Feature guide
Dealer board in detail
SmartTrace's flagship page brings a symbol's complete dealer structure, live price action, and flow together on one screen.
What to check first—and next
This page is not for scanning for the longest bar. It is for testing a price hypothesis you already have. Start with the candle chart to identify the trend and key levels. Then overlay the ladder to find the nodes above and below spot that deserve attention. Finally, use the heatmap to see which expiries those nodes come from, and Delta flow to check whether today's capital is confirming or working against your view.
| Order | Panel | Question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Candles + ladder | What structure is price testing? Which nodes above and below spot matter most? |
| 2 | Switch expiry / Greek | Which expiry creates this node? On the Intraday basis, the nearest expiry is usually the most important. What risks beyond Gamma appear when you switch to Vanna or Charm? |
| 3 | Heatmap | Does this node exist only at the nearest expiry, or is the same exposure present at other expiries too? |
| 4 | Delta flow | Is today's capital confirming the structure, or consuming it from the other side? |
Intraday / OI: two calculation bases
An Intraday / OI toggle at the top of the page determines which calculation method powers the entire page. It is the most important control to understand here.
| Basis | Data foundation | Best used to answer |
|---|---|---|
| Intraday | Net directional Exposure inferred from today's Ask / Bid activity (supported for Gamma, Vanna, and Charm) | Which direction today's intraday activity is building Exposure |
| OI | Outstanding open interest, including the classic Call Wall / Put Wall / Gamma Flip | Where the symbol's medium- and longer-term structural levels are |
The two bases often point to different prices, and that is normal. Intraday shows directional activity added today; OI shows the existing position base. The Delta flow tab appears only on the Intraday basis because it is minute-level data—there is no OI version of it.
Exposure tab: expiry, Greeks, and two chart views
This is the default tab and the main workspace for reading structure. A two-way control at the top switches between two very different chart views:
- Candles: the primary view, with an optional ladder or heatmap overlay (described below).
- Volume / OI: a strike-by-strike Call/Put comparison chart, shaped like a butterfly with Calls and Puts on opposite sides. On the Intraday basis it displays today's volume; on the OI basis it displays open contract counts. OI changes little during the session, so it is generally more useful to watch which strikes are accumulating volume fastest.
Both views let you select an individual expiry. The nearest expiry is selected by default, and the menu lets you choose any future expiry, with its date and days to expiry (DTE). In the candle view, selecting "All" aggregates Exposure across every expiry within 90 days. The candle view also adds a Greek selector: Gamma by default, with Vanna (sensitivity linking spot and volatility) and Charm (the effect of time decay on Delta) available. Viewing the same strikes through another Greek often reveals a different story—and puts the advanced Vanna / Charm background from "Options & hedging basics" into practice.
Ladder over candles: structure and price in one view
In the candle view, click "Ladder" to overlay the ladder chart as translucent bars on the right side of the chart, aligned precisely to the price axis. A node at the current candle's price appears on the same horizontal line, so there is no need to switch tabs and compare coordinates.
- Switchable bar modes: choose net Exposure (one bar showing the net value) or a directional comparison—Ask/Bid on the Intraday basis and Call/Put on the OI basis. The bars update with your selected Greek.
- Built-in history: the ladder overlays snapshot markers from 10, 20, and 30 minutes ago at progressively lower opacity. You can immediately tell whether a node just appeared or has occupied the same price for half an hour—the node growth and consumption described in "Core concepts."
- Synchronized zoom: zoom the candle chart with the scroll wheel and the ladder zooms with it, keeping price and structure aligned in the same visible range.
The candle chart itself is professional-grade, with intervals from one minute through weekly, overlays such as VWAP, scroll-wheel zoom, and drag-to-pan. Appearance settings—including solid / hollow / OHLC / area candles and price-axis type—live in Settings → Charts, not on this page; change them once and they apply throughout the product. Reading candles and the ladder together gives two views of the same question: "How did price just move?" and "What structure is price sitting in now?"
Heatmap: the full expiry picture
In the candle view, click "Heatmap" (it is mutually exclusive with "Ladder," so only one can be active), or open the full-screen version from the Heatmap tab. The vertical axis shows strikes and the horizontal axis shows expiries. Each cell's color and intensity represent the strength of Exposure for that strike × expiry combination; colors can be customized in Settings → Charts. The heatmap includes a GEX / VEX toggle: GEX displays Gamma Exposure, while VEX displays Vanna Exposure, letting you examine either dimension across expiries.
It answers a question the ladder cannot: does the current node exist only at the nearest expiry, or are several expiries building Exposure at the same price? When multiple expiries align at one price, the structure usually deserves more attention than an isolated node at a single expiry.
Delta flow
This tab appears only on the Intraday basis because it uses today's minute-level data. Its bars show the net Delta direction dealers passively absorbed each minute—the taller the bar, the more concentrated the directional capital during that minute.
- Adjustable interval: aggregate by 5, 10, or 15 minutes. It shares the same interval system as the candle chart for easy comparison.
- Separate near- and far-dated flow: toggle between the nearest expiry alone, which is most sensitive to today's tape, and the combined farther expiries, which behave more like background positioning. Keeping them separate prevents one from obscuring the other.
Key levels panel
A fixed row of summary cards appears at the top of the page. The selected basis determines which levels are shown:
| Basis | Levels shown |
|---|---|
| Intraday | Net GEX · positive node · negative node · magnet · Max Pain (the Intraday basis is noisier, so Gamma Flip is not calculated) |
| OI | Net GEX · Call Wall · Put Wall · Gamma Flip · magnet · Max Pain |
Each card shows the level's percentage distance from spot. The magnet corresponds to the Anchor from "Core concepts"—the ladder level with the largest absolute net Exposure.
Add board & Compare: multi-symbol layouts
Two controls in the upper-right support two very different multi-symbol workflows:
- Add board: adds another complete Dealer board with every tab. You can open up to four, arranged automatically in two-column rows on desktop. Use this when you want to follow a few symbols in depth and retain complete expiry, Greek, and Delta flow detail for each. You can even open the same symbol twice and set each board to a different expiry.
- Compare: select two or three symbols and replace the current board view with a compact side-by-side layout. Each cell independently shows candles or a heatmap, making it useful for quickly scanning which symbol has the tightest structure or is accelerating today without opening every detail for each one.