Unusual options activity

About this board

What is unusual options activity?

It is options trading that stands out against a contract’s own recent baseline — most often a single contract trading far more volume in one session than the open interest already outstanding in it. It describes where trading concentrated, not why, and not who was on which side of it.

How is this list ranked?

By single-contract volume for the session, highest first. Each row is one specific contract — a ticker, a call or put, a strike and an expiry — not a company total. Ranking reflects the contracts on our own data feed rather than the consolidated tape, so it is a view of the market, not a complete census of it.

What does the volume/open-interest ratio mean?

Volume is how many contracts changed hands in the session; open interest is how many were outstanding beforehand. A ratio above 1 means more contracts traded than existed at the open, which usually indicates new positioning rather than existing positions changing hands. A very high ratio on a contract expiring the same day mostly reflects positions opened and closed inside the session. The ratio does not indicate direction, and a call buyer and a call seller produce the same volume.

How often is this updated?

The board is rebuilt through every trading day, and each completed session is archived on its own dated page so a given day’s board stays citable afterwards.

Is this real-time data?

No. Option figures come from Cboe on roughly a 15-minute delay. Nothing on this page is real-time, and none of it is investment advice.