna exposure. How much dealers have to buy or sell as VOLATILITY moves, rather than as price moves. It is the slower lens, and the useful distinction is this: the board says where the pressure sits, the volatility read says whether the day will let that pressure matter. Vanna barely exists at same-day expiry and peaks eight to thirty days out, so VEX is weighted to the swing horizon and is the wrong instrument for timing an entry. Not yet graded here.

Where dealer hedging responds to volatility instead of price. The swing lens.

Top right of the command bar: a colored dot, the market's current state, and the time in Pacific. The dot and the words are the useful half — they say whether what you are looking at is live, pre-market, after hours or a closed board. A closed board is measured as of the last close and does not move, which is worth knowing before reading anything into a level that is standing still.

Whether the board in front of you is live, and what time it is where we are.

The second act of the Telescope, and the middle of three books: THE LONG BOOK reads out to the LEAPS, THE INCOME BOOK reads one date for writing against, and this one reads the next few weeks. It is built from open interest across every live expiry, weighted the way Compass weights its slow lens, so the eight to thirty day band counts full and same-day counts a tenth. It reads the RECORDED book rather than the live chain, which is why it answers after the bell, at weekends, and on a name whose chain is refusing.

Where the book sits over the next few weeks. Every live expiry at once, weighted to the swing band, read off the record rather than the live chain.

The first block on THE SWING BOOK and the only one written to be acted on rather than studied. It names the side if the board has one, the level in that direction that actually carries size, how often price has reached that far inside a week, and the level that ends the read together with how far back that level sits. Where, how far, and where you are wrong. Every number in it already appears elsewhere on the card: the block exists because a reading a member has to assemble from four sections is a reading that does not get used before the open. It names NO entry day, no strike, and no probability of direction. Reach is the one rate on the line and it is a rate about DISTANCE. IT CLOSES ON AN ACTION LINE, which is the only sentence a member has to read: a level to act at, what the book points to if that level gives, and what says the read is over. Where nothing on the board is inside a week's reach it says that instead, because standing down is also an instruction.

The top line of the card, and it ends on the line you act on: a level, what the book points to, and what ends it.

The two levels a two-sided board turns on, one above price and one below, each the nearest level within two moves that carries real size. A board with no side still has gates, which is why THE READ has something to say about it: ACCEPTANCE through one of them is the read and a wick through is not. Where one gate is inside a week's reach and the other is not, the card says which, and that is a statement about DISTANCE and never about direction. Where price is standing on a gate the card says that instead, because it outranks any comparison between the two. ACCEPTANCE through a gate is the trigger and a wick through it is not. A GATE IS NOT ALWAYS THE WEEK'S LEVEL: it is the heaviest level near price, and when it sits further out than price has gone in five sessions the card names the nearest level with size that price can actually reach instead.

The two levels a two-sided board turns on. Acceptance through one is the trigger; a wick through is not.

The heaviest level on one road that price can actually REACH inside a week: at least a tenth of a move away, so it is a destination rather than where price is standing, and no further than a stretch, because past that the record cannot support calling it reachable. It is a different question from where the most size sits, and the card names both when they differ. A large pile a long way out is where the book's weight is and is still the interesting part of the board; it is simply not a week's level, and this card answers weeks in its title while reach answers one week in its column.

The nearest level with real size that price can actually get to inside a week. Not the same as where the most size is.

The gamma flip and the balance point taken as a pair. They are two independently recorded levels and they usually sit within a fraction of a normal day of each other, so naming them once is clearer than naming them twice. Price is ON the hinge when it closed within a quarter of a normal day of both, ABOVE or BELOW it when it closed clear of both on one side, and STRADDLING it when it closed between them. On the hinge is the two-sided case: neither side has price yet. When the flip sits further than one move and a half from price it is withheld rather than drawn, and the hinge is then the balance point alone.

The flip and the balance point together. On the hinge means price closed sitting on both of them, so neither side has it yet.

One standard deviation of price over the window the card names, which is twenty-eight days on THE SWING BOOK. Built from the implied volatility the tape banked for that window where it has one, and from the name's own average daily range where it does not, and the card says which every time. It is a SCALE rather than a boundary: price goes further than one move about a third of the time. It replaced the word sigma, which is a statistician's unit nobody reads off a screen.

One standard deviation over the window named. A scale, not a limit. Price goes past it about a third of the time.

Each level's distance from price in one-move units rather than in dollars or percent. A level 0.40 moves away is close on any name and a level 4.85 moves away is a long way off on any name, which a percentage cannot tell you without knowing the name. The column exists so that a very large pile a long way out cannot be mistaken for a price target, and that is the easiest way there is to misread a swing board.

How far a level is in one-move units, so near and far mean the same thing on every name.

Whether price can get to a level, MEASURED on our own record rather than calculated from a formula. A level was placed a given number of moves either side of every close and the next five sessions' highs and lows were checked for a touch. It answers ONE WEEK, on 169 banked sessions across 20 names, and the card says so rather than leaving the window to be assumed. Six words carry it, from very likely down to out of reach. Past half a move the touch count behind the estimate falls under this house's forty-event floor, so the word still stands alone past half a move. Inside half a move the RATE prints under it, on 185 touches at a quarter and 102 at a half, because a wide bucket survives a thin sample and a number does not.

Whether price can get there, measured on our own sessions, over one week. Six words, and no percentage past half a move because the count behind it is thin.

The last section of THE SWING BOOK. It names the listed expiry between thirty and sixty days out with the most open interest behind it, the two strikes the chain lists either side of price, and what a call and a put at each would cost. Prices are MODELED from each strike's own implied volatility rather than quoted, because the chain Compass reads carries volatility and open interest and no bid, and the section says so where the number is. Under thirty days it declines and explains why rather than shortening its own window. It names no direction beyond the lean above it and it names no entry day.

The date, the two strikes either side of price, and what each would cost. Modeled, not quoted. No entry day, and no direction of its own.

A confidence label, and it means what it says: a claim was measured and the measurement did not clear the bar. It sits beside the lean's hit rate. On the sessions behind it, a board closing with its nearest expiry leaning one way saw the level a quarter of a normal day on that side reached first the NEXT SESSION about four times in a hundred more often than on an average day; shuffling those outcomes four thousand times produced a gap that big between thirty-six and forty-five times in a hundred, against a usual bar of under five. So the sign is right and nothing beyond that can be claimed yet. The LEAN itself is a count of where size sits and needs no test at all.

It was measured and it did not land. The side is a count of where size sits, which needs no test. The hit rate beside it is not evidence yet.

The two ladders on THE SWING BOOK, above price and below it, drawn separately with price's own row between them. Each runs outward from price and carries a dashed line where one move ends, so everything past that line is further out than a normal window. Teal is above price and rust below, because on this board colour carries side and nothing else. Amber is spent only on the session's recorded King and on the one-move boundary: this board is every live expiry at once, so it has no King of its own and its heaviest strike is only that.

The two ladders, above and below price, with a dashed line marking where one move ends.

What price actually did over the last 45 minutes, measured two ways: movement efficiency (how much ground was kept versus how much was traveled — a slow one-way grind scores high, back-and-forth scores near zero) and, when enough levels have been tested, whether they held or gave way. The gamma flip line is what the book suggests; this is what the tape did. When the two disagree, the card says the structural read is contested — it never says which side to believe. The line stays silent for the first 45 minutes after launch and whenever the reading is genuinely mixed.

The book suggests; the tape reports. Silence means not enough data yet.