The heatmap
The board of exposure by strike and expiration: reading it, the controls above it, and what hovering or clicking a cell shows.
- Rows and columns: each row is a strike, each column an expiration, nearest on the left.
- Colour: yellow is positive, purple is negative; the brighter the cell, the bigger the node.
- The control bar: GEX or VEX, what the board follows, velocity, strikes and expirations, settings.
- Hover, click, right-click: read a cell, open its details, track it or hide its strike.
Open a symbol
Click the symbol at the left of the control bar (or the search pill on a phone) and type a ticker. The board loads with the symbol's own strikes and expirations, and the address changes to match, such as /heatmap/SPXW, so a bookmark opens the same board.
Reading the board
- Rows are strikes, highest at the top. The dashed white line between two rows is the price right now.
- Columns are expirations, nearest on the left. Today's expiration is marked 0D.
- Colour shows the sign: positive cells run to yellow, negative cells to purple, and small ones sit in the blue-green middle.
- Brightness shows size. The largest nodes are drawn as bright tiles; by default, nodes under a quarter of the King's size are dimmed.
- The gold star marks the King, the board's largest cell.
What the levels mean and how traders use them is covered in Key terms and, in depth, in the Academy inside the app.
The control bar
The bar above the board holds everything you change while you watch. On narrow screens the labels fold into icons, and on a phone the bar scrolls sideways.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| GEX·VEX | Gamma exposure or vanna exposure. GEX is the intraday map; VEX is the slower, multi-day one. |
| Spot·King | Follow: keeps the price row, or the King, centred as the board updates. Turn both off to scroll freely. Scrolling by hand pauses it for a few seconds. |
| Velocity | Badges with each node's change over a timeframe you pick. See Velocity and Movers below. |
| Compare | Shows how much each node changed since 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour ago, or the open. |
| Replay | Plays back a past session. See Replay. |
| View | How many strikes and which expirations this board shows, and which strikes it hides. |
| Node % | Read nodes as dollars or as a share of the King, and how small nodes are shown. |
| Heatmap settings | The gear: colours, numbers, the board's look. See Heatmap settings. |
| Copy image·Save image | A picture of the board, to paste or keep. |
| Inspector | Opens or closes the side panel with the node details, Movers and your watchlist. |
Strikes and expirations
Open View to choose what the board covers. These choices belong to the board, so each Multimap panel keeps its own.
| Setting | Options |
|---|---|
| Tight·Normal·Wide | Quick sizes: about 46, 92 or 184 strikes around the price. Reset returns the board to its defaults. |
| Strike range | A slider from 10 to 400 strikes, or All for every listed strike. The default is 92. |
| Expirations | Front·2·3·5·All or a slider for any number, plus date ranges: To Friday·To Next Friday·To OPEX·To Next OPEX·To Q-OPEX·To Next Q-OPEX. The heatmap page starts with 5. |
| Hide strikes | Empty hides strikes with no value in the shown expirations; Hide strikes under hides small ones, from $1K up to $1M. |
| Hidden strikes | Strikes you hid one by one, each with a button to bring it back, and Restore all. |
The heatmap page always shows one column per expiration. To see each strike's total as well, turn on the Net column in Heatmap settingsBoardNet column. A summed single column is available on Multimap boards.
Hover, click and right-click
Hover a cell
The tooltip shows the strike and expiration, the value (or its share of the King), a Growing, Steady or Shrinking chip over the last fifteen minutes, and one change row per velocity timeframe you picked in the settings.
Click a cell
The Inspector's Node tab opens on that node: its value and trend, its share of the King, its distance from the price, a chart of its value over 15m·1h·Day, and a table of how it changed over the last minute up to the last day. Click the same cell again to let it go.
Right-click a cell (long-press on a touch screen)
- Track node size keeps an eye on the node: it joins the Movers list, and the Tracked tab of the Alerts page shows its value when you added it, now, and the change.
- Hide this strike takes the row off the board (the message that follows has an Undo).
- Copy value copies the number.
Velocity and Movers
With Velocity on, nodes carry a small badge with their percentage change over the timeframe on the button next to it. Click that button to change it:
| Setting | Options |
|---|---|
| Timeframe | 1m·5m·10m·15m·1h·4h·1d |
| Badges | All nodes with data, or only Selected ones moving at least the Minimum (0–100%, 5% by default). |
| Confluence | A bar on a strike's left edge: green when it grew on every picked timeframe, red when it shrank on all of them. 5m, 10m and 15m by default. It works even with the badges off. |
While velocity is on, Movers lists the board's ten fastest-growing and ten fastest-shrinking nodes, plus any you are tracking. Click one to jump to it.
Compare
Compare turns every board into a board of change: each cell shows its value now minus its value 15m·30m·1h ago, or since the Open. Colours centre on zero, and the biggest change is gold. A chip in the corner names the time compared against; its ✕ stops comparing. Compare is not remembered: a reload brings the normal board back.
The info bar
Under the board, the info bar shows the colour scale with its low and high values (a tick marks zero, a gold mark the King, a pointer the cell you hover), and the total exposure below and above the price. Turn it off in Heatmap settingsBoardInfo bar.
Common questions
The star is not on the strike with the biggest Net bar. Which is the King?
The star marks the largest single cell; the Net column adds each strike up across the shown expirations. They are usually the same strike. When they differ, the Net column tells you which strike carries the most overall.
Where did my hidden strikes go?
Hidden strikes belong to the symbol: switching the board to another symbol clears them. Open View to bring strikes back one by one or with Restore all.
Can the heatmap show one summed column instead of every expiration?
Not on the heatmap page. Turn on the Net column for the totals beside the expirations, or use a Multimap board, where ExpirationsShowNet, summed in one column is an option.
Do my settings follow me to another computer?
Not yet. Boards, settings and watchlists are remembered in the browser you set them in. See Settings and saved data.
Still stuck? Ask in the TrueGEX Discord, or write to [email protected].