MK.TRADES · Options Heatmaps

1What an options heatmap is

The options chain, drawn on the chart

Behind every market sits an options chain — thousands of contracts stacked at different strike prices. An options heatmap takes that chain and paints it onto your chart as colour at each price level, so the strikes that matter light up exactly where price will meet them.

MK.TRADES gives you three different heatmaps, each measuring the chain a different way, and each available in two expiry horizons. That's 3 × 2 = 6 maps you can switch on and off independently from the HEAT menu.

A full options heatmap painted across a price chart — bright fire-coloured weight zones plus horizontal strike walls — All the heat at once: the bright fire-coloured zones are **option weight**, the horizontal lines are **open-interest / net-delta walls**. Where price meets a heavy area, expect a reaction. The rest of this guide breaks the layers apart so you can read each one.

2The three heatmaps

Three ways to read the chain

Each heatmap answers a different question about the same options chain. Turn them on one at a time to learn what each looks like, then combine them.

OPTIONS WEIGHTheatmaps · option_weight

What it shows: where option activity and value concentrate across all strikes — a dense, smooth grid. The brighter the cell, the more option weight sitting at that price.

Read it as: zones of attention — the areas the options market cares about most right now.

Options Weight heatmap on a gold chart — a dense block of blue-to-red cells across price levels

Options Weight — the dense grid. On the DEPTH palette, hot cells (yellow → red) are the most-weighted price zones; cool cells (blue) are light.

OPEN INTERESTheatmaps · open_interest

What it shows: how many contracts are open at each strike — drawn as horizontal walls. A tall wall = a strike packed with positions that tends to act as support or resistance.

Read it as: structural levels — the strikes where a lot of money is already parked.

Open Interest heatmap on a gold chart — horizontal strike walls spanning the chart at key prices

Open Interest — horizontal strike walls. The brightest/strongest walls are the key support / resistance levels.

NET DELTA EXPheatmaps · net_delta

What it shows: the directional lean at each strike — also drawn as walls, but signed: the colour tells you whether positioning at that level leans long or short.

positive Δ — long / upward lean negative Δ — short / downward lean

Read it as: which way the level leans — not just that a strike is heavy, but the side it favours.

Net Delta Exposure heatmap on a gold chart — signed walls, some teal/green and some red

Net Delta Exp — signed walls. The colour (teal/green vs red) shows the long/short lean at each strike, not just its size.

3Two expiry horizons

0DTE vs Swing

Every one of the three heatmaps comes in two flavours, because near-dated and longer-dated options tell different stories. You pick the horizon in the same HEAT menu.

0DTE

Options expiring today. Tight, fast-moving levels that matter for intraday scalping — where the market is fighting right now. Sparse but sharp.

SWING

The full, longer-dated chain. Broader, more stable levels for the bigger picture — the walls that hold over days and weeks.

Options Weight — 0DTE vs Swing

Options Weight 0DTE — a tight near-term block of weight — **0DTE** — today's expiry: a tighter, near-term block of weight focused on the current fight.

Options Weight Swing — a broader grid over more price and time — **SWING** — the full chain: a broader grid spanning more price and further forward.

Net Delta Exp — 0DTE vs Swing

Net Delta 0DTE — short signed walls clustered around price — **0DTE** — short, signed walls clustered around current price for the intraday battle.

Net Delta Swing — fewer, longer signed walls marking bigger levels — **SWING** — fewer but longer signed walls marking the bigger, slower-moving levels.

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How to combine

Use SWING to map the major levels for the day, then switch to 0DTE to time entries against the levels in play right now. When a 0DTE wall lands on a swing wall, that level is doubly important.

4Reading the map

Grid vs walls, bright vs dim

Dense grid (Option Weight) — read the brightness. Bright = lots of weight at that price; dim = thin. Bright bands are zones price tends to slow down in.
Walls (Open Interest & Net Delta) — read the height/length. A long wall is a strong level; short walls are minor.
Colour on Net Delta — green leans long/up, red leans short/down. It's the only layer where colour means direction, not just intensity.
Distance from price — levels right above/below price matter most now; far levels are targets, not triggers.
Confluence — when two layers (or both expiries) mark the same price, treat it as a stronger level.

5The HEAT menu

Turning heatmaps on

Everything lives in the HEAT menu on the main chart. The labels below match the panel:

The HEAT menu with controls A to E labelled

The HEAT menu — A heat type · B expiry · C period · D palette · E visuals.

A · Heat type — pick which heatmap to display: Options Weight, Open Interest, or Net Delta Exp. You can turn on more than one at a time, but it's clearest to read them one at a time.
B · Expiry — choose the horizon for that layer: 0DTE (today's expiry) or SWING (the longer-dated chain).
C · Period — how much history the heat covers: 1 WEEK = the current week, 1 MONTH = the current month, FULL = up to about two months of data. FULL is the heaviest to draw and can slow a weaker device — start small and widen only if it stays smooth.
D · Palette — the colour scheme for Options Weight and Open Interest (e.g. DEPTH: blue = low → red = high). Net Delta is coloured by sign instead, so the palette doesn't change it.
E · Visuals — fine-tune how the heat looks:
• Opacity — the transparency of the heat over your candles.
• Contrast — how sharply strong levels stand out from weak ones: raise it and the hot zones pop while the faint background fades.
• Threshold — raise it to start removing the weakest levels, leaving only the strongest on the chart.

6How to use them

Walls as levels, weight as zones

Heatmaps don't give signals — they give levels. They tell you where price is likely to react; you supply the trade with confirmation.

Support / resistance — trade reactions at the tall OI / net-delta walls the way you'd trade any key level: wait for rejection or a clean break.
Magnets — heavy weight zones often pull price toward them, especially into expiry. A big wall just above can be a target.
0DTE for timing — once the swing map sets your bias, use the 0DTE walls to find the exact intraday level to act at.
Confluence with cones — a heatmap wall that lands on a cone band (see the Forecast Cones guide) is a high-conviction level: two independent models agreeing.

Gold M30 — price rallies into an upper OI wall and a cone band, gets rejected, then sells off to a lower OI wall that holds as support

Confluence in action on Gold. Price rallied into the upper OI wall (red) — which lined up with the top cone band — and was firmly rejected. It then sold off all the way down to the lower OI wall (orange), which caught it as support. Both levels were drawn before price got there: two independent models marking the same turns.

The same setup, seen through the other layers

The same gold setup with Net Delta Exp walls sitting on the same OI levels

Net Delta Exp on the same chart: the signed walls sit right on the OI levels — a second, independent layer confirming the same support and resistance.

Options Weight 0DTE zone acting as a magnet — price leaves the bright zone, snaps back, and bounces at its lower edge

Options Weight 0DTE as a magnet: price pushed out of the bright zone, snapped back into it, and bounced at its lower edge. These hot zones tend to pull price back toward them.

7Good to know

A few honest caveats

Levels, not promises. A wall is where a reaction is likely, not guaranteed. Always wait for price to confirm.
US assets are RTH. On US instruments the heat is placed on regular-trading-hours candles by design — outside-hours placement isn't shown.
Freshness matters. Over weekends / holidays the options data can go stale; the terminal flags staleness — don't lean on a frozen map.
Performance. Keep the render window at 1W unless you need more — FULL draws far more cells.