Unusual Option Activity Scanner for ThinkorSwim

[theelderwand]

Lots of buzz around Unusual Option Activity (UOA) so thought I'll share out this scanner that I fine tuned for my personal use.

The scanner looks for the following:

1. Option Volume of 10k or more
2. OI of 5k or less - Usually indicates fresh volume coming in or the part where Unusual comes from
3. Delta 0 -> 40 - You can fine tune this as you see fit. I try to stay close to the money
4. DTE 14 -> 100 - Best for getting long term ones that come here

This is just a starter to filter through and analyze how to play the UOA. Use this as a starter to find the options and then drill down. Best used on "All stocks", the indices are too noisy with many players whose underlying intentions are usually unclear.

Example from today:

Option chain for ELY:

As you can see there's already good OI in 20 and 21 in the call side and 22 has 10K volume come in with 1K OI. And on the PUT side you don't see much interest. This is an entry I'll try and test it.

There could be other things that might come into play as well, but nevertheless it's a good way to track how Unusual Option Activity shows it's hands and potentially give an insight into following smart money.

Share link: http://tos.mx/REAjsH9

 

[TradingWRLD]

I'm confused you say the 10K volume was on 23 strike, but the pic shows it at 22 strike, is that just a typo or am I reading this incorrectly

 

[theelderwand]

@TradingWRLD You are right it's 22, correcting it inline. Thank you for the catch

 

[TradingWRLD]

Great thanks, just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything, but thanks for this, it looks very promising, will try it out, as long as Trump can keep his hands of twitter and causing markets to dive

 

[natcom2020]

this dont work for me dont get any hits

 

[theelderwand]

@natcom2020 because there are no UOA on current day. Just check now. Few alerts came in.

Alert: New symbols: .PFE201023C38.5, .PLTR201120C12.5 were added to uoa.

 

[BTExpress]

@TradingWRLD You are right it's 22, correcting it inline. Thank you for the catch

Which also makes the OI 541

Nice work @theelderwand, I have been trying to find a scan like this. I will give it a try. The scan probably works best the second half of the trading day as volume starts to build.

 

[codydog]

I wanted to add a note of caution here and I'm not encouraging or discouraging anyone from pursuing any idea. I've traded for a long time and wanted to share something - hopefully no one is offended by my post.

I know folks who scan all sorts of stuff everyday, follow 100-200 stocks, daily, and claim to make loads of cash. My guess, from their lifestyles, is that they'd be better off financially (and have a whole lot more free time to pursue whats really important) simply buying a Vanguard fund. I only follow 10 stocks and think that maybe I should only follow 5 or 6. When you're scanning, you really have no idea what the other trader is doing - eg, hedge, open, close or even simply a mistake that gets unwound when accounting figures it out.

And I think Softbank is up like 30% from mid-Sept, so, maybe nobody punished them and maybe they're not so dumb.

 

[BTExpress]

@theelderwand, is there a way to scan for open interest change day over day? I want to scan for oi[4]<oi[3]<oi[2]<oi[1],oi. I want to find stocks that smart money keeps betting on increasingly in the last 5 days.

 

[theelderwand]

@BTExpress OI is a number like volume so no historical info available from what i see so it might be not possible in ToS

 

[XeoNoX]

OI is the open interest... its the amount of option contracts there were left open at the previous day's close.

 

[luiscervantes30]

@natcom2020 because there are no UOA on current day. Just check now. Few alerts came in.

Alert: New symbols: .PFE201023C38.5, .PLTR201120C12.5 were added to uoa.

When you are alerted on the scanner are there buy calls or sell calls? I have found that some UOA go down and they say calls, I know that there is probably no way to filter the UOA so that it only shows buy calls and filters out the sell calls to give you a clear indication of direction.

 

[theelderwand]

@luiscervantes30 There's almost nobody who can tell you if an UOA is a buy call or a sell call. The best indication is some services that provide if the trade got filled at ask or big which can give a clue. But that's still the best guess unfortunately.

 

[RushPro808]

I have been using this scanner and so far I'm batting around 80% win ratio with it so big big ups on this.... I noticed I have NEVER had a PUT return only CALL. I'm curious why this is?

 

[dinodotcom]

Because you are scanning for a positive delta. For puts your delta needs to be negative.

 

[FreefallJM03]

I have been using this scanner and so far I'm batting around 80% win ratio with it so big big ups on this.... I noticed I have NEVER had a PUT return only CALL. I'm curious why this is?

How did you get it to work? I can't get it to work. It always returns an error when it scans.

 

[RushPro808]

How did you get it to work? I can't get it to work. It always returns an error when it scans.

Here I will just post the image for the call and for the put.
UO Calls
UO PUTS

 

[TxCattleMan]

I'm just curious. Looking at this scanner, I get some call options. What I cannot find is are they buying or selling, is that possible?

 

[XeoNoX]

you can check the same day via the <TRADE> tab then go below the option chain to <TIMES AND SALES>and expand the drop down menu

 

[syf350]

Is there a way to find UOA in single transactions? ie, OI =< 1000, find any transactions that => 3xOI?