Dark Pool and Options Glossary

79 terms used across Moby Tick, from block prints and late prints to gamma flips and 0DTE. See the User Guide for how each tool uses them, and Trade Types for trade condition codes.

#

σ (sigma): One standard deviation of expected price movement. Used to group options by moneyness.
4 EMA / 8 EMA: Four- and eight-period exponential moving averages. Moby Tick's signal meter uses price relative to the 8 EMA and the 4 EMA crossing the 8 EMA.
0DTE: Options that expire on the same day they trade (zero days to expiration). Moby Tick's 0DTE Dashboard tracks same-day positioning for SPY, QQQ, IWM, SPX, RUT, DJX and NDX.
52W range: The lowest and highest price of the past 52 weeks, shown in the Print Lookup header.

A

Above / Below (watchlist): Your planned long trigger (Above) and short trigger (Below) for a ticker, each with up to 10 targets.
Above Ask: A print executed above the prevailing ask price.
Aggregate prints: Prints grouped by day and price, with the total shares and number of trades at that price. Shown in the right-hand prints table in Print Lookup.
Alert buffer (threshold buffer): The distance before a watchlist level at which a price alert fires. Default $0.12.
Anchored VWAP (AVWAP): Volume-weighted average price calculated from a date you choose, rather than from the start of the session.
At Ask / At Bid: A print executed at the ask (buyer paid the offer) or at the bid (seller hit the bid).
ATM (at the money): An option whose strike is close to the current price. In Moby Tick's moneyness filter, within 0.3 standard deviations.
ATR (average true range): The average size of a ticker's daily range, in dollars. Used to size stops and targets and in Trade Mapping.
ATS (alternative trading system): A regulated venue that is not a public exchange. Dark pools are a type of ATS.

B

Below Bid: A print executed below the prevailing bid.
Between: A print executed between the bid and ask, often a negotiated block. Its direction is ambiguous.
Block trade: A single large trade, typically far above a ticker's normal trade size. Moby Tick lets you set what 'large' means with size filters.
BMO / AMC: Before Market Open / After Market Close. When a company reports earnings.
BTI (Block Trade Indicator): Moby Tick's live feed of large prints, organised into cards with their own size, price and ticker filters.
BTI card: One column of the BTI with its own name, filters, colours and columns. You can run several side by side.

C

Call wall: The strike with the heaviest call positioning, which often acts as resistance.
Camarilla pivots: A pivot method that produces tight intraday support (S1–S5, shown as CS in Trade Mapping) and resistance (R1–R5, CR) levels around the prior day's close.
Cluster (options flow): A group of related option trades in the same name close together in time, marked with a flame icon in Options Flow.
Cluster (prints): Several large prints at or near the same price. Clusters are stronger reference levels than single prints.
Condition code: A code attached to a print that describes how it was executed or reported, such as Form T or Average Price Trade. Moby Tick tracks 59.
Confidence score: Moby Tick's rating of how clearly an option trade's side and sentiment can be read.
Consolidated tape: The public record of all reported trades in US-listed stocks, including dark pool trades after they are reported.
Custom Layout: A page you build from Moby Tick components, such as charts, BTI cards, Time & Sales and Trade Mapping.

D

Dark pool: A private venue where orders are not displayed before they execute. Trades are reported to the tape afterwards.
Dark pool level (DP level): A price at which one or more large off-exchange prints occurred. Shown on charts and in the DP 1–DP 10 watchlist columns.
Delta: How much an option's price changes for a $1 move in the stock; equivalently, how many shares the option behaves like.
DLR / HALF / QTR: Trade Mapping level types: whole-dollar, half-dollar and quarter-dollar prices, where orders tend to cluster.
DTE (days to expiration): Calendar days until an option expires.

E

Ex-dividend date: The first day a stock trades without its next dividend. Listed on the Dashboard.
Expected move: The price range the options market implies for a period, usually one standard deviation. Shown on the GEX and 0DTE dashboards.

G

Gamma: How fast an option's delta changes as price moves. Highest near the money and near expiration.
Gamma flip: The price at which estimated dealer gamma switches from positive to negative. Above it, hedging tends to dampen moves; below it, hedging tends to amplify them.
GEX (gamma exposure): An estimate of dealers' total gamma at each strike, in dollars. Net GEX is calls minus puts.

H

Heatmap: The Dashboard treemap of stocks grouped by sector, sized by market cap and coloured by daily change.

I

Institutional flow: Trading by funds, banks and other large participants, visible through block prints and large option orders.
IV / IV Rank: Implied volatility is the volatility priced into options. IV Rank places today's IV within its one-year range (0 to 100).

L

Late print: A trade reported after the session in which it executed, sometimes the next day. Tracked on the Late Prints page.
LEAPS: Long-dated options with more than a year to expiration.
Lit exchange: A public exchange that displays quotes before trades execute, such as NYSE Arca (ARCX) or Cboe EDGX (EDGX).
LOD / HOD: Low of day / high of day.

M

Max pain: The strike at which the greatest total option value would expire worthless. A calculation, not a prediction.
Moneyness: How far an option's strike is from the current price. Moby Tick measures it in standard deviations (σ).

N

Net GEX: Call gamma exposure plus put gamma exposure at a strike or for the whole chain.
Notional value: Price multiplied by shares: the dollar size of a trade. Shown as Value.

O

Open interest (OI): The number of option contracts still open. Unlike volume, it carries over from day to day.
OTM (out of the money): A call with a strike above the price, or a put with a strike below it.

P

P.O.P (probability of profit): The estimated chance an option position is profitable at expiry from its fill price.
P/C ratio: Put premium or volume divided by call premium or volume. Above 1 means put-heavy.
Pine Script: TradingView's scripting language. Moby Tick's generator writes Pine Script v6 indicators that draw dark pool levels.
Pinning: The tendency of price to settle near a strike with heavy open interest close to expiration, caused by dealer hedging.
Pivot point (PP): A level calculated from the prior period's high, low and close, with support (S) and resistance (R) levels around it.
Pocket (Trade Mapping): The stop distance used to calculate risk in Trade Mapping. Default 0.75.
Premium: The total dollar amount paid for an option trade (price × contracts × 100).
Print: A trade as it appears on the tape, with time, price, size, venue and condition codes.
Print Lookup: Moby Tick's single-ticker research screen with print levels on the chart and full print history.
Put wall: The strike with the heaviest put positioning, which often acts as support.

R

Regime (gamma): Positive gamma (dealers long gamma, moves dampened) or negative gamma (dealers short gamma, moves amplified).
Rel Vol (relative volume): Current volume compared with normal volume for that ticker.
RR (risk/reward): Profit to a target divided by the risk to the stop.

S

Seasonality: How a ticker has historically performed over the same calendar window across many years.
Sentiment (options): Whether a trade looks bullish or bearish, based on option type and whether it was bought or sold.
Signals: Moby Tick's three-dot meter: price vs 8 EMA, volume confirmation and the 4/8 EMA cross. Green for bullish, magenta for bearish.
Signature size: A share count that repeats across many prints, suggesting one desk working an order.
Sweep: An options order split across multiple exchanges to fill immediately, a sign of urgency.

T

Time & Sales: The running list of individual trades for a ticker, filtered by minimum size.
Trade Mapping: Moby Tick's table of levels above and below price with profit and risk/reward to each.
Trend score (Seasonality): A 0–1 score of how closely this year is following the historical seasonal path. Labelled Strong, Moderate, Weak or Inverse.
TRF / ADF (XADF): FINRA's Trade Reporting Facilities and Alternative Display Facility, where off-exchange trades are reported. XADF in the Exchange column marks an off-exchange print.

U

Unhit SSP: A layout component listing price levels that price has not yet returned to, within a range of ±8 ATR.
UOA (unusual options activity): An option trade that is large relative to that contract's normal volume or open interest.

V

Vol/OI ratio: Today's volume in a contract divided by its open interest. High values suggest new positions are being opened.
VWAP: Volume-weighted average price: the average price paid during a period, weighted by volume.
V×G: Volume multiplied by gamma at a strike, used on the 0DTE Dashboard to measure same-day hedging pressure.

W

Wall velocity: How quickly V×G at a strike is building or fading over the last interval on the 0DTE Dashboard.
Watchlist levels: A chart overlay that draws a ticker's Above and Below watchlist levels on Print Lookup.