Index prices, movers, and the day's setup in one glance
SPY, QQQ, DIA live, plus a gap scanner, fear and greed, and the pre-market picture.
What is the Equities tab?
The Equities tab tracks the broad market through SPY, QQQ, and DIA, the ETFs that stand in for the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Dow. Prices stream from Alpaca as one-minute candles: 90 candles of history load the moment you connect, and each new candle appends live as the session runs. VIX sits next to them, refreshed roughly every 60 seconds, so you can read direction and anxiety side by side.
Below that, a Fear and Greed gauge scores sentiment from 0 to 100, with the dial and a seven-day sparkline shifting from red toward green as the reading climbs. Top Gainers and Top Losers, along with Gap Ups and Gap Downs, share the same card layout: company logo, ticker, name, percent change, and volume. The gap cards track the same kind of move, just before the opening bell or after the close, measured against the prior day's close instead of the current session.
An AI Market Brief posts a single paragraph summarizing what moved the market, generated on a schedule. It's a broadcast, not a chat: you read it, you don't prompt it. An Earnings Calendar rounds out the tab, listing each company's ticker, the analyst EPS estimate, the prior quarter's actual, and whether the report lands before the open or after the close.
What OpticAlpha shows
Live index prices
SPY, QQQ, and DIA candles stream in from Alpaca a minute at a time, with VIX refreshing alongside them from CNBC so price and volatility read together.
Gap scanner
Gap Ups and Gap Downs track pre-market and post-market price moves against the prior close, in the same logo, ticker, percent, and volume layout as the regular movers cards.
Fear & Greed gauge
A 0-100 sentiment score with a seven-day sparkline. Extreme readings are one of the more reliable contrarian setups a trader has access to.
AI Market Brief
A scheduled, one-paragraph summary of what's driving the session, generated on its own interval. Not a chatbot, just a standing update.
The full tab, as it actually looks
How traders use this
Most traders open this tab before checking anything else. Index prices and VIX set the baseline: are futures pointing up or down, and is volatility calm or already stretched. The gap scanner comes next, since pre-market gap ups and gap downs flag which individual names are moving hardest before the bell, often on earnings or news that broke overnight.
VIX above 20 is the rough line where volatility stops being background noise and starts changing how much size makes sense on a trade. A Fear and Greed reading under 25 works the opposite way: it's a crowded, panicky market, and readings that low have historically lined up with decent entry points for a contrarian long, not because fear guarantees a bounce, but because it usually means most of the selling pressure has already run its course.
The AI Market Brief is the fastest way to get context without piecing it together yourself. One paragraph, posted on schedule, telling you what's actually moving the tape that day, so the gap movers, the VIX print, and the gauge all have a story to sit inside instead of floating around as separate numbers.
Terms on this page
- Gap up / gap down
- A stock opening well above or below its previous close, usually on overnight news or an earnings reaction.
- VIX
- The CBOE Volatility Index, a measure of expected S&P 500 volatility over the next 30 days. Above 20 is generally considered elevated.
- Fear and Greed Index
- A composite sentiment score from 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed), used as a contrarian gauge by some traders.
- BMO / AMC
- Shorthand for earnings timing: Before Market Open or After Market Close.
- Market breadth
- A measure of how many stocks are participating in a move, as opposed to a handful of large names carrying the index.
Questions traders ask
What index prices does OpticAlpha track live?
SPY, QQQ, and DIA, streamed from Alpaca with 1-minute candles. Each loads 90 candles of history on connect, then appends new candles as they close.
What counts as a gap up or gap down?
A stock whose pre-market or post-market price differs sharply from its prior close. OpticAlpha's gap scanner surfaces these the same way it surfaces top gainers and losers, ranked by size of the move.
What is the equities Fear and Greed gauge measuring?
A 0-100 score summarizing whether market sentiment leans toward panic or complacency, shown with a 7-day history sparkline so you can see whether sentiment is turning.
Is the AI Market Brief a chatbot?
No. It's a scheduled, one-way summary written from the same live data the rest of the tab uses. It doesn't take questions or hold a conversation, it just posts a fresh paragraph on its own interval.
How current is the earnings calendar?
It shows upcoming reports including the estimate, prior EPS, and whether the report lands before the open or after the close.
See the whole market before the bell
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