- The gamma flip is the price level where net dealer gamma crosses zero.
- Above the flip: positive-gamma regime. Dealers sell rallies and buy dips; ranges compress.
- Below the flip: negative-gamma regime. Dealers trade with the move; ranges expand.
- Distance from spot to flip is your safety margin. Wide cushion = durable regime; narrow = fragile.
The gamma flip level is the price at which the net gamma exposure of options dealers changes sign. It is not a chart pattern, not a moving average, not a Fibonacci retracement. It is a specific price that comes out of the option chain: the level at which, if spot were there, dealers would be neither net long nor net short gamma.
Why that matters is mechanical. Above the flip, dealers as a group are net long gamma. Their hedging obligations force them to sell rallies and buy dips to stay flat. Below the flip, they are net short gamma. Their hedging forces them to sell into weakness and buy into strength. Same book, two very different personalities. The flip is the line between them.
As of the 4 Aug 2026 close, SPX's gamma flip sits at 7,485, with spot at 7,737. That distance is the cushion between spot and the regime line. A wide cushion means the current regime is durable through small moves; a narrow one means a small move could flip the whole day's character.
What happens when price crosses the flip
Crossing the flip mid-session is a regime change, not a routine level break. Reclaim (spot crosses from below to above) resumes long-gamma dampening: the trade is fade the next pullback back into the flip line, because dampening flow now defends the crossing. Loss (spot crosses from above to below) begins short-gamma amplification: switch to the short-gamma playbook immediately with wider stops and smaller size. What was a bowl is now a hill.
Running both crosses the same way is a common mistake. The reclaim reads the flip as a floor; the loss reads it as a ceiling. Same level, opposite trades. On the dashboard, the Regime card and the profile curve together tell you which state you're in.
The gamma flip is not support or resistance
Support and resistance are chart-pattern inferences: places where price has stopped in the past, projected forward. They may or may not carry a mechanism behind them. The gamma flip carries the mechanism directly. Dealer aggregate positioning creates a mathematical level, and that level is priced into the option chain daily. It moves as OI shifts overnight and can drift intraday when short-DTE options accrue gamma.
The dashboard uses a continuous-solver flip rather than snapping to the nearest strike, which surfaces the true zero-gamma level to the nearest fraction of a point. The value shows on the Flip hero card and on the profile curve panel; the footer flag FLIP · CONTINUOUS names the method.
Regime Transition: the honest amber state
When spot sits inside a small distance of the flip, the dashboard names the state REGIME TRANSITION and colors it amber. Not green, not red. Amber is the honest color: the book is undecided, and volatility can pick up either way. Treat it as neither risk-on nor risk-off; the mechanical read has no strong signal until price commits above or below.
Frequently asked
What is the gamma flip level?
The gamma flip is the price level where net dealer gamma changes sign. Above it, dealer hedging dampens moves. Below it, hedging amplifies them. Crossing it mid-session flips the whole day's character.
What happens when price crosses the gamma flip?
When price crosses the gamma flip, the regime changes. A cross from below to above (reclaim) resumes long-gamma dampening. A cross from above to below (loss) begins short-gamma amplification. The specific level is the same in both directions, but the trade at that level is not.
How is the gamma flip different from support or resistance?
The gamma flip is the sign-change level of a mechanical dealer-hedging aggregate, not a chart level. Support and resistance are pattern-derived guesses at where price should stop. The gamma flip is the price where the sign of forced hedging flow changes; that is a mechanism, not a hypothesis.