How to read the Tape: one screen before the open
Describes the product as built on September 28, 2026. The app is the record; if this page and the app disagree, the app is right and this page is behind.
The Tape is the screen you read before the open and glance at during the session. It is built to be read top to bottom in under a minute, and every number on it is measured from data, never estimated. This guide walks a new trader through it in the order it sits on the page. Delayed 15 minutes on the free plan, live on Trader and Pro.
Pick the vehicle
The tabs beside the wordmark switch between ES, NQ, RTY, IWM, QQQ and SPY. The page remembers your last choice. The clock on the right shows the time in ET, how long the regular session has been open, and how long until it closes.
The six key numbers
Under the chart sit six tiles. Read them left to right and you have the day.
- Spot, with the session range so far.
- Expected move, from the at-the-money straddle on the nearest expiry. Roughly, the distance the options market is pricing for the day.
- Price vs band, where spot sits inside the session band, in expected-move units and in words.
- EM / ATR, the expected move against the average true range on the 240-minute chart. Under 0.85 reads tight, over 1.15 reads wide. Tight days tag the band; wide days trend.
- Dealer gamma regime, positive or negative, from the option chain. Positive gamma tends to pin and mean-revert; negative gamma lets moves run.
- Distance to the 240m EMA in ATR, with the slope. Stretched means far from it; a rising EMA with price above it is a different day from a falling one.
The chart and the rail
Five-minute candles with the day’s levels drawn over them: the call wall, the session band top and bottom, the 240m EMA, the gamma flip and the put wall. The rail on the right lists the same levels in price order with spot between them, so you can see at a glance what is above you and what is below.
Structure & anchors
The session band is frozen shortly after the open, at 09:45 ET for the futures and 09:30 ET for the ETFs, and does not move for the rest of the day. That is the point: a fixed reference to measure the day against. The live band re-centres on spot and moves with it. The session tank shows how much of the frozen band the day has used. Prior-day high, low and close sit with the opening gap and whether it has filled. Pit levels and the overnight range fill in as the feed publishes them.
Volatility
The straddle, the EM / ATR read, and the live at-the-money implied volatility. The vol regime row reads the front of the curve against the back: backwardation when the nearest expiry is priced above the later ones, which is how event risk and stress look, contango when it is below, flat within half a point. Range expansion compares today’s range so far with a 14-day average true range, and reads compression, normal or expansion.
Pattern & momentum
Five reads from the daily and 240-minute bars: the daily pattern (narrow-range seven, inside or outside day, a three-bar triangle, a wide-range seven), a short momentum oscillator called Pinball with 70 and 30 as its lines, a rate-of-change divergence at the last two swing points, the 240-minute 3/10 divergence, and a count of consecutive lower highs or higher lows. Each row shows the measured value and a one-line read. Together they say whether the tape is coiling, extended or turning.
Positioning
The call wall and put wall are the strikes where dealers carry the most gamma above and below spot. Each shows its distance in points, ATR and expected moves, and its reach odds: the share of past sessions in which price touched a level that far away. A wall inside half an expected move is reached on most days; a wall three expected moves away is wallpaper, and the page says so. The flip is the level where the regime changes sign. Net gamma, the change since the day’s first read, the rate of change per hour, the put/call ratio and the open-interest date sit beneath. The GEX by strike card, collapsed by default, lists the largest strikes as a ladder with spot marked between them.
Calendar, liquidity and cross-market
The calendar card flags the week’s structure, the next high-impact release with a countdown, earnings within reach, news-eve days and the almanac lean for the date. The liquidity card reads the Fed balance sheet, the Treasury account and reverse repo as one net-liquidity number with its 20-day change. The cross-market rail shows the other vehicles, the 10-year yield, the dollar, oil and gold with their day change, a vehicle-strength ranking of ES, NQ and RTY by relative momentum, and four cross lights that turn green when semis, the megacaps, rates and vol are all pulling the same way as equities.
Trader
Trades today and this week against your own 30-day norm, with an over-trading read when you are past it. Sleep and fitness fill in when you connect your own watch export in Settings, scored against a baseline and a workout rule you set. Reads, never gates.
Set-up lights
On the Pro plan the last card evaluates four ratified set-ups against the live tape. A row that is not armed shows its status word and the measured reason. An armed row shows the plan: where to enter, where to sell or that the exit is a time stop, and by when it should have played out, with a countdown. The record behind each set-up is attached to the card. This is the opinion layer of the page and it is labelled as such. It never places a trade.
A routine for the first week
- Ten minutes before the open, read the six numbers and the regime. Decide whether it is a band-tag day or a trend day before you decide anything else.
- Note where the walls are and their reach odds. A target three expected moves away is not a target.
- Check the calendar for a release inside your trading window.
- Trade your plan. Every fill you import later is stamped with what this screen showed at the moment you clicked, so Blackbox can tell you which of these conditions you actually make money in.
Questions people search for
Does the Tape tell me when to buy or sell?
No. Every row is a measurement of the day: where a level is, how far away it is, how often price has reached a level that far away, which regime the dealers are in. The set-up lights describe when a ratified set-up is armed and what its plan is. Nothing on the page is a recommendation to click.
What does reach odds mean on a wall?
The share of past sessions in which price touched a level that far away, measured in ATR, from where spot was at the time. It is our own count over hundreds of ES sessions, not a model. A wall three expected moves away has odds near zero and the page says so.
Why do some rows say no data?
Because the number is not on file yet and we will not invent one. Each row says how the number arrives: with the next feed release, when a source is connected, or when you connect your watch. Rows never disappear, they wait.