Spot Hidden Trading Opportunities By Using The Market Map To Find Extreme Conditions

You may have noticed a new button from the Stock Screener (https://unusualwhales.com/stock-screener) page allowing you to toggle onto the “Market Map”:

Click there and you will arrive on a new screen, or navigate there directly:

https://unusualwhales.com/market/maps

Let’s dig in:

The Market Map Plots Your Screener Results As A Bubble Chart

The Market Map converts your screener results into a scatter plot.

This is a unique perspective that can be vastly more effective than the typical “rows-and-columns” format because your eyes are very good pattern-matchers.

See for yourself:

3 Step Process (The Basics): Filter, Then X/Y, Then Bubble

The x-axis, y-axis, and bubble size of your Market Map are set using the dropdown selectors in the upper-right corner.

Every useful Market Map is an iterative three (3) step process:

1. Apply filters
2. Pick x-axis/y-axis parameters
3. Pick bubble parameter

Let’s build up some confidence with the filtering by starting big then ending small.

“Big” filter examples to start with:

• One of your already-saved watchlists
• Stocks only or ETFs / ETNs only
• S&P 500 only or New 52 Week Highs only or New 52 Week Lows only

“Small” filter examples to finish with:

• Option Volume metrics
• Volatility metrics
• Option Premium metrics
• Open Interest metrics
• Underlying metrics
• Fundamental metrics
• Sectors (though I recommend leaving this blank, will explain later in this guide)

Now we will work through a real example, helping us put the theory into practice that demonstrates how to gain insights from the Market Map.

An Extreme Example: Finding Tradeable Conditions With IV Rank vs. Relative Option Volume

(Author’s note: the results are specific to the period immediately following the market close on Tuesday April 22nd, 2025, your results will of course be different depending on that day’s activity.)

Here’s our three (3) step process again:

1. Apply filters
2. Pick x-axis/y-axis parameters
3. Pick bubble parameter

Big filter first, let’s limit this Market Map to stocks only:

Small filters next, let’s focus on liquid option names and set the open interest minimum to 100000:

Helpful shortcut: just type “100K” and the Unusual Whales platform will expand your entry to 100000, no more “off by a zero” mistakes!

Let’s add one more small filter, we will remove stocks that are trading for less than $5:

And with that our filters are done, step 1 complete! Let’s move on to step 2, picking our x-axis/y-axis parameters.

Remember that if you are working on a laptop, desktop, anything with a “widescreen” layout, your x-axis will be materially larger than your y-axis. The opposite is true for the opposite layout on a phone for example, where the y-axis will be materially longer than the x-axis. Your longer axis will have more resolution and allow you to see results in finer detail.

So with that in mind, and knowing that the author is working on a desktop with one monitor, let’s selecting “IV Rank” for the x-axis:

IV rank is bounded from 0% to 100% and represents where a given security’s 30d implied volatility is compared to its 52 week history. (Learn more about IV rank here: https://unusualwhales.com/information/iv-rank.) Since IV rank is bounded and the x-axis is large, we will be able to observe whatever metric we choose for our y-axis across an evenly-spaced spectrum.

For the y-axis, let’s select “Option Volume/30D Average”, which measures the ratio of today’s option volume to the 30 trading day average option volume for each security:

When the Option Volume/30D Average metric is >1.0, we know that today is a higher-than-average volume day. When the Option Volume/30D Average metric is <1.0, we know that today is a lower-than-average volume day. This makes for a nice differentiator: a number very close to zero means that market participants are mostly inactive, while a number significantly higher than one means that market participants are hyperactive.

With our x-axis and y-axis parameters selected, step 2 is complete! Let’s finish strong by picking a bubble parameter.

The bubble parameter will scale the size of each security’s bubble by its relative size based on the parameter, so if you were to pick “Volume” for example then the security with the most volume traded in the underlying would be the biggest bubble and the security with the least volume traded in the underlying would be the smallest bubble.

For this example let’s try Option Volume as the bubble parameter:

Now that the bubble parameter has been picked, our Market Map is ready for analysis!

Market Map Link

What immediately jumps out to me is the cluster of quantum computing names all with very low relative volume (i.e. Option Volume/30D Average) and very low IV rank:

Have market participants “forgotten” about quantum computing names RGTI, QUBT, and QBTS?

With relatively low implied volatility and relatively low volume, a contrarian opportunity to go long volatility (buying straddles for example or making a directional bet by purchasing calls or puts outright) may be presenting itself.

EXTRA CREDIT: FILTERING SECTORS IN THE MARKET MAP

You can toggle individual sectors on/off by clicking them beneath the x-axis, so you can focus in on a subset of categories by clicking the rest off: