To The Moon

$SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ $Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ 🔥📊 2026 Options Expiration Calendar Released: Reshaping My Volatility and Dealer Flow Strategies for the Year 📊🔥 I am framing 2026 through options structure, not headlines, and the newly released OIC expiration calendar just gave me the blueprint for where volatility, liquidity and forced dealer flows are going to collide next year. This is not a novelty. This is the roadmap of the derivatives market. Every major dislocation in modern markets, the 2018 vol spike, the 2020 crash, the 2022 bear legs, and the AI driven squeezes of 2023 and 2024, accelerated around options expirations because that is when gamma, vanna, charm and hedging risk get reset. 🧠 Why this calendar matters Options are the plumbing of the market, and this calendar shows me exactly when that plumbing will be under the most stress. Over the past 25 years, the week after monthly options expiration has produced the highest frequency of S&P 500 trend reversals because dealer gamma drops off and price is no longer pinned. Real money flow takes over. Roughly 40% of the largest $VIX spikes since 2008 have occurred within three trading days of volatility options expiration, particularly when short volatility positions are concentrated, when hedges come off the system all at once. Even the biggest market shocks, 1987, 2008, 2020 and 2022, all accelerated around option expiration windows when protection was rolling off while fear was rising. 📅 🟥 Red outlined squares These mark the standard monthly expirations for equity, index and cash settled currency options. That is classic OPEX, when the largest piles of open interest, often pulling in billions in notional value from institutional rolls, come off the board and price gets magnetised to key strikes in $SPY and $QQQ. 🌅 🟦 Blue blocks These are AM settled index options like $SPX. These stop trading the day before and settle on the next morning’s open, which is why some of the biggest overnight gaps of the year form around these dates as dealers square positions pre-settlement. ⏰ 🟩 Green diamonds These mark when expiring equity options and PM settled index options stop trading. This is what drives the 3:50 pm to 4:00 pm pinning behaviour that traps price into round numbers on Fridays. 🌪️ 🟪 Purple blocks These are volatility product expirations like $VIX options. When these roll, volatility dealers unwind hedges across the entire market, triggering cross-asset volatility contagion, which is why some of the strongest rallies and sharpest selloffs often begin just after VIX expiration. 📊 🟨 Yellow blocks These are quarterly expirations. These are the heavyweight resets. On these so-called triple witching days (historically termed quadruple prior to the 2020 delisting of single-stock futures), trading volume is on average 2 to 3 times higher, drawing in arbitrageurs and systematic funds, often amplifying gamma and vanna cascades, and occasionally charm-driven delta shifts, as index options, stock options, volatility products and futures all roll together. 📛 🔴 Red filled circles These are exchange holidays. When expirations fall on holidays, they shift to odd days that distort normal weekly patterns. ⭐ 🔴 Red star This marks when 2029 LEAPS are listed. Long dated LEAPS buying has historically led some of the biggest secular moves in the market. Heavy LEAPS accumulation, signaling institutional conviction in multi-year themes, in $AAPL in 2009, $AMZN in 2013, $TSLA in 2019 and $NVDA in 2022 all showed up in options flow months before those stocks went parabolic. 📈 What I am seeing for 2026 When I look at this calendar, I am not seeing dates. I am seeing where gamma flips, where vanna and charm decay resets, and where volatility is structurally forced into the market. 2026 shows heavy clustering of index, volatility and quarterly expirations around major macro windows, aligned with clustered resets in Q1 and Q3, particularly around the March/June and September/December quarterly clusters. That tells me volatility is likely to come in waves, not smoothly. Fewer windows, but much bigger moves. 👉❓Which expiration clusters are you watching to position for gamma flips? If I only look at charts, I see the wave after it hits. If I track options structure, I see where the wave is forming. That is why this calendar is not just useful. It is alpha for anyone trading $SPX, $SPY, $QQQ and $VIX because it tells me in advance when dealer hedging, gamma exposure, charm decay and volatility positioning are going to flip. Those flips are what create the biggest intraday reversals, the strongest trend days, and the sharpest squeezes. When I know where those structural pressure points are, I am not reacting to price, I am anticipating where liquidity will appear or disappear. 📢 Don’t miss out! Like, Repost and Follow me for exclusive setups, cutting-edge trends, and insights that move markets 🚀📈 I’m obsessed with hunting down the next big movers and sharing strategies that crush it. Let’s outsmart the market and stack those gains together! 🍀 Trade like a boss! Happy trading ahead, Cheers, BC 📈🚀🍀🍀🍀 @Tiger_comments @TigerObserver @TigerWire @TigerStars @Daily_Discussion @TigerPicks