How to read the Helios screen

The screen has one reading order: the Day Call (which side), the Hour Read (when there is a 60-minute lean), the Day Map (where), the chart (the lines). Everything else is context for those four. Read it in that order every time and the page stops being dense.

1. The header

Price with today's open, high, low and volume. The gauge is the gamma regime, not a direction: positive gamma means dealers lean against moves (ranges, fades, pins); negative gamma means dealers chase moves (trends run, moves get fast). The number says how clear the regime is.

2. The Day Call

At 10:30 ET Helios calls the session BULLISH or BEARISH from dealer positioning and the session's own prices, or says there is no call. STRONG means the evidence was decisive. The claim is exactly one thing: the close lands on that side of the open. It says nothing about the path.

• What to do: treat it as a filter. Work the called side of the session; leave the other side alone. It is not an entry.
• Under test: if price crosses back over the open after the read, the call is being tested. The claim is still the close; nothing on the screen will tell you to flip.
• The record: read live from our own minute bars under the call, with the sample and the window. Misses count. Free members see the call after the close, graded; Day Trader members see it at 10:30 with the drift and the strength.

3. The Hour Read

Next to the call. It speaks only when the structure is in the one state that has earned it on our tape; otherwise it says WAIT and names the reason. WAIT is its normal state: most of a session has no 60-minute edge, and Helios says so instead of guessing.

• BUY CALLS / BUY PUTS: a lean for the next 60 minutes, on the day call's side. Small size, your contract, your exit; a one-percent move in SPY is roughly 30 to 40 percent on a same-day at-the-money option, both ways.
• WAIT: no new 60-minute risk. Watch the map for the next event.
• "The desk's ranked side": whether the trading engine's own lean agrees. Context, not a second call.

4. The Day Map

The session's structure, live: the regime, the zero-gamma line (where dealer behaviour flips from dampening to chasing), the magnet (the strike that pulls price), the walls above and below, each with its distance from price in basis points. On the right, today's events as they print: the call, a line cross, a wall touch, the magnet reached, a reversal back through the open.

5. The chart

• Ceiling (red, dashed): the upper wall; dealers sell into it.
• Floor (green, dashed): the lower wall; dealers buy into it.
• Magnet (purple, dotted): where pinning gravitates price.
• Flip line (amber): the zero-gamma line. Above it dealers dampen; below it they chase.

6. The Market Day card (Pro)

The desk's research console: the trading engine's horizons, seats and gates drawn as lights. They are states and seats, not calls, and they disagree with each other by design, because each watches a different clock. When a light disagrees with the Day Call, the Day Call stands. Read the card to see why the desk is cautious; never trade it as a second opinion.

7. Alerts and the rest

Telegram carries the call, the hour read and the close to your phone (Account → Telegram). The commentary explains the structure in plain words. The ladders (Pro) show positioning strike by strike. The Hub is the morning ritual: the note, the tools, the journal.

Glossary of the words on the screen

• bp: basis points; 100 bp = 1%. "Drift +55 bp" means price was 0.55% above the open at the read.
• Day Call: the 10:30 ET call on which side of the open the close lands.
• Strong: a day call made on decisive evidence; graded separately.
• Drift: how far price sat from the open at the 10:30 read.
• Under test: price has crossed back over the open after the call; the claim is still the close.
• Hour Read: the read for the next 60 minutes; speaks in one structure state, WAIT otherwise.
• WAIT: no 60-minute edge now; the normal state.
• Regime: positive gamma (dealers dampen) or negative gamma (dealers chase).
• Zero-gamma line / flip line: the price where the regime flips.
• Magnet: the strike with the most open interest near price; it pulls price, especially into expiry.
• Wall / ceiling / floor: the strikes where dealer hedging concentrates above and below price.
• Graded: checked against the close on our own minute bars; the result is on the public record.
• Record: hits over calls, with the sample and the window, rebuilt every evening.
• Push: a close within 5 bp of the open; counts for neither side.
• Seat (Market Day card): one of the trading engine's horizons; a research label.
• Gate (Market Day card): the trading engine refusing a side; a state, not a prediction.
• Witness: the grader; it stamps every read when made and grades it later, independent of the engine.

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