Greek TRACE - forward (time × price) projection

GET

options

greeks

trace

{greek}

Forward (time × price) greek projection - gamma / charm / vanna

curl --request GET \
  --url https://api.example.com/options/greeks/trace/{greek} \
  --header 'X-API-Key: <api-key>'

const options = {method: 'GET', headers: {'X-API-Key': '<api-key>'}};

fetch('https://api.example.com/options/greeks/trace/{greek}', options)
  .then(res => res.json())
  .then(res => console.log(res))
  .catch(err => console.error(err));

<?php

$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
  CURLOPT_URL => "https://api.example.com/options/greeks/trace/{greek}",
  CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  CURLOPT_ENCODING => "",
  CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10,
  CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 30,
  CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION => CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1,
  CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => "GET",
  CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
    "X-API-Key: <api-key>"
  ],
]);

$response = curl_exec($curl);
$err = curl_error($curl);

curl_close($curl);

if ($err) {
  echo "cURL Error #:" . $err;
} else {
  echo $response;
}

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
	"io"
)

func main() {

	url := "https://api.example.com/options/greeks/trace/{greek}"

	req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", url, nil)

	req.Header.Add("X-API-Key", "<api-key>")

	res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

	defer res.Body.Close()
	body, _ := io.ReadAll(res.Body)

	fmt.Println(string(body))

}

require 'uri'
require 'net/http'

url = URI("https://api.example.com/options/greeks/trace/{greek}")

http = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port)
http.use_ssl = true

request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(url)
request["X-API-Key"] = '<api-key>'

response = http.request(request)
puts response.read_body

{
  "data": {
    "greek": "gamma",
    "expiry": "<string>",
    "spot_price": 123,
    "vol_shift_pct": 123,
    "field_units": "<string>",
    "time_axis_ms": [
      123
    ],
    "price_axis": [
      123
    ],
    "field": [
      [
        123
      ]
    ],
    "field_min": 123,
    "field_max": 123,
    "abs_field_max": 123,
    "contracts_used": 123,
    "expiries_in_window": [
      "<string>"
    ],
    "tau_floor_seconds": 123,
    "positioning": "<string>"
  },
  "meta": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "timestamp": "<string>",
    "request_id": "<string>",
    "symbol": "<string>",
    "spot_price": 123,
    "computed_at": "<string>",
    "freshness_seconds": 123,
    "source": [
      "<string>"
    ],
    "exchanges_filtered": [
      "<string>"
    ],
    "rate_limit": {},
    "extra": {}
  },
  "success": true
}

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "UNAUTHORIZED",
    "message": "Invalid API key"
  },
  "meta": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "timestamp": "2026-04-29T12:00:00Z"
  }
}

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "NOT_FOUND",
    "message": "No data for BTCUSDT"
  },
  "meta": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "timestamp": "2026-04-29T12:00:00Z"
  }
}

{
  "error": {
    "code": "<string>",
    "message": "<string>",
    "details": {}
  },
  "meta": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "timestamp": "<string>",
    "request_id": "<string>",
    "symbol": "<string>",
    "spot_price": 123,
    "computed_at": "<string>",
    "freshness_seconds": 123,
    "source": [
      "<string>"
    ],
    "exchanges_filtered": [
      "<string>"
    ],
    "rate_limit": {},
    "extra": {}
  },
  "success": false
}

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED",
    "message": "Rate limit exceeded. Try again later."
  },
  "meta": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "timestamp": "2026-04-29T12:00:00Z"
  }
}

Forward Black-Scholes projection of dealer gamma, charm, vanna, or delta_change across a (time × price) grid. Same view as BackQuant Pro TRACE, as raw data for your own renderer. Holding today’s chain constant, the endpoint walks each grid point (future timestamp + future spot), recomputes per-contract τ and the requested greek, sums across the chain with positioning-weighted size, and returns the field. Default positioning=flow. Pass ?positioning=std for textbook OI sign. See Positioning.

Why use it

A point-in-time greek profile only shows exposure now. TRACE shows how walls develop, decay, or migrate as time and price evolve. Common uses:

Intraday flow planning - greek=gamma&expiry=0dte shows where 0DTE dealer hedging concentrates as the session progresses.
Charm bleed - greek=charm exposes passive delta drift from time alone, even with spot frozen.
Delta change - greek=delta_change maps how dealer delta shifts relative to spot/now as the grid walks (useful for hedge path views).
Vol-shock surfaces - vol_shift_pct=±10 for instant vol up/down without a re-fetch.
Multi-day overlays - expiry=all&horizon_hours=168 across the next week’s term structure.

For pin zones / acceleration pockets without the full grid, use TRACE summary.

Sign convention

Under std, calls contribute positive size and puts negative (same as the rest of the stack). Under flow, size comes from BackQuant’s measured dealer model. A positive cell means the signed book leans supportive at that (time, price); negative means the reverse.

Units

`greek`	Unit	Formula per cell
`gamma`	$ per 1% spot move	`Σ sign × γ × S² × qty × 0.01`
`charm`	per year	`Σ sign × ∂Δ/∂τ × qty`
`vanna`	per IV unit	`Σ sign × ∂Δ/∂σ × qty`
`delta_change`	delta units	change in summed signed delta vs reference (spot now, τ now)

field_units is echoed on every response so renderers need not hardcode this.

Cells, axes, and shape

field[t][p]   ← cell value at time_axis_ms[t], price_axis[p]

time_axis_ms runs from “now” to now + horizon_hours. price_axis runs from spot × (1 − range/100) to spot × (1 + range/100). Both are evenly spaced. abs_field_max = max(|field_min|, |field_max|) supports symmetric colour scales: value / abs_field_max clamped to [−1, +1].

What-if vol shifts

vol_shift_pct adds a flat percent shift to every contract’s IV. Example: vol_shift_pct=5 multiplies each σ by 1.05 before evaluation.

Performance

Cached for 30 seconds per (symbol, full-param-hash). Cold compute is typically 50-100 ms for default grids; payload is often 30-80 KB of JSON.

Caps

Param	Min	Max	Default
`time_steps`	2	200	60
`price_steps`	2	200	80
`price_range_pct`	>0	50	8
`horizon_hours`	>0	720	24
`vol_shift_pct`	−50	+50	0
`min_oi`	0	-	0

Going past the caps returns a VALIDATION_ERROR with a 422.

TRACE summary

Flow vs std

Greeks beyond delta

Greek profile

Authorizations

X-API-Key

string

header

required

Your BackQuant API key (same key as v1)

Headers

X-API-Key

string | null

Path Parameters

greek

enum<string>

required

Which field to project: gamma | charm | vanna | delta_change (dealer delta at cell minus dealer delta at spot/now - path of hedge pressure).

Available options:

gamma,

charm,

vanna,

delta_change

Query Parameters

symbol

enum<string>

default:BTCUSDT

Trading symbol: BTCUSDT, ETHUSDT, SOLUSDT, or HYPEUSDT.

Available options:

BTCUSDT,

ETHUSDT,

SOLUSDT,

HYPEUSDT

expiry

string

default:0dte

Expiry filter. 0dte = front 0-DTE book (same-day UTC token if listed, else any expiry settling within 24h / dte < 1 - matches GEX 0dte), all = every active expiry, or a specific Deribit token (e.g. 28MAR25).

time_steps

integer

default:60

Number of buckets along the time axis. Higher = smoother surface, larger payload. Capped at 200.

Required range: 2 <= x <= 200

price_steps

integer

default:80

Number of buckets along the price axis. Higher = smoother, larger payload. Capped at 200.

Required range: 2 <= x <= 200

price_range_pct

number

default:8

Price half-width as a percent of spot. Default 8 = ±8% around spot. Capped at ±50% - wider than that and BS gamma at the wings is essentially zero anyway.

Required range: x <= 50

horizon_hours

number

default:24

Time horizon in hours from now. Default 24 = one trading day. Use longer horizons for multi-week trace overlays - capped at 720 h (30 days).

Required range: x <= 720

vol_shift_pct

number

default:0

What-if shift applied to every contract's IV (additive percent of σ - +5 ⇒ multiply σ by 1.05). Use to build vol-up / vol-down surfaces without re-fetching.

Required range: -50 <= x <= 50

min_oi

number

default:0

Drop contracts with OI below this threshold before summing. Useful for de-noising the wings.

Required range: x >= 0

positioning

string

default:flow

Dealer positioning model. flow (default) is BackQuant's measured dealer model, available for BTC/ETH; it falls back to std when it cannot be produced for a symbol. std is the textbook convention (call:+OI / put:-OI). The response reports which model actually ran in meta.extra.positioning.

Response

Successful Response

data

TraceData · object

required

Single forward-projected greek field.

Show child attributes

meta

V2Meta · object

required

The meta block returned alongside every v2 response.

Every field after version/timestamp is optional because endpoints attach different combinations - e.g. /v2/status skips symbol, the chain endpoint sets extra.filter_hash, etc. Listing them here means SDKs get a typed accessor for each instead of a generic meta: dict.

Show child attributes

success

boolean

default:true

Forward (time × price) greek projection - gamma / charm / vanna

curl --request GET \
  --url https://api.example.com/options/greeks/trace/{greek} \
  --header 'X-API-Key: <api-key>'

const options = {method: 'GET', headers: {'X-API-Key': '<api-key>'}};

fetch('https://api.example.com/options/greeks/trace/{greek}', options)
  .then(res => res.json())
  .then(res => console.log(res))
  .catch(err => console.error(err));

<?php

$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
  CURLOPT_URL => "https://api.example.com/options/greeks/trace/{greek}",
  CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  CURLOPT_ENCODING => "",
  CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10,
  CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 30,
  CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION => CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1,
  CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => "GET",
  CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
    "X-API-Key: <api-key>"
  ],
]);

$response = curl_exec($curl);
$err = curl_error($curl);

curl_close($curl);

if ($err) {
  echo "cURL Error #:" . $err;
} else {
  echo $response;
}

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
	"io"
)

func main() {

	url := "https://api.example.com/options/greeks/trace/{greek}"

	req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", url, nil)

	req.Header.Add("X-API-Key", "<api-key>")

	res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

	defer res.Body.Close()
	body, _ := io.ReadAll(res.Body)

	fmt.Println(string(body))

}

require 'uri'
require 'net/http'

url = URI("https://api.example.com/options/greeks/trace/{greek}")

http = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port)
http.use_ssl = true

request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(url)
request["X-API-Key"] = '<api-key>'

response = http.request(request)
puts response.read_body

{
  "data": {
    "greek": "gamma",
    "expiry": "<string>",
    "spot_price": 123,
    "vol_shift_pct": 123,
    "field_units": "<string>",
    "time_axis_ms": [
      123
    ],
    "price_axis": [
      123
    ],
    "field": [
      [
        123
      ]
    ],
    "field_min": 123,
    "field_max": 123,
    "abs_field_max": 123,
    "contracts_used": 123,
    "expiries_in_window": [
      "<string>"
    ],
    "tau_floor_seconds": 123,
    "positioning": "<string>"
  },
  "meta": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "timestamp": "<string>",
    "request_id": "<string>",
    "symbol": "<string>",
    "spot_price": 123,
    "computed_at": "<string>",
    "freshness_seconds": 123,
    "source": [
      "<string>"
    ],
    "exchanges_filtered": [
      "<string>"
    ],
    "rate_limit": {},
    "extra": {}
  },
  "success": true
}

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "UNAUTHORIZED",
    "message": "Invalid API key"
  },
  "meta": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "timestamp": "2026-04-29T12:00:00Z"
  }
}

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "NOT_FOUND",
    "message": "No data for BTCUSDT"
  },
  "meta": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "timestamp": "2026-04-29T12:00:00Z"
  }
}

{
  "error": {
    "code": "<string>",
    "message": "<string>",
    "details": {}
  },
  "meta": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "timestamp": "<string>",
    "request_id": "<string>",
    "symbol": "<string>",
    "spot_price": 123,
    "computed_at": "<string>",
    "freshness_seconds": 123,
    "source": [
      "<string>"
    ],
    "exchanges_filtered": [
      "<string>"
    ],
    "rate_limit": {},
    "extra": {}
  },
  "success": false
}

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED",
    "message": "Rate limit exceeded. Try again later."
  },
  "meta": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "timestamp": "2026-04-29T12:00:00Z"
  }
}

Get Started

Concepts

Code examples

API: Discovery & Meta

API: GEX

API: Options chain & OPEX

API: IV analytics

API: Probability density

API: Greeks

API: Open interest & flow

API: Futures & liquidation

API: Multi-symbol

API: Tape & WebSocket

API: Market data

API: ETF flows

Greek TRACE - forward (time × price) projection

Why use it

Sign convention

Units

Cells, axes, and shape

What-if vol shifts

Performance

Caps

See also

TRACE summary

Flow vs std

Greeks beyond delta

Greek profile

Authorizations

Headers

Path Parameters

Query Parameters

Response

​Why use it

​Sign convention

​Units

​Cells, axes, and shape

​What-if vol shifts

​Performance

​Caps

​See also

TRACE summary

Flow vs std

Greeks beyond delta

Greek profile

Authorizations

Headers

Path Parameters

Query Parameters

Response

Why use it

Sign convention

Units

Cells, axes, and shape

What-if vol shifts

Performance

Caps

See also