Think of FlowScore as a 'big money activity meter.' It tells you how much institutional attention a stock is getting today. A score of 20 means business as usual. A score of 70 means large players are positioning in ways that stand out from the past month. Higher scores don't tell you direction. They tell you something worth watching is happening.

A single label that summarizes the current positioning regime for a stock or index. It tells you the character of the market right now: whether moves are being amplified or absorbed, whether institutions are building or exiting, whether the market is coiled for a move or stuck in a range.

The conditions are set for a sharp move, like a coiled spring. Dealer hedging will amplify the next move rather than absorb it, and institutional players are actively building directional positions. When the move comes, expect it to go further and faster than normal. This doesn't tell you the direction. It tells you the magnitude.

The stock is stuck. Dealer hedging is actively pushing price back toward a heavily traded options strike, making breakouts in either direction likely to fail. Good for range-trading strategies, frustrating for momentum traders. The pin usually releases when the options expire.

Big players are paying up for insurance. They're buying puts, straddles, or other protection, spending real money to hedge against a sharp move. When fear bid persists for multiple days, it often precedes a volatility event. The direction isn't always obvious until the move starts.

Large players are buying, and they're doing it quietly through off-exchange venues where it's harder to detect. This is the quietest bullish signal. It won't show up in price action or volume spikes. When accumulation persists for 3+ days, it often precedes a breakout as buying overwhelms available sellers.

The opposite of accumulation. Large players are selling, often into rallies so the exits don't crash the price. The stock may look fine on the surface while smart money rotates out underneath. Distribution that persists for 3+ days is one of the most reliable bearish signals in our system.

Our single-word read on whether institutional money is flowing into (accumulation) or out of (distribution) a stock today. Derived from the dominant signal across multiple data sources, not just one indicator.

These aren't arbitrary lines on a chart. They're derived from where billions of dollars of options contracts are concentrated. A put wall at $680 means massive put open interest at that strike, and dealers hedging those contracts will buy when price approaches, creating a floor. A call wall at $700 creates selling pressure. These levels often hold precisely because the hedging flow makes them self-fulfilling.

Skew tells you whether the options market is more worried about a crash or a rally. When skew is positive and rising, big players are paying more for downside protection. They see risk below. When it's negative, they're paying up for upside. They see opportunity above. Skew is the single highest-weighted component of FlowScore because research shows it's one of the most persistent predictive signals.

Think of GEX as the market's shock absorber. Positive GEX means the shock absorber is working — dealer hedging cushions price moves. Negative GEX means it's broken — dealer hedging amplifies moves. When GEX flips from positive to negative, expect bigger, faster moves in both directions.

DFS cuts through the noise of raw options volume to isolate the directional signal. It weights each options contract by how much directional 'punch' it packs. A cheap, leveraged call bet counts for more than a deep-in-the-money stock replacement trade. A DFS z-score of +2.5 means directional flow is more bullish than 99% of the past 60 days.

VDS tells you whether institutional traders are betting on bigger or smaller moves ahead. Strongly positive for multiple days means the market is saying 'I expect something to happen,' even if the direction isn't clear. VDS turning from negative to positive is often a leading signal before a sharp move.

When an institution needs to get a large options trade done immediately, they 'sweep' across multiple exchanges at once, prioritizing speed over price. This is the most urgent type of order. Multiple golden sweeps (over $1M each) in the same direction on the same day is rare and one of the highest-conviction signals in our system.

When someone builds a large options position over multiple days at a specific strike, they're making a deliberate bet, not a quick in-and-out trade. OI buildup at the $950 call strike over 5 days means someone is positioning for (or hedging against) a move above $950. These multi-day signals are among the most reliable indicators of institutional intent because they cost real money to maintain.

Is volatility cheap or expensive right now? An IV Rank of 90 means options are near their most expensive in a year. Historically rare territory. An IV Rank of 10 means they're near their cheapest. Useful for deciding whether options are worth buying (low IV) or whether premium sellers have an edge (high IV).

Normally, options that expire further out cost more than near-term ones (contango). When this inverts and near-term options become more expensive (backwardation), the market is saying 'I'm worried about something happening soon.' Sustained backwardation is one of the clearest fear signals in options markets.

A simple gauge of sentiment through options trading. Above 1.0 means more put contracts traded (bearish or hedging). Below 1.0 means more calls (bullish). Most useful when compared to the 20-day average. A P/C ratio 30% above normal tells you today's put buying is unusually heavy.

Dark pools are where large institutions trade to avoid moving the market. We track whether this off-exchange activity is elevated, whether it's buying or selling (via VWAP bias), and whether it's sustained. A single day of elevated dark pool activity is noise. Three consecutive days with consistent buying bias is the strongest accumulation signal available in public market data.

Were dark pool trades executed above or below the day's average price? Above VWAP means institutions were buying at prices higher than average, willing to pay up, which signals demand. Below VWAP means selling into the market, willing to accept lower prices, signaling urgency to exit.

How historically unusual were today's biggest trades? If the largest trade of the day ranks in the 99th percentile versus the past 30 days, someone made an unusually large bet. This feeds into FlowScore's trade rarity component.

Stocks don't trade in isolation. When credit markets, bonds, gold, and crypto all tell the same story, that context matters. We monitor these relationships daily and flag when they diverge from what equities are pricing. Those divergences often resolve by equities catching up to what other markets already priced in.

When a CEO, CFO, or board member buys stock on the open market with their own money, they're making a bet with personal skin in the game. Academic research consistently shows insider purchases (not sales) have predictive value over 30-90 day horizons. We use these as confirmation signals. An insider buying during an accumulation regime is a powerful convergence.

How heavy is today's trading compared to normal? A ratio of 1.5x means 50% above the 20-day average. Volume validates price moves. A 2% rally on light volume is less meaningful than a 1% move on 2.5x volume. This feeds directly into FlowScore's volume intensity component.

What percentage of today's trading volume was short sales? Tracked daily from FINRA RegSHO data. Persistently elevated short volume, especially when combined with distribution state and rising put OI, adds conviction to a bearish institutional read.