Options Chart Overview

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What You’ll Learn

How to use the Hermes Options Chart page, what each panel is showing, which controls matter, and how to compare short-dated SPY and SPX contracts quickly. The Hermes options grid puts calls and puts around the money on one screen, so you can compare reaction speed and structure without flipping between contracts.

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What You’re Looking At

The Options Chart page is a strike-by-strike view of the options chain rendered as charts instead of a table. Each column is one strike. Within that column:

• the call chart is on top
• the put chart is below it
• the time axis is shared across the page so you can compare contracts at the same moment

This is useful because fast option moves do not happen evenly across the chain. Near-ATM contracts often react first, while farther OTM contracts can lag or over-expand. Hermes lets you see that relationship quickly instead of flipping between contracts one at a time.

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What Users Can Do On The Page

From the Settings panel, you can change:

• Underlying to switch between SPY and SPX
• Contract Date to move to a different expiration
• Strikes from ATM to show fewer or more contracts around the current price
• Chart Width to choose narrow, wide, or extra-wide

On the chart grid itself, you can:

• scroll horizontally across strikes
• pan and zoom one chart and keep the other option charts aligned to the same time window
• compare how calls and puts respond during the same move
• watch the Tilson T3 line as a simple trend guide

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How To Read The Page First

Before drawing a conclusion from one contract, answer these questions:

1. Is the underlying trending cleanly or chopping?
2. Are the near-ATM contracts expanding with the move, or stalling?
3. Is price holding above or below the Tilson T3 line?
4. Are calls and puts confirming the same story, or fighting each other?

What usually matters most is not one candle. It is whether the option stays on the right side of the T3 and continues to respond in the expected direction.

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Practical Review Workflow

This is one practical way to review the page for SPY.

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1. Start With Trend, Not With The Option

Use the page to decide whether the session is acting like:

• an uptrend
• a downtrend
• a range you should avoid

If the page looks messy, lower the weight you put on the options grid. The chart is most useful when one side of the chain is clearly responding better than the other.

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2. Focus Near The Money

For quick SPY reads, start near the current price instead of reaching far out of the money. Why:

• near-ATM contracts usually respond faster
• spreads are often more manageable
• the chart behavior is easier to read around pullbacks and trend continuation

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3. Watch The Pullback To The Tilson T3

In an uptrend:

• look for the contract to pull back toward the Tilson T3
• watch for buyers to defend that line
• note whether the trend starts resuming before the stretch becomes crowded

In a downtrend:

• use the same idea on puts
• wait for the option to pull back toward the Tilson T3
• note whether downside momentum starts expanding again

The idea is simple: do not over-weight the first burst. Let price come back to trend, then see whether trend support still holds.

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4. Exit Fast If The Trend Flips

This page is especially useful for noticing when the contract has stopped behaving cleanly. If the option loses the trend and starts holding on the wrong side of the Tilson T3, treat that as a warning that the read has degraded. For quick SPY reads, the practical point is to:

• avoid over-staying a deteriorating structure
• preserve attention for the next clean setup
• compare the surrounding strikes before assuming one contract tells the whole story

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5. Review The First Clean Continuation

For SPY 0DTE contracts, the first clean continuation can matter more than the full-day move. A common workflow is:

1. identify the trend
2. wait for a pullback to T3
3. watch whether resumption appears
4. compare the continuation move across nearby strikes
5. downgrade the read if trend structure breaks

That keeps the page aligned with what it does best: helping you read momentum and reaction speed in the option itself.

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Common Mistakes

• Chasing extension instead of waiting for structure to reset
• Over-weighting chop where calls and puts both look noisy
• Using a far OTM contract that moves too erratically
• Ignoring a T3 break after the option flips through the trend line
• Looking only at one contract instead of checking the surrounding strikes for confirmation

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Practical Summary

Use the Options Chart page to compare strikes quickly, identify whether one side of the chain is trending cleanly, and time pullbacks to the Tilson T3. For fast SPY reads, the basic review loop is:

• read the trend first
• watch the pullback to T3
• avoid over-weighting late extensions
• downgrade the read if the trend flips

That is where Hermes is useful: the surrounding strikes, shared time axis, and trend line stay visible together, so changes in structure are easier to compare.