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Unusually Large/Rare Trades
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Search for trades based on contextual metrics like relative size, percentile, rank, and last traded date.
Create and save your own search templates. Use system generated search templates to easily locate unusual
trades. Filter results based on dozens of search criteria including RSI overbought/oversold conditions, dark
pools vs sweeps, signature prints, and much more.
The system captures all trades across 5000+ tickers since Jan 1, 2004 that
are >= 10,000 shares
AND >= $500,000 USD.
Anything smaller is considered noise and discarded.
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Offsetting Trades
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Offsetting trades are identified as two odd-lot trades found within a 90 day period that have the same trade size,
are ranked in the top-100 in dollars, with share sizes not divisible by 10,000.
A large portion of institutional block trades arrive in round numbers (ex: 100,000 shares), which makes them too difficult to accurately
match with another trade. But two trades of size 896,341 shares that are a week apart are likely coming from the same institution.
The presumption is that the first one would be the opening trade and the second one would be the closing trade.
Identifying offsetting trades can be a useful way to determine when an institution has exited a position.
Knowing when an institution exits a large position helps us anticipate price reversals.
Examples:
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Phantom Trades
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Phantom trades are identified as dark pool trades that appear outside the entire day's range that are also not
classified as signature prints.
Dark pools aren't adherent to the same rules as those on the lit exchanges. As such, institutions will occasionally
execute trades that are entirely disconnected from price, sometimes by several percentage points.
Why this is done can't be known, but some have suggested that these are future targets. Whether those targets are
fulfilled or not is hit or miss, and for those trades that do accurately project future targets, there are no
specific timetables for when they might fill. For all intents and purposes, this information should be considered as
directionally relevant in the most unusual circumstances and should also only be considered if it can be corroborated
in some way by some other form of analysis.
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Trade Clusters & Levels
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Trade clusters are defined as two or more institutional trades arriving within 10 cents of each other.
Trade clusters are valuable because they capture institutional volume that arrives in
smaller blocks, but that may amount to large sums of money concentrated at the same price level.
After all, ten 100K share blocks at the same price are just as relevant as one 1M share block.
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Unusual Cumulative Volume
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Detect unusual cumulative institutional volume that occurs during regular trading hours or the after hours session,
where institutions often reposition themselves for the following day. This
volume is not limited to a single trade or a single trade cluster, but rather across the entire day.
Also detect abnormally high volume (institutional and non-institutional) to identify tickers that are most
active across an entire session. Important highs and lows are often made at or near dates when volume is disproportionately
high.
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Interactive Charts
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Colors
- Blue bubbles represent trades executed on public exchanges.
- Orange bubbles represent trades executed on dark pools.
- Green bubbles represent signature prints executed on dark pools.
- Navy bubbles represent late prints executed on dark pools.
Use the Dark Pools filter to show dark pool trades, public exchange trades, or both together.
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Shapes
Dozens of trade criteria exist. Rather than list each of them, they've been separated into two groups.
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Diamonds represent sweeps. Sweeps are trades that execute across different exchanges and
see the quickest fill, likely regardless of price. They're filled similar to market
orders. Sweeps suggest urgency and tend to create a more immediate price reaction
and are denoted by a
 icon in the trade list.
- Circles represent everything else, and are typically executed as limit orders.
Use the Sweeps to show sweeps, blocks, or both together.
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Late Prints
Late prints are trades that are conducted on dark pools and not immediately reported. There may
be a gap of a few minutes to several hours between the transaction time and reporting time. Late
prints are plotted on charts based on their transaction time.
Use the Late Prints filter to show late prints, timely prints, or both together.
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Signature Prints
Signature prints are "special" dark pool prints that are specific to the main indexes (SPY, QQQ, IWM, DIA).
They are always of a predefined size and always appear at the closing level of the previous day's trading.
They appear as the day progresses and can be misleading because by the time they've printed, they're old news.
Rules of the US exchanges dictate that all trades on US equities must be reported in a timely manner.
The vast majority are reported instantly. However, institutions exploit a loophole that allows trades made on
foreign exchanges to be reported up to 24 hours late. Consequently, institutions will trade these index ETFs
on foreign exchanges and intentionally delay reporting them to the exchange to disguise their intentions.
Use the Signature Prints filter to show signature prints, standard prints, or both together.
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Trade Clusters
Every chart lists the five largest trade clusters to the left of the chart. Each of those trade clusters will be represented
by a horizontal navy blue line on the chart itself. These lines are intended to help identify support/resistance levels.
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Trade Criteria
Hover over any trade on the chart to see trade criteria. This can provide additional insight into how trades were executed.
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Customizations
Click the  icon to customize charts.
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