What Is Lit Flow?

Lit Flow Whale Feed Defined

The Lit Flow Feed, or Whale Feed tracks large equity trades that take place on public, regulated stock exchanges — often referred to as lit markets — including the NYSE, NASDAQ, and others. These are on-exchange trades (minimum premium of $100,000), captured not just during regular market hours but also in the premarket and after-hours sessions, where liquidity can be thinner and big moves often stand out even more.

Lit flow is different from dark pool activity in one major way: Every order tracked in the Lit Flow Feed was visible to the broader market before execution and is immediately reportable after the fill. In contrast, dark pool trades are executed off-exchange, often without showing up until later — if at all — and are used when institutions want to minimize their market footprint. Lit trades, by comparison, can actually move markets, making them a more immediate signal of potential buying or selling pressure.

Like all flow pages on the platform, the Whale Feed lit flow has various filters allowing you to customize your feed based on an array of criteria, like Premium, size, what percent of the total daily volume it represents, and even the percent of the 30 day average volume.
 

Example Lit Flow Filter

If you want to narrow the feed down to just a few stocks, you can type in their tickers, separated by a comma. Conversely, if you want to exclude specific filters, type them with a minus sign ( - ) in front of the ticker.

So for example, if I want a Lit Flow feed that displays all stock transactions, excluding ETFs, Apple, and Tesla from the feed, a minimum size of  500 shares, and a minimum premium of $450,000, I can adjust the appropriate filters and sliders therein. That filter and feed looks something like this:

You can also download a CSV of your Lit Flow Feed as it appears with an Annual Subscription to the Unusual Whales platform