Options Market Structure — Dealer Positioning & Key Levels

Options do not sit beside the market; they act on it. Every open contract is hedged, and that hedge is transacted in the underlying — so a large enough book leaves a mechanical footprint on how price moves.

The map of that footprint: the four forces (modeled dealer gamma, delta, vanna and charm), the levels they concentrate at (zero gamma, the call and put walls, max pain and the expected-move band), and the two structures that reshape them — the expiry calendar and the volatility surface.

Every positioning figure is estimated from published open interest under an explicit sign convention. It is never an observed dealer book. Derived analytics for education and research, not investment advice.