Unusual Options Activity Scanner
Options whales — institutional desks and informed traders — leave footprints in option volume. When a ticker's call or put volume is running 3x+ normal, something is anticipated. This scanner streams the anomalies in real time so you catch the positioning before the underlying moves.
Triggers for unusual options activity
- Option volume >= 3x the 20-day average for the specific strike/expiry
- Sweep detection — orders filled across multiple exchanges simultaneously
- Large single-print filter (>$100k premium)
- Call vs put flagging + sentiment scoring
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
Pre-positioning detection. Unusual calls ahead of catalysts (earnings, FDA, M&A rumors) historically lead equity price action. Doesn't guarantee direction — a lot of UOA is hedging — but the anomaly signal is the entry point for deeper research. Tapeboard's Terminal tier ships options flow; pair with the news-recency badge for context.
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
Run unusual options activity streaming, free.
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The high volume-to-open-interest scanner surfaces options strikes where today's trading volume is running significantly above that contract's normal open-interest baseline, a pattern that suggests new positioning rather than routine trading of existing inventory. This is a heuristic based on exchange-reported options volume and open interest data, not a sweep-detection system or a direct feed from institutional order flow.
What the heuristic flags. Contracts where volume-to-OI ratio exceeds a configurable threshold, typically 3x or higher. Net directional skew when calls or puts dominate the unusual activity on a name. Concentration on specific strikes and expiries that suggests a defined thesis rather than scattered activity.
How to interpret this. When a contract that normally trades 500 units a day does 4,000 units by noon, something changed. The new positioning could be speculative directional bets, earnings hedging, protective puts by long holders, covered call writing programs, or complex spread positioning. The scanner identifies the volume anomaly. It does not identify the reason, the counterparty, or whether the trade is directional. That interpretation is the trader's job.
What this is not. Tapeboard does not detect sweeps across exchanges or infer order aggression from fill pattern. Sweep detection requires access to exchange-specific execution data that is not available to retail-facing data providers in real time. The scanner uses exchange-aggregated volume and OI from the options reporting authorities. That data is accurate and genuinely useful as a starting screen. Representing it as sweep detection or smart-money flow inference would overstate what the data actually is.
Signal quality context. High vol/OI activity ahead of known earnings dates is mechanical, not predictive. Earnings weeks generate elevated activity across the board as traders hedge or express views ahead of the binary event. The signal is cleanest on names with no obvious upcoming catalyst, where unusual options activity has no obvious mechanical explanation.
How traders use this. Screen here for contracts running 3x or more above their OI baseline. Filter to a specific expiry range, typically the next two to four weeks, to isolate near-term positioning. Cross-reference with the high-volume and large-prints scanners. Names showing elevated stock volume, unusual print patterns, and unusual options activity across the same session are the highest-confluence setups this tool produces.
Full options flow feed with additional filters is available on the Terminal tier. Pair with the news-recency badge and the 52-week-high scanner.
By Marcus Reilly, Editor.