OptionsHunter

The OptionsHunter is a tool that is designed to help traders identify unusual options activity - often a telltale sign of lucrative insider and smart money trades. The OptionsHunter tool in WealthCharts offers a list of all the options trades that have happened within the day being researched, and critical information about each such trade that can be used to sort, filter, and identify unusual options trades.

Key data points:

Symbol, Date, Time, Put/Call, Strike Price - these are the base components of each option trade, and will let you identify it.

Intensity & Heat Index - has the trade been placed above offer, or perhaps, below bid? These can be important indications of urgency. The heat index will also give you an idea as to what percentage of the trades has happened above offer for this stock today, and display a fire icon if the overall volume for the underlying stock is spiking.

Sentiment - this will give you an idea whether the trade was bullish or bearish. OptionsHunter assumes that options traded at the bid are sold and at the offer are buys, hence the former is bearish and the latter bullish. One should still look at how the stock price reacts to the trade.

Trade Type - can be a regular trade, or a “sweep” trade. A regular Trade is executed through a single brokerage. A Sweep is typically a large order that is broken into a number of different smaller orders that can then be filled more quickly on multiple exchanges.

Spot Price & Expiration - when does the option contract used in this trade expire, and what is the current price of the underlying stock?

Size, Option Price & Total Trade Size - how many contracts were purchased, what was the price of the option in question, and how much the trade cost it’s owner altogether.

Volume, Open Interest & The Volume/OI Ratio - these are all important metrics when looking for unusual options activity. Open interest represents the number of options contracts being currently held by traders, and a positive Volume to OI ration is a potential clue for unusual options activity.

OptionsHunter Filters

To help you work with this vast amount of information, the Options Hunter offers a robust range of filters. Here are some highlights:

Heat index, Spot Price, Strike Price, Size, Total Trade Price, Option Price, Day Volume, Open Interest - these filters allow you to eliminate trades that are above or below a certain threshold based on any of these metrics. For example, you can make the Options Hunter Display only trades that total trade price above $100,000, or only cheap options that were priced below $1. Multiple filters can be combined for stricter filtering!

Underlying Type, Trade Type, Put/Call, Sentiment - these checkbox filters allow you to hide or unhide various type of trades.

Other Filters & Intensity - some additional filtering criteria are below this line:

Bullish Hot Money - out-of-the-money bullish sweeps that have unusual volume, and are typically nearer to the ask than the bid.

Bearish Hot Money - out-of-the-money bearish sweeps that have unusual volume, and are typically nearer to the ask then the bid.

Aggressive - at or above the offer, and volume is greater than Open Interest.

Aggressive with size - at or above the offer, and size is much greater than average.

Aggressive Offer - at or above the offer.

Heat Index Fire - the daily volume is multiple times above the average volume.

Unusual Orders - when Order Size is greater than or equal to Open Interest. Such trades also receive a blue highlight in the main Options Hunter list.

Highly Unusual Orders - orders that have less than 14 days to expiration, a Size greater than or equal to 5,000, and the Size is greater than or equal to Open Interest. Such trade are also highlighted with a purple highlight in the main Options Hunter list.

Speaking of highlights, green rows are also there to tell you when an order is over $1,000,000.

Additional Filter Analysis Tools:

The OptionsHunter tool allows you to approach the filters from an additional angle of analysis, offering aggregated and ranked lists detailing the number of occurrences of each symbol under various filters, as well as general list breakdowns:

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