Brandon Chapman, Author at TheoTrade

Where Gold is Going Next

August 22, 2026

Hey trader, Gold had another monster day Friday. It was up 1.88% on the session while the dollar got crushed. I talked about dollar weakness, Bessent’s bond buying, and the Yen all playing into the latest run. But now, something more mechanical is setting the speed of the move. Institutions have been buying calls in GLD the whole way up. That leaves the dealer short those calls. Every dollar higher digs them deeper into a hole they have to buy their way out of. My 420 target came out of that same structure. I pulled it straight off the open interest sitting 28 days out at the September expiration. Friday we broke it. Price pressed right into 425, and the map above that is not evenly spaced. So how much room does the dealer’s own book leave above us here? I’m going to walk you through the exact ladder I’m

Treasury Intervention Did This to Banks

August 20, 2026

Hey trader, The U.S. Treasury made history yesterday. Not liking the direction of rates, they stepped into the bond market yesterday to absorb selling. That sent bonds soaring yesterday…but it was short-lived. Today, the banks are bearing the fallout. Citigroup is down 1.02%… …Bank of America down 0.89%… …JP Morgan down 0.89%…. Makes sense if you think about the relationship between banks and interest rates. But I also found something interesting in the Block Hunter Console. Almost 10% of today’s unusual prints came through financials. That’s not normal. One of them was 3,030 contracts bought in a single trade: September 120 puts in Citigroup. That is a third of the entire day’s option trade in the name. And it carries a symbol, a direction, a target, and a deadline. Somebody is willing to pay for Citigroup at 120 by September expiration. I want to show you why they picked that

Why Do People Care About Crypto All of a Sudden?

August 19, 2026

Hey trader, Bitcoin has been a total snoozefest for months…until this morning. Seemingly out of nowhere, the cryptocurrency shot up +6%. Before the move this morning, someone dropped some serious coin buying almost 30,000 out-of-the-money calls on IBIT, the Bitcoin ETF. Normally, this is where I’d tell you that the calls forced the stock to move. But that’s not what happened. IBIT is an ETF that tracks Bitcoin. Those options are a drop in the bucket compared to the dollar volume that runs through cryptocurrencies. No, this was someone who made a well placed bet ahead of time. As I looked at the print earlier today, I realized I knew why they made this trade. It all came down to context. You see, the environment was perfect for this kind of move. All the conditions, from gold to the Treasuires favored a bid in Bitcoin. It may not seem obvious

Why I Will Take Different Sizes on the Exact Same Trade

August 18, 2026

Hey trader, Yesterday I bought a SPY spread for a net 32.5 cents. I closed it at an average of 95 cents. That’s a healthy 190% return in one session. Today I, went to put on the same trade…but at a fraction of the size. What exactly changed? One word – Gamma. I know I discuss this concept ad-nasuem. Yet, it’s the roadmap that tells you what the market will do BEFORE it ever moves. Today, it gave me an entirely different picture than yesterday. Yesterday, I had about $1-$2 before we hit a gamma ceiling. Today, there was about $7. Now you understand why I reduced my risk today. However, I want to take this a step further and walk you through the gamma map. That way, you’ll understand what I’m looking at and how I read it. Gamma Decides How Much Room Price Gets Every session I pull

How the Cushion Under This Market Vanished

August 17, 2026

Hey trader, The S&P 500 is sitting a smidge off its highs, and nothing on the chart looks broken. Last week I handed you 775 and 780 as the entire map. Both levels held. The plan worked. Something shifted underneath over the weekend. The 780 call wall is still standing at roughly $2.8 billion, and it swells toward $4 to $5 billion as price grinds higher. That wall is only half of the picture now. Down at 765, there is about $1.2 billion of negative gamma. A week ago, everything below current prices was under $500 million. Negative gamma means dealer hedging pushes a move along instead of absorbing it. Price is sitting in that region right now, with positive gamma directly overhead and no cushion in between. What does a market do when there is nothing left in the middle to slow it down? Let me show you the

Something’s off. Here’s my $178 fix.

August 15, 2026

Hey trader, Something feels wrong with this market. We are sitting near all-time highs. The tape still feels off. You are not imagining it. Right now there is about $2 of downside risk for every $1 of upside. The SPY has roughly 25 points of room left to reach 800. It has 50 points of air beneath it down toward 720. Walking away from the market is not the answer either. Nobody nails the top on purpose. I have just the thing for a moment like this. It is called the atomic hedge, and I built it for situations exactly like this one. It balances staying invested against real downside protection. I put it on a $100,000 portfolio live. It cost me $178 out of pocket. So what does $178 actually protect? Here is how it works. What the atomic hedge actually is The structure is simple. I buy SPY

Why This Rally is Suspect

August 13, 2026

Hey trader, The wall we fought all week finally cracked this morning. Price broke 775 and ran. Then it stopped at 779.50 and rolled over. That was half a point away from the number everybody was watching. The easy read is that buyers ran out of steam. Call buying did fade as the session wore on. The real answer is sitting in tomorrow’s expiration. There is over $1 trillion in positive gamma parked at 780. That is roughly double what 775 carried all week. I have not seen a number that big at one strike since I started doing this work. A ceiling that heavy decides where we close today. It also decides how we open tomorrow. So what does price actually do when the ceiling gets that thick? I’ll take you through what I am watching into the close. Tomorrow’s open settles the rest. Why the Ceiling Got Heavier

What Caused My Block Hunter Stock to Move 17% Today

August 12, 2026

Hey trader, A metals stock I hold in Block Hunter ran 17% today. Nothing traded in it. No surge in call buying, no fresh print, nothing on the tape worth flagging. The easy explanation is gold, and gold did give it the breakout. That part is real. The 17% is a different animal. Price finally cleared $2.50, and that level had been sitting there like a tripwire since June 30. June 30 is the day the Console caught 4,500 contracts bought at the August 21 $2.50 strike. The stock closed around $2.18 that afternoon. I followed them in. So the move you saw today was already paid for six weeks ago. Everyone watching gold headlines missed the actual mechanism. What did that buyer see on June 30 that made $2.50 worth 4,500 contracts? Let me show you the chain, because it explains today’s candle better than any news story will.

3 Scenarios That Could Play Out in This Market

August 11, 2026

Hey trader, Yesterday I drew the line at 780 and showed you a market boxed in under a call wall at 775… …Price has gone almost nowhere since. A quiet range like this may look harmless. Yet, it is the most expensive place on the board to guess. You see, you only understand half the story. A call wall is just that. A wall. Naturally, you’d think shorting the wall would be a great trade… …but you’d be wrong. Today, I want to take you a step further and explain what happens if we break the call wall. Because if and when it does happen, the move could be violent. Take a short at the wrong time and you could get wiped out. But…learn to identify the turn and understand what comes next…that is what it means to trade like a pro. Here’s how it works. Why the Break Turns

Where SPY Goes From Here – One Level Tells Us

August 10, 2026

Hey trader, Just when everyone thought the bottom was going to drop out…whoosh…new all-time-highs. Pretty remarkable given the sentiment and geopolitical backdrop. But is this just some fake rally trying to suck in the last average Joe? Or, do we have a real run on our hands? The answer is sitting at one strike price. There is a $4 billion gamma gap between the calls and the puts at SPY 775. We tested that level this morning and broke lower very significantly. That gap tells you what dealers are forced to do. They sold those calls, so every push higher makes them sell stock into the strength. Breaking it changes the math completely. The next walls sit at 780 and 788, and 788 is a 16 point advance off today’s open. I’m going to walk you through what has to happen at 775 for this run to be real. The

	Today
09.00	Don Kaufman \| Pre-Market Prep \| FREE SESSION 09.20 09.30 Don Kaufman \| Early volatility 09.20 10.30 Jeff Bierman \| Market structure 10.30 11.30 Brandon Chapman \| Ghost Hour 11.30 12.30 Gianni Di Poce \| Macro overview 12.30 13.15 Elizabeth \| Price Action 13.15 14.00
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14.00	Corey Rosenbloom \| Options tactics 14.00 15.00
15.00	Blake Young \| Market wrap 15.00 16.00

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