General Information
The Unusual Whales Options Flow Tool catches and displays trade details for ALL options orders transacted across all options exchanges.
For the best results please view the Flow via a Desktop. You can access an abridged version on your device’s mobile web-app as well as on the mobile application.
Basic Navigation (from left to right)
Menu: The Unusual Whales options flow tool menu
Filters: All available filters for the options flow feed.
Info: View technical information related to the flow feed can be read there
Settings: Toggle On/Off columns in the flow feed
My Trades: Trades which have been saved by selecting the HEART icon in the feed can be viewed here
Charts: View charting information pertaining to the information currently in the flow feed
Search Bar: Search for or eliminate specific tickers from your flow feed
Prev/Next: View the previous/next page in the flow feed
Live Flow: Select this icon to pause the live data feed. Select it again to resume the live feed
Results per page: Select between 50/100/150/250 trade results per page
Sort by: Select the manner in which the flow feed is sorted (Time, Size, Premium). Sorting by any parameter other than size will limit the result to trades that meet either of the following requirements: total premium of $25,000 or more, and/or trade size of 150 or more.
Flow Status: Will display Green/Yellow/Red depending on the currently input filters. Check out the Flow Status Doc for more information.
Options Flow and Unusual Whales Technical Information
All trade information (Ticker, Contract, Bid-Ask, Spot, Size, Premium, OI, Volume, Flags) is provided directly by the exchange that execute the trade. Other data points that can be calculated after the fact, such as the DTE (days to expiration) and the % Diff (percentage difference between the contract strike price and the stock price at the time of the trade), are done so by Unusual Whales and provided in the flow feed.
Bid-Ask values 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 options quotes.
Trades where the spot price is at or closer to the NBBO ask are labeled as having taken place on the BUY (ðïļ) SIDE, and trades with a spot price at or closer to the bid are labeled as having taken place on the SELL (ðĶī) SIDE. At the moment all trades that are filled at the MID price will be labeled a BUY. Emojis are an estimation: do not trade off emojis alone.
A ticker’s ‘Bullish Premium’ or ‘Bearish Volume’ is defined as all premiums or volumes transacted for ask-side calls and bid-side puts. ‘Bearish Premium’ and ‘Bearish Volume’ is defined as all premiums or volumes transacted for bid-side calls and ask-side puts. Individual options chains will often have a ‘bullish’ or ‘bearish’ percentage value attached: for CALLS and PUTS this will depend on the amount of bid vs ask side activity on the respective chain.
It is important to know that not all BUY orders are BTO and not all SELL orders are STO. Some BUY orders will be buying to close as opposed to buying to open and vice versa.
Any options trade placed may be a part of trade that has more than one component/leg to it. You will find these trades labeled and identified for you in the feed. You can select the multileg icon to bring up a pop-up window, from which the Unusual Whales Options Profit Calculator will preload a potential profit/loss profile for the selected trade. For more information on different options strategies view: Options Trading Strategies: A Guide for Beginners and 10 Options Strategies to Know.
Reading Options Flow
The AAPL trade on in the above image would be read as such (the information gathered from the feed will be in bold, and will be out of order for ease of interpretation):
On August 29th at 3:58:59 PM (TIME), 180 (SIZE) of the AAPL 180 strike puts expiring 9/9/2022 (CONTRACT) were traded at or closer to the SELL or bid (SIDE). The contracts were transacted at the price of $18.50 (SPOT), with a BID-ASK of $18.50 - 18.55. The total PREMIUM of the trade is $333K. The contracts entered the day with 3.4k OI and at the time of the trade these contracts had a daily VOLUME of 1.4K. The strike price of 180 represents a % DIFF of 11.4% from the current STOCK price of $161.51.
Options Flow Feed Breakdown
The buttons in Green are functional. From left to right: Click to save a trade (view these later via the ‘saved trades’ menu), click to pop up a flow feed for the selected contract in a new window, click to view the options profit/loss for the selected contract
There is a legend in the Info tab for the symbols in Orange
In Yellow are the flow feed columns, which are customizable via the settings menu
Time - the time that the trade was executed. You can adjust your timezone on the settings page
Ticker - the respective TICKER being traded. Clicking the ticker will take you to the ticker’s current options overview page. Hovering your cursor over the ticker will provide a small tooltip with information pertaining to the ticker.
Side - the ‘Side’ (BUY [ask], or SELL [bid]) that the transaction occurred on
Contract - the contract being transacted. Clicking the expiration date will open an in-window popup with current and historical data for both the contract and the respective ticker
DTE - the number of days to the contract’s expiration date
Stock - the stock price of the respective ticker at the time of the trade. Clicking the price will open an in-window popup with the respective ticker’s chart
% Diff - the percentage difference between the current stock price and the contract’s strike price
Bid-Ask - the NBBO bid-ask at the time of the trade
Spot - the fill price of the trade
Size - the number of contracts being transacted
Premium - the total amount of money being transacted (spot * size)
Open Interest - the daily open interest value for the respective contract
Volume - the running number of contracts traded for the most recent or current trading session
IV - the implied volatility of the respective contract
Code - the Code attached to the trade. The Code is attached to the trade by the exchange that executed it
Flags - any Flags attached to the trade. The Flags are attached to the trade by the the executing exchange, similarly to the Code value