FTD cycles, options pin pressure, and short-volume mechanics — mapping structural stress in equities and ETFs across T+6 / T+12-14 / T+21-28 (onset) / T+35 / T+46 (delivery, 88% hit rate) / T+63. Research tool, not financial advice. More ›
System of Entropy is shorthand for a recurring failure mode: societies, markets, and institutions measure the wrong things and incentivize the wrong actions. This dashboard is one push back at the market layer — making the mechanical signals legible alongside the narrative that usually dominates market commentary.
Click any pill to add or remove a ticker from the comparison. Click an already-active pill to remove it.
Click a ticker, then an expiry to inspect the strike-by-strike OI distribution. Max pain strike is highlighted in green; call/put walls (>20% of total OI at one strike) are tagged.
| Strike | % from spot | Call OI | Put OI | Total | P/C |
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| Ticker | Latest % | 30d Avg | 30d High | 30d Low | Signal |
|---|
Click any row for the drill-down modal · Click a column header to sort · Filter chips below
| Ticker ⇅ | Close ⇅ | RSI ⇅ | MACD ⇅ | Hist ⇅ | Trend ⇅ | Short Vol % ⇅ |
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All 176 tracked tickers ranked by a composite forward-looking score: FTD settlement cycle pressure (40%) · Short volume trend (25%) · Technical setup (20%) · Earnings proximity (10%) · XRT constituent weight (5%). Refreshed daily. Click any row to drill down into that ticker's full signal set.
Click any row for the drill-down modal · Click a column header to sort · Filter chips below
| Score ⇅ | Ticker ⇅ | Close ⇅ | RSI ⇅ | MACD ⇅ | Hist ⇅ | Trend ⇅ | 30d Ret ⇅ |
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Systemic stress indicators alongside the operational FTD signals. Widening credit spreads, rising VIX, and shifting rates often precede or amplify the mechanical pressure visible elsewhere on the dashboard.
FRED_API_KEY to Vercel environment variables (free at fred.stlouisfed.org), then trigger a manual refresh.
Structural position of the market and key tickers across moving-average stacks. The bull_200_only configuration (price above 200d but below 50d) is the mechanical sweet spot for the XBI FTD signal — 80% historical win rate at n=5.
The System (S&P 500): MA10 vs MA50 vs MA200. Positive = MA10 > MA50.
NASDAQ: MA20 vs MA100 vs MA250. Positive = MA20 > MA100.
Standard (FTD basket): MA20 vs MA50 vs MA200. bull_200_only = above 200d, below 50d.
Note: SMA 200 values use available 180-bar history. Where bar count < 200, estimates are flagged.
| Ticker | Stack | vs SMA50 | vs SMA200 | 3mo Slope | FTD p80 | Role |
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sma_ftd_monitor.py --ftd locally for live FTD levels.
Framework by Raul / raultrades.
How the signals are computed and where the data comes from. Updated as the model evolves.
XRT (SPDR S&P Retail ETF) is the cleanest available window into the operational-shorting machinery of the US equity plumbing. It's a small-cap, equal-weighted retail basket, which means Authorized Participants frequently create and redeem shares in response to even modest flow — and those AP transactions are the primary mechanism through which fails-to-deliver accumulate.
Three properties make XRT a uniquely good model subject:
The other tickers on this dashboard are either comparison vehicles (KRE for credit/banking lead-lag, IWM for small-cap context, LQD for credit stress), cohort members (GME, AMC, KOSS, CHWY — sharing retail/short-mechanics traits), or single-name expressions of the same operational pressure (CVNA, PBI, BYND). XRT remains the anchor because its mechanics are the most legible.
| Day | Event | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| T+6 | ETF creation/redemption settlement | Authorized Participant double-fail can cascade into a T+12-14 spike |
| T+12-14 | Operational close window | Highest density of recorded FTDs historically — primary watch window |
| T+21 | Move onset window (empirical) | 70% win rate for large spikes — earliest reliable price signal |
| T+28 | Move acceleration window (empirical) | 75% win rate — strong early signal, often pre-delivery covering begins |
| T+35 | SEC Rule 204 mandatory closeout | Hard regulatory deadline; 88% win rate for spikes >1M shares |
| T+46 | Extended closeout hard deadline | 88% win rate; +1.7% incremental avg above T+35 — secondary force window |
| T+63 | Quarterly roll / SPDR rebalance | Cycle reset; ETF holdings refresh; pressure release point |
OPEX gravity: ~45% of FTD clusters land within ±5 days of monthly OPEX. The forecast model uses a Gaussian kernel (σ=2 trading days) with anchor weight 0.4×magnitude + 0.6×recency.
| Source | Data | Cadence |
|---|---|---|
| Polygon.io | OHLCV; derived MACD / RSI / Bollinger client-side | EOD, refresh 06:05 UTC |
| FINRA CDN | RegSHO daily short volume % | Daily, public CSV |
| SEC EDGAR | Bi-monthly fail-to-deliver files (embedded snapshot) | ~14-day publication lag |
| FRED (St. Louis Fed) | Macro: VIX, HY credit spread, 10Y, fed funds | Daily, EOD |
Caching: /api/data is cached in the function's /tmp for 23h and at Vercel's CDN edge for 1h with stale-while-revalidate. The nightly cron at 06:05 UTC pre-warms a fresh fetch.
RSI Oversold — 14-period Relative Strength Index below 40. Standard mean-reversion indicator, but context matters: persistent sub-30 readings during FTD windows have historically preceded sharp reversals.
MACD Cross — 12/26 EMA differential vs. its 9-period signal line. Bullish cross above the signal = trend-reversal signal; combined with an RSI floor and an active FTD window, this is the highest-confluence setup the model identifies.
FTD Active Window — Percent of the next predicted FTD cluster elapsed from its T+0 anchor. Compounded across multiple anchors with recency weighting.
Max Pain Gap — Distance from spot to the strike where the sum of out-of-the-money call + put extrinsic value is minimized. Theoretical gravitational pull from dealer hedging unwinds into expiry.
Options Skew (P/C) — Put open interest divided by call open interest at a specific expiry. Extremes flag positioning concentrations: near 0 = pure call structure, >2 = heavy hedging or bearish bets.
Short Volume % — FINRA-reported daily short volume / total tape volume. Operational shorting (creation-unit unwinds, AP failures) flows through here. Persistent 60-80% readings without obvious news = mechanical pressure.