Dark Pool Scanner
Institutions route size through alternative trading systems — dark pools — to avoid moving the market. Those trades do print, but to FINRA's TRF on a delay, aggregated at end of day. There is no cheap real-time per-print ATS feed, and any scanner claiming one is overstating its data source. What Tapeboard offers instead is honest: it flags unusual volume concentration on the lit exchanges — a rough proxy for where size may be trading — and is upfront that it's a proxy, not real ATS attribution.
Triggers for volume concentration
- Session volume running well above a stock's own average (relative volume) — the lit-tape proxy for unusual participation
- Volume concentration versus a name's normal baseline, used as an attention filter
- Optional minimum notional / price filters to narrow to names where the pattern is cleanest
- Explicitly NOT included: real-time ATS/TRF print attribution or per-print side inference — that data isn't in any retail feed Tapeboard can access
Top tickers right now
Live ticker data for this preset streams inside the Tapeboard scanner once you sign in. The public snapshot endpoint covers the six core presets (top gainers, top losers, most active, unusual volume, gap up, gap down), with this preset's snapshot rolling out next.
Editorial notes
When this preset earns its keep
An attention filter, honestly framed. Unusual lit-tape volume can flag a name where something is happening — an institutional rebalance, a block cross, program flow, or a large retail participant. Tapeboard does not claim to identify the cause or the side; it surfaces the pattern and lets you investigate. For the live scan, use the Unusual Volume Scanner — this page exists to explain what 'dark pool data' actually means for retail and why being honest about the source matters.
How Tapeboard runs this scanner
- Streaming updates, rows update continuously, not a 10-second refresh delay. Free tier runs on standard 15-minute delayed data; real-time on the free Pro trial and Pro.
- Click-through to full research: chart + 134 indicators, L2 book, time & sales, SEC filings, insider transactions, and news recency on every row.
- Paper-trading simulator (Pro tier), size the setup against L2-book-walked sim fills before risking capital.
- AI research briefings summarize news and filings behind a ticker without opening six tabs.
Related scanners
- Unusual Volume Scanner >
- Most Active Scanner >
- Unusual Options Activity Scanner >
- Dark pool tracker: weekly FINRA data, per ticker >
- Dark pool volume by ticker (weekly archive) >
Run volume concentration streaming, free.
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Let's be straight about this one, because most "dark pool scanners" aren't. True dark-pool / ATS prints report to FINRA's TRF on a delay and aggregated at the end of the trading day, there is no cheap real-time per-print feed, and any retail scanner claiming live ATS attribution on individual prints is overstating its data source. Tapeboard does not ingest FINRA TRF per-print data or real-time alternative trading system prints, and we won't pretend otherwise. (We do publish the weekly FINRA ATS transparency archive, lag and all; more below.)
What this page actually offers. A lit-tape proxy: unusual volume concentration. When a stock's session volume is running well above its own average, relative volume elevated versus its normal baseline, that's a rough signal that something out of the ordinary is happening in the name. It is computed entirely from lit-exchange volume that Tapeboard does have, not from any print-level or ATS source.
How to interpret it. A name trading at several times its normal session volume is behaving differently from the usual pattern. The cause could be an institutional rebalance, a block cross, program flow, or simply a large retail participant. The scanner does not identify the cause, the side, or whether any of it touched a dark pool. It surfaces the volume anomaly and lets you decide whether to investigate. That's the honest use of the signal, and for the live scan it's the Unusual Volume Scanner that does the work.
What this is not. It is not real-time dark-pool data, not per-print size analysis, and not side inference, none of which is available in any retail feed we can access. Per-print side inference (comparing a transaction price to the NBBO midpoint) would require tick-level NBBO data; it is not a feature, not on a near-term roadmap, and we'd rather say that than imply it ships.
What we DO publish on dark pools. The weekly FINRA ATS transparency file: per-ticker dark pool share volume, per dark pool, with the publication lag stated plainly on every page. It is weekly and delayed, which is exactly why the honest dark-pool surface here is an archive, not a live scanner. See the dark pool volume pages (/dark-pool) for every tracked ticker, or the dark pool tracker (/dark-pool-tracker) for the newest published week on one screen with a ticker lookup.
How traders use this. Run the scanner during the first hour to catch stocks where volume is concentrating in unusual ways early in the session. Re-run at midday when institutional flow patterns tend to be cleanest. Cross-reference with the unusual-volume scanner to separate large-print activity from broad-based volume spikes. Names showing both large-print concentration and elevated overall RVOL have the strongest signal.
Pair with the high-volume scanner for confluence. A stock with elevated RVOL and unusual large-print concentration is the setup this tool is built for.
By Marcus Reilly, Editor.