What it does
OptionsTape.Trade streams every significant institutional options print powered by SpotGamma in real time.
Each trade is classified (block, sweep, strip, or multi-leg), attributed to a participant type via an ML model,
scored for signal quality, and cross-referenced against a live SVI vol surface to compute how rich or cheap
the trade was vs theoretical fair value. The result is displayed as a card you can act on immediately.
Channels
✦
highlights
The cleanest signal. OTM ≤30Δ · $5M+ index / $1M+ individual stock · >5 DTE.
These are patient, positioned trades with time to work — the most actionable channel.
◈
full-stream
Everything above the base threshold. Higher noise floor — use for
surveillance or when you want complete coverage.
◇
index-flow
SPX · SPXW · SPY · VIX · QQQ · NDX · RUT · IWM only.
Macro hedging and index positioning — separate from single-name flow.
Reading a card
| Field | Meaning |
|---|
| Ticker | Underlying symbol |
| Contract | Strike + C/P · expiry date |
| Premium | Total dollar premium paid (size × price × 100) |
| Spot | Underlying price at time of the trade |
| Greeks | Per-contract delta, gamma, theta, and vega when the model surface is available. Delta uses the normalized contract delta, not total dollar exposure. |
| IV | Implied volatility of the trade as executed |
| Vol Edge | Trade IV minus the live SVI surface IV at that strike, in basis points.
+120bp = buyer paid 1.2 vol points above fair value (aggressive).
−80bp = seller received below fair value. |
| Score | 0–10 signal quality score combining entity confidence, vol significance, and OI context |
| Entity | ML-attributed participant type. Only Customer is shown (63% accuracy vs 31% random baseline).
Firm/ProCust/BD suppressed — below noise threshold. |
| OI strip | Net open interest at that strike by participant: Customer · MM · Firm · ProCust · Total OI |
| Pre-hedge ⚠ | Stock moved >0.3% in the 5 minutes before this print — possible pre-hedge activity |
Tags
| Tag | Meaning |
|---|
| BLOCK |
Single print ≥$250K premium. One firm, one decision. |
| SWEEP |
3+ trades on the same contract within 1.5 seconds — aggressive buyer lifting offers across exchanges. |
| STRIP |
3+ distinct strikes, same underlying/expiry/side within 10 seconds. Gamma exposure construction. |
| MULTILEG |
Complex/spread order — two or more legs printed simultaneously (dxFeed sale condition "D"). |
| POSITIONING |
OTM ≤30Δ · >30 DTE. Patient directional positioning, not a hedge or quick flip. |
| OPENING |
Trade volume exceeds existing OI — new position being established. |
| 0DTE |
Same-day expiry. High gamma, binary outcome. Filtered to darkest background. |
| VOL HIGH |
Trade size is anomalously large vs average daily volume and open interest at that strike. |
Right-panel tools
▤ Flow Summary
Today's flow aggregated by symbol — total premium, event count, and a relative size bar. Sorted by premium.
∂ Greeks Calculator
Price any option with the Rust risk engine. Enter symbol, strike, expiry, and vol to get price, delta, gamma, vega, theta, and rho instantly.
⊕ Compass
Idea generation tool. Scatter plot of ~25Δ call IV vs ~25Δ put IV from today's flow (~1-month DTE window).
Each dot is a ticker — size = premium, color = skew direction (orange = put-rich, blue = call-rich).
Dots above the diagonal line have richer puts than calls. Below = call skew.
The ranked list below the plot shows the largest divergences between the market trade IV and the theoretical SVI surface IV — your edge-hunting screener.
Click any dot or row to filter the feed to that ticker.
Recaps · Screens · API
Recaps expose top impact, venue, OI, and spread-like summaries from the persisted tape.
Screens run named market scans such as richest/cheapest IV, IV moves, skew, term, unusual volume, put/call, movers, and sentiment.
API lists the command catalog, examples, parameters, and field glossary used by these views.
Spread intent roadmap
Current spread recaps identify spread-like flow from reconstructed multi-leg cards and persisted tape fields.
The next classifier layer will separate mechanical structure from likely position intent. Structure is the package type
such as vertical, calendar, diagonal, strangle, risk reversal, condor, box, or ratio. Intent is the likely action against
existing exposure: opening, closing, covering, rolling, replacing a hedge, or rolling an overwrite.
| Signal | How it helps intent |
|---|
| sg_oi position marks | Existing OI by contract and account bucket can show whether a leg is reducing, covering, adding to, or opening exposure. |
| Size vs OI | Large size against low prior OI supports opening. Large size against known existing exposure supports close, cover, or roll. |
| ITM / OTM | Deep ITM legs often represent legacy stock-like exposure or old inventory. ATM/OTM legs often represent the new hedge or roll destination. |
| Leg pairing | An ITM leg matched to existing exposure plus an OTM related leg with similar size raises roll or hedge-replacement confidence. |
| Box spreads | Four-leg, two-strike call/put packages are detected before iron condor fallback. Long/short box labels require reliable leg-side evidence; otherwise the system marks financing structure only. |
These OI and moneyness features are evidence layers. They should raise or lower confidence after the tape reconstruction identifies the mechanical spread, not override the tape.
Hover chart
Hover any card to see a 5-day price bar chart for that ticker. Color indicates the 5-day return:
green = positive, red = negative. Index symbols (SPX → S&P 500, VIX → CBOE VIX, NDX → Nasdaq 100) are mapped automatically.
The chart is cached per-session so hovering the same ticker twice is instant.
Filters
Type a symbol in the sidebar filter box (e.g. AAPL) to narrow
the feed to a single name. Combine with the sentiment dropdown to screen for directional flow only.
Filters apply to the current channel view — switch channels to see the same symbol filtered across all flow tiers.
Connection status
Live — connected to real-time feed
Connecting / reconnecting (retries every 3 seconds)
Disconnected — check server status
On reconnect the last 150 cards are replayed from memory so you don't lose context.
The Alerts counter in the header shows total cards sent this session; Buffered shows events in the server queue.
Data sources
| Source | What it provides |
|---|
| SpotGamma dxFeed | Live T&S stream — 20 fields per trade including delta, IV, OI, sale condition, stock price |
| Hiro DB (SpotGamma) | Participant-level open interest — Customer/MM/Firm/ProCust net OI per strike |
| SVI surface | Real-time implied vol surface fit from streaming trades (min 3 strikes), used to compute vol edge |
| Yahoo Finance | 5-day price chart on card hover |
| Railway Postgres | Persistent trade log — powers the Flow Summary and historical replay on reconnect |