SPY Slips into Short Gamma Below 766.66

The wire spent the closing bell parsing tech crosscurrents and single-stock headlines. TipRanks reported Google faced fresh publisher litigation seeking over $3.2B in damages, even after securing earlier lawsuit dismissals over AI overviews. Meanwhile, Simply Wall St flagged that Microsoft was looking fully valued alongside fresh warnings around AI liabilities. The equity market took those headlines and drifted through a modest session, with SPY adding 0.22% to close at 764.34 on our quote tape. What matters for tomorrow is what that modest drift did to the dealer book. SPY closed the day at 764.29 on the live read, sitting underneath its gamma flip at 766.66. When spot sits below the flip, dealers transition from shock absorbers into momentum accelerators. Instead of buying weakness and selling strength to insulate the board, hedging flows force them to sell into declines and buy into rips. That leaves the index inside short gamma, bracketed between the 760 put wall below and the 770 call wall above, with an expected move of plus or minus 1.03%. Tech carries a nearly identical posture. QQQ finished at 742.5, hovering just twenty cents under its 742.7 flip line. That also leaves tech dealers positioned in short gamma, facing a wide floor down at the 730 put wall and a tight ceiling at the 745 call wall, while pricing a plus or minus 1.4% move. Small caps were no different. IWM ended at 279.42, well below its 281.82 flip, testing support right above its 278 put wall against a 284 call wall and a 1.66% expected move. Over on the crypto map, the majors split along regime lines. Benzinga reported that bitcoin remained rangebound as yields tested crypto strength. Our book shows BTC spot holding at 84,769.80, sitting safely above its 67,681.15 flip with positive net GEX. That long gamma cushion gives bitcoin dealers room to insulate price swings, unlike the equity desks. ETH also held its positive regime, trading at 2,702.25 against a 2,689.10 flip. But AVAX and SOL ended beneath their flips in negative territory, matching the unpadded structure seen across equities. Heading into tomorrow, the equity floor is thin. With SPY, QQQ, and IWM all lodged in short gamma, any macro catalyst has room to run faster than usual until spot reclaims the flips overhead.