Dark-pool print

Also called Dark pool, dark pool option trade, floor trade

A large option trade printed with a cross or floor condition, $500,000 or more on one exchange.

Some option trades are arranged away from the public order book (on an exchange floor, or as a cross between two known parties) and printed afterwards with a condition that says so. Traders call the large ones dark-pool prints.

In Theta Vantage

A flow is a dark-pool print when one of its trades carries a cross or floor condition, the premium is $500,000 or more, and it filled on one exchange. Multi-leg trades are left out of flow entirely, so these are single-leg prints. The Dark pools preset shows only them.

Reading one

Negotiated trades usually price near the mid and are often part of an institution's larger plan: a hedge, a collar, a roll. They show where size changed hands, not which way it was meant. Treat the direction column as uncertain for these, and look for open interest the next day.