I cannot find the trade in the flow

Every now and then a user will see and share a tweet from Twitter/X with flow from a different flow provider which they are unable to find on Unusual Whales. The reason is simple: The flow they see is an aggregation of multiple transactions. These “trades” are then either labeled block, sweep and/or split. Unlike  other flow providers, Unusual Whales displays all ~6,000,000 option trades that are executed during regular trading hours. Whether it is a $25,000,000 SPX iron condor or your $200 cash secured put, you will find every transaction. 

This allows you to find much more interesting flow. But Unusual Whales also offers the ability to automatically aggregate trades for you in multiple ways:

Automatically aggregate smaller transactions into one in the flow 

In the flow you can turn on the switch Aggregated Trades  in the sidebar. This will auto group any aggregate trades for you. These trades can be identified by their gray background and the leading . If you click this icon  will trigger a popup that displays all trades that have been aggregated together. This is a major distinction from other flow providers: At Unusual Whales you can see which transactions make UP the aggregation, rather than just a lump-sum “total size of aggregation”. With other services that only displays blocks, sweeps, and/or fplits, you cannot see these individual orders.  

This filter has aggregation enabled, and once you open it you should see some aggregated trades ready and waiting for you to be inspected. 

To get a full breakdown of the Aggregated Trades feature, you can read this article.

A feed of aggregated trades

If you want to see more aggregate trades, you can take a look at our flow alerts tool. It is another flow feed where each row is an aggregation of trades. You can view the exact parameters on how the aggregation is structured, and how the orders hit the tap, in the rules section. You can click on any row within flow alerts to trigger a popup that displays each individual transactions that makes up that aggregated position(s). Again, we provide the exact parameters and the logic therein that make up each aggregation. This makes it MUCH easier for users to understand what they're looking at when compared to services that only provide the flat aggregate without context!

5 minute aggregation of contracts

One of the coolest features at Unusual Whales is the interval flow. This feed shows various statistics about contracts, split up and organized into 5 minute intervals. For instance, you can filter for contracts where 80% of the total volume occurred within one 5 minute candle, and the majority of that volume transacted on the ask side of the bid-ask spread. This feed is one of the most used features at Unusual Whales, as it makes it easy to spot unusual or interesting options activity. Traders often set up notifications for their interval flow feeds, and once they get a notification of matching flow, they will analyze that contract to better understand the full picture.

To understand the interval flow and learn more about its filter read this article.

Missing labels of trade codes

Other flow providers that show block, sweep, and/or split orders do not label whether the trades have been executed as part of some multi leg trade (spread, iron condor, butterfly, etc.) as they do not render the trade code. As a result of this, users miss out on crucial information, such as whether the trade was a cross trade, comes from the floor, or was an intermarket sweep. Unusual Whales provides all of that information. We even show you all related transactions if a trade was part of multi leg transaction (aka a “Spread”). That way you can see all legs of the position at once!

Misleading definition of Sweeps & Block

The term block is a bit misleading here in the options universe. It originally comes the stock world where a block trade means something completely different: 

A block trade is a significant, privately negotiated securities transaction, typically involving at least 10,000 shares of stock or $200,000 worth of bonds. These trades are arranged away from public markets to minimize their impact on a security's price

Unlock shares/stocks, the options market does not have a private, third party, or “off-lit” market where options can be negotiated privately. This means that options contract transactions cannot be arranged away from the public markets. Some flow providers just tend use the term to describe “something big” but it is by no means a privately negotiated, away from the public markets; such a market does not exist for options. 

The term 'sweep' is also commonly misused. A sweep transaction is only a sweep transaction if it has the intermarket sweep trade code, and occurs in several orders across numerous exchanges. Some flow providers often just use the term “sweep” to reference repeat options activity (that is not expressly labeled a 'Sweep' by exchanges). If you want to see a list of transactions labeled as sweeps click here.