Options Flow Feed Page Breakdown

Article in progress!

GENERAL

The Unusual Whales options flow feed returns data on all options trades across all US exchanges (0930 ET - 1700 ET). 

Each line of data represents one transaction filled at one of the many options exchanges. A singular trade may be made up of multiple transactions (e.g. a trade of 1,000 size being filled for 500 contracts by one exchange, 499 by another, and 1 by the last for a total of 1,000 total contracts would take up three lines of data).

Annual subscribers are able to download flow data directly from the feed by selecting CSV on the top right of the feed. Additional file types are available on the data download page.

You can show/hide different data points in your flow feed by selecting COLUMNS. You can hover over any column header for a brief definition. A full breakdown of column headers can also be found in the documentation below.

The default sorting method is by TIME. You can also sort by SIZE and PREMIUM using the provided dropdown but results will be limited to those of $25,000 notional value and/or 150+ contract sizing.

The underlying price for index tickers is unfortunately not available at the moment. 

BID/ASK SIDE BREAKDOWN

The bid/ask values displayed in the flow feed are derived from the NBBO (National Best Bid and Offer): a consolidated quote that reports the highest bid and the lowest ask price of all visible quotes. This value is disseminated market wide to investors. However, the name 'best bid and offer' is something of a misnomer, as price improvement opportunities can exist in situations where not all available liquidity is taken into consideration for the provided 'best bid and offer'. The side of the trade, as it pertains to Unusual Whales, is determined by the relationship between the fill price and the posted NBBO bid and ask spread.

Transactions at or closer to the NBBO bid are given 'side' BID.  

Transactions at or closer to the NBBO ask are given 'side' ASK. 

Transactions that take place exactly at the MID point of the NBBO bid and ask are given 'side' MID.

Cross trades, transactions that have been modified/nullified, or trades that have been reported late are given 'side' NONE.

The BULLISH/BEARISH labels available in the EMOJIS column are based solely on the fill price and its relationship to the NBBO at the time of the trade. A trade transacting at the bid is not necessarily a sell, nor is a trade transaction at the ask necessarily a buy. Options data providers that render transactions as having been BUYS or SELLS are misrepresenting the data. 

FILTERS

The FILTERS menu is collapsible. Simply click FILTERS.   

All filters will generate a unique website URL which can be bookmarked for later reference or shared (e.g. this link will open a flow feed returning all TSLA transactions of 100+ size and $25,000+ premium).

While the platform does carry complete data on all options trades, given the amount of data being processed some filtering is required on the end user's part. Hover over the Flow Status Indicator for some pointers on optimizing your feed.

Reference Breakdown on Flow Feed Preset Filters for insight into the methodology behind the preloaded settings. 

FLOW SHORTCUTS (togglable using COLUMNS)

There are several shortcuts available to help with your workflow. You can toggle any of these on and off using the COLUMNS settings mentioned earlier.

SAVE - saves the selected trade to view later. Saved trades can be viewed by selecting MY FLOW at the top of the feed. The limit is currently set to 1000 trades. Once the limit has been reached no additional trades may be saved.

VIEW FLOW - opens a new tab with filters preloaded for that specific contract.

OPTIONS PROFIT CALC - opens a new tab with the specific trade loaded into the options profit calculator.

TASTY TRADE - opens an order for the specific contract via TastyTrade.

COPY CONTRACT LINK - copies the URL to the contract chart for that specific contract.

VIEW IN CONTACT LOOK UP - opens a new tab displaying the contract chart for that specific contract and adds it to your Contract Look up / Options Watchlist

ADDITIONAL SHORTCUTS

Additional shortcuts are available whenever you see text in blue. 

Click the TICKER in the feed to be taken to that ticker's overview page. 

Click the EXPIRATION DATE in the feed to open a popup with additional data, including an options contract chart for the selected contract and historical volume/open interest data.

Click the STOCK PRICE in the feed to pull up different types of charts for the respective ticker. 

FLOW LEGEND (you will sometimes come across trades with the following symbol(s) next to the ticker)

This trade can be positively identified as being an opening trade as determined by "(Size of trade) > (open interest) - [(volume) - (size of trade)]. Only trades that can be positively identified as being 'to open' will be marked as such. 

- The size of the trade exceeds the current open interest. The size value for these trades will be in purple. 

- The daily volume of the respective contract exceeds the current open interest.

/ - This trade is part of a multileg options/stock strategy. Click on the symbol to view potentially related trades. Trades missing / are not necessarily a single leg trade. Consider that a trader may ‘leg into’ a position at a later point. 

- The ticker's ex-dividend date is near. Typically, one day before the ticker's ex-dividend date you will see lots of ITM call activity (especially from floor traders) indicative of dividend arbitrage. 

- Trades that are ~~struckout~~ have been modified or nullified. Trades can be modified or nullified for the maintenance of a fair and orderly market per the SEC. Periods of high volume may result in 'system disruptions and malfunctions' that may lead to trades being incorrectly reported and requiring future modification or nullification after the fact. This is a normal occurrence.

- Trades with this symbol will also have a gray highlight across the feed. These are assumed to be single 'trades', consisting of multiple transactions across multiple exchanges. Click on the symbol to view all transactions that make up the aggregated trade. 

- This symbol indicates that the ticker's ex-dividend date is in the following session. You may see deep ITM call activity the day prior to ex-div. This is most likely arbitrage and can be ignored. 

- Complex put arbitrage trades are given this label. Similar to the ex-div ITM call flow, these trades are most likely a different form of arbitrage and can also be ignored.

TROUBLESHOOTING/MISC

Most general issues can be resolved by refreshing the page and/or clicking the RESET button in the FILTER menu. 

Please contact support@unusualwhales.com or come by the Discord server if you have any issues/questions.