The Discord options_screener Command Step-by-Step and How To Spot Institutional Option Trades With It
The Unusual Whales Discord bot /options_screener command puts the power to track institutional options flow directly in your hands, so let’s get started with exactly how to use it.
Getting Started: How to Run the /options_screener Command in Discord
All Unusual Whales Discord bot commands start with the “/” (slash) character, so type “/” followed immediately by “options_screener” or accept the auto-completion by pressing the tab key.
After hitting tab, you will be presented with the first option called “preset_name”. Your cursor will default to the “preset_name” field. This allows you to start typing right away to filter the list before hitting tab to accept an auto-completion or using your mouse to select the preset.
Tab will auto-complete to “Unusually Bullish” here and move you on to the next round of options.
These 3 selections remain:
- “ticker”: if you want to filter for only one specific ticker
- “order”: set the sorting order of the results (like premium, volume, time of day, etc.)
- “limit”: the max number of trades that will be shown in the results
Presets: the Perfect Starting Point (and an example using “Unusually Bullish”)
Today happens to be Saturday April 5th, 2025, the first day of the weekend after a historic decline in SPY (-4.93% on the preceding Thursday and -5.85% on the preceding Friday), with SPY at about -17.6% since its closing high on Wednesday February 19th, 2025.
Let’s see what kind of contrarian opportunities the Unusually Bullish preset has to offer:
- Preset name: Unusually Bullish
- Order: Premium
- Limit: 30
The bot “thinks” for a moment before the results are returned, and once the response arrives you can click the image to see the zoomed-in results:
We will not spend any time in this tutorial going over how to interpret the results. (If you want a refresher, you can check out the library of flow review videos on the Unusual Whales Youtube page here: https://www.youtube.com/@UnusualWhales/videos.) You can see historical trades by clicking the “1d <” (1 day back) and “7d <<” (7 days back) buttons:
One click of the “1d <” button and we have the trades from Thursday April 4th:
Fine-tuning: Adjust the Filter Criteria to Match Your Trading Strategy
The most powerful aspect of the /options_screener command is its flexibility, which you can observe by clicking the “Change Parameters” button.
This loads the Change Parameters menu, which allows you to adjust any and every aspect of the original preset you started with:
Fine-tune the filter criteria to zero-in on your favorite flow trades:
- Equity type (include or exclude stocks, ETFs / ETNs, Indices, or ADRs)
- Option type (include or exclude calls or puts)
- 10+ additional filters like minimum premium, ask/bid side, days til expiration (“DTE”), ITM vs. OTM, volume > OI, multileg, and more
Whether you are managing a trading group that demands professional-grade option screeners or seeking an edge in your personal trading strategy, the Unusual Whales /options_screener command gives you the functionality and flexibility you need with a single Discord command.