The history of market net flow
By Faizan Ahmad. Updated .
Market net flow is the whole US options market's net premium, added up minute by minute through the session and drawn against SPY: bullish-leaning premium (calls bought, puts sold) minus bearish-leaning premium (puts bought, calls sold). Tradytics has published market-wide net options flow since 2022, a year before Unusual Whales' Market Tide, and per-stock net flow lines since 2021. The dated path runs from market-wide bullish and bearish premium in November 2020, to Algo Flow in October 2021, to Market Net Flow in 2022. Quant Data's Net Flow followed in November 2022 and Unusual Whales' Market Tide dates from September 2023.
What is market net flow?
Take every options trade, tag it as bought or sold from where it printed against the bid and ask, and sort it by what it says about direction. Calls bought and puts sold lean bullish; puts bought and calls sold lean bearish. Net premium is the bullish dollars minus the bearish dollars. Market net flow keeps a running total of that across the session, usually as two lines (calls and puts) or one net line, with SPY's price on the same chart so you can see whether the money led the market, followed it, or fought it.
The calculation, and why the net as a share of what traded matters as much as the dollar figure, is in what is net options flow (net premium)?
When did market net flow charts appear?
| Date | What appeared | Where |
|---|---|---|
| July 2020 | Tradytics launches | Tradytics |
| November 2020 | Market-wide bullish and bearish options premium | Tradytics, Options Market page |
| October 2021 | Algo Flow: a per-stock cumulative net options flow line plotted against price, minute by minute | Tradytics |
| May 2022 | Market Net Flow, the market-wide cumulative net options flow chart against SPY, explained publicly | Tradytics |
| June 2022 | Market Net Flow on the Options Market page | Tradytics |
| August 2022 | Dealer positioning, gamma exposure and vanna on the Options Dashboard | Tradytics |
| November 2022 | Net Flow | Quant Data |
| September 2023 | Market Tide, its earliest dated appearance | Unusual Whales |
| 2026 | The rebuilt app: Market Net Flow from the full options tape, with convergence and momentum indicators, and the Flow board | Tradytics |
So the idea of plotting the market's cumulative net premium against SPY was public on Tradytics about half a year before Quant Data's Net Flow and more than a year before Unusual Whales' Market Tide. The per-stock version, Algo Flow, came the year before that.
Are Market Tide and Net Flow the same as market net flow?
They chart the same idea under different names: the market's net options premium through the day, against the index. The results differ in the details each tool chooses: which prints count, how a trade is judged bought or sold, which expiries are included, and whether index options are mixed in. The raw trades come from the same place, the OPRA tape, so two charts that disagree are usually sorting the same trades differently.
How does Tradytics show market net flow today?
Market Net Flow sits near the top of the Options market page and opens on its own page at /options/net-flow. It's built from the full OPRA tape: every trade on every US options exchange, read live about a second after it prints, stitched into orders and tagged bought or sold.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Sessions | Today, or the last 2 to 5 sessions side by side |
| Expiries | All expiries, or only those closing within 5 to 30 days |
| Convergence | Bars under the chart that show when flow and SPY move together and when they diverge |
| Momentum | Bars under the chart that show where net premium sits against its own recent average: above zero when it is building, below when it is fading |
For single stocks, every research options page carries the per-stock line, Algo Flow's successor; for example NVDA options. To watch up to 12 names at once, use the Flow board. Plus and Pro follow the session live; Free shows the previous session.
How do you read market net flow?
- Watch when the lean formed. Premium that builds before SPY moves says more than premium that chases a move already made.
- Watch for divergence. Net premium rising while SPY falls (or the reverse) is what the convergence bar flags. Sometimes it is early positioning; it can also be hedges being cashed in.
- Remember put selling counts as bullish. A falling market can post bullish net flow when traders sell puts they bought earlier at a profit.
- Treat it as a description, not a forecast. It shows where the money went, not where prices go next. How to tell if options were bought or sold covers what the side tag can and can't tell you.
Common questions
When did Tradytics start showing market net flow?
Market-wide bullish and bearish options premium appeared on the Tradytics Options Market page in November 2020. Market Net Flow, the cumulative chart against SPY, was explained publicly in May 2022 and was on the Options Market page by June 2022.
What was Tradytics Algo Flow?
A per-stock cumulative net options flow line plotted against the stock's price, minute by minute, launched in October 2021. The same view lives on every Tradytics research options page today.
Is Unusual Whales Market Tide the same thing as Market Net Flow?
It charts the same idea, the market's net options premium through the day against the index. Market Tide dates from September 2023; Tradytics has published market-wide net options flow since 2022.
Is market net flow free on Tradytics?
The Free plan shows Market Net Flow for the previous session. Plus ($39 a month or $299 a year) and Pro ($69 a month or $499 a year) follow it live. Details in Tradytics pricing.
Sources
- Options Price Reporting Authority (OPRA): the consolidated last sale and quotation feed from the US options exchanges, the raw material for every net flow chart.
- OPRA Binary Data Recipient Interface Specification (version 6.4b, August 25, 2026): a last-sale message carries the contract, volume, price and sale condition but no buyer or seller, so every vendor infers the side from the quote.
- Most bullish options flow on 2026-11-04: MU ($87.12M net), TSLA ($43.22M net), MSFT ($41.67M net), GOOGL ($31.56M net), RCL ($28.06M net).
- Most bearish options flow on 2026-11-04: KLAC ($136.10M net), ORCL ($36.27M net), FSLR ($24.61M net), NVDA ($24.35M net), UAL ($16.57M net).
Updated 2026-11-05 07:45 UTC