Options flow
How Theta Vantage finds sweeps, blocks, splits, golden sweeps, and dark-pool prints in the option tape, and how to read and filter the flow table.
Options flow (/SPX/flow) is a market-wide tape of large option trades as they print, with the side each one traded on. It isn't tied to the ticker in the top bar: the table covers every underlying, and you narrow it with filters.
What counts as a flow
Every single-leg option trade of $100,000 or more in premium and at least 50 contracts is a candidate. Trades in the same contract less than 5 seconds apart are grouped, and each group is judged once, when it ends:
| Kind | What it is |
|---|---|
| Sweep | Fills on more than one exchange, $100,000 or more in all: an order taking what each venue offers at once |
| Golden sweep | A sweep of $500,000 or more that is also unusual: more contracts than the open interest |
| Block | One print of 100 contracts or more |
| Split | Several prints on one exchange, 100 contracts or more in all |
| Dark pool | A cross or floor print of $500,000 or more on one exchange |
Multi-leg trades (spreads, straddles, rolls printed as a package) are left out. One leg read alone would look like a directional bet it isn't.
Reading a row
- Time (ET), ticker (to its overview), strike, C/P, and expiration. Press the row to open that contract's history.
- Reference price: the underlying's price when the flow printed.
- Size @ price with the quote side after it: AA above the ask, A at the ask, M at the mid, B at the bid, BB below the bid.
- Premium: price × size × 100.
- Direction: from the trades' sides, weighted by premium. A call bought or a put sold is bullish; a call sold or a put bought is bearish.
- Type: LATE for a print after 4:00 ET, AUTO for at least 3 trades on 3 exchanges, AUCT otherwise.
- Kind, with an Unusual tag when the size is larger than the open interest.
- Volume (the contract's day volume) and OI.
Headers sort. Rows that arrive while you watch Live light up briefly.
Live and history
Live shows the current session and keeps adding flows as they print. After the close it shows the session that just ended, marked "Market closed · Oct 9". History opens any session in the last 30 days.
Presets and filters
The preset chips each pick out one kind of flow, one at a time; the rest are in Filters:
| Preset | Picks out |
|---|---|
| Bullish alerts | Bullish flows of $100K or more |
| Bearish alerts | Bearish flows of $100K or more |
| Bull sweeps | Bullish sweeps and golden sweeps |
| Bear sweeps | Bearish sweeps and golden sweeps |
| Dark pools | Dark-pool prints |
| Deep callsIn Filters | In-the-money calls |
| Deep putsIn Filters | In-the-money puts |
| Put sellsIn Filters | Puts sold at or below the bid |
| Cheap callsIn Filters | Calls at $1.00 or less |
Filters narrows by symbols (NV* matches every ticker starting with NV), flow kind, calls or puts, direction, moneyness, an expiration range, minimum premium, size, volume, and open interest, and unusual only. Export CSV downloads what's in the table.
Statistics
Above the table: the top symbols by premium, each flow type's count and premium, and the directional split (bullish, bearish, neutral, and unknown) of the flows the filters keep. The header folds the card down to that line ("637 flows · $982M"); it opens again from the same header, and the browser remembers which you left it on.
A symbol, a flow type, or bullish, bearish, or neutral is a filter. Press it and the table narrows to it, the same way Filters does, so the chips there show it and Reset all clears it. Press it again to take it off. Unknown isn't a filter.
Reading flow with care
A print shows size and the side it hit. It doesn't show why. A large call bought at the ask may open a bet, close a short, or hedge a stock position somewhere else. Use flow to find where something unusual is happening, then check it against the levels, the chart, and net premium drift.
Free sees a preview: the last session's ten largest SPY flows. Pro opens live flow, history, the filters, and the statistics. Options flow can also be an added panel on the overview.