Options Flow Explained: How to Spot Unusual Call and Put Activity

Learn how to read options flow, identify unusual Call and Put activity, and understand volume, open interest, premium, sweeps, blocks, strikes, and expirations with an options flow scanner.

What Is Options Flow? Options flow is a method used for analysing the buying and selling that occurs in the options market. Rather than merely looking at a stock's price chart, traders look at the individual option contracts that are traded, including Calls and Puts, the strike prices, the expiration dates, the volume, the premium, and all other trade details. The aim is not just to note that an option has been traded, but to identify where activity is unusually heavy and to decide whether that kind of activity should be subject to further investigation. An equity option gives its holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell the underlying security at a specific strike price before or at expiration, according to the contract. This is important since the options market includes a great deal of information which is not immediately apparent from a stock chart. For example, a trader could observe that thousands of contracts have traded at a particular strike while another expiration stays fairly quiet. In another instance, a contract might display a big premium transaction or a number of trades carried out on various exchanges. By using an options flow scanner , traders are able to see this activity in a more manageable form and thus can examine potentially significant transactions without having to manually go through every option chain. One should not confuse the options flow with a direct insight into the intentions of a particular institution or 'smart money' trader. Each options transaction involves both a buyer and a seller, and the reason for a trade can be different whether the transaction is opening or closing a position. The Options Industry Council specifically points out that open interest on its own does not show a bullish or bearish view since every contract reflects both sides of a transaction. Why Is Options Flow Important? The options markets have become very active. In the second quarter of 2026, Cboe stated that the average daily volume of U.S. listed options reached 72.8 million contracts, which is more than 19% higher than the previous year. Moreover, its latest market figures indicated that over 69 million contracts were traded on the U.S. options markets on September 25, 2026, even though the data shown is delayed. Given the level of activity involved, it is difficult to go through each contract by hand. That is where options flow analysis comes in useful. Instead of considering each trade as significant, traders can look for activity that stands out on the basis of its size, premium, volume, strike, expiration, or trading pattern. For instance, if a stock usually has only limited options trading but at a certain week a specific Call option happens to have a high number of contracts traded, this does not necessarily indicate that the stock is going to rise; it might instead provide a trader with a justification for looking into the underlying stock, the expiration date, the strike price, the trade price, the current