What are dark pool prints?
By Faizan Ahmad. Updated .
A dark pool print is the public record of a stock trade that happened off an exchange. The firm that executed it reports it to a FINRA trade reporting facility, and it appears on the consolidated tape with the symbol, price, number of shares, time and condition codes. A print shows that a trade happened and at what price. It doesn't show the order beforehand, who bought or sold, or why.
What's in a dark pool print?
Every print carries the same few fields. Here is one real print from October 30, 2026.
| Field | What it tells you | Example: SPY |
|---|---|---|
| Time | When the trade was reported, usually seconds after it executed, sometimes much later | 1:58 PM ET |
| Price | The price per share | $753.81 |
| Shares | How many shares changed hands | 1,000,000 |
| Value | Price times shares | $753.81M |
| Venue | Off-exchange (reported to FINRA) or the exchange where it traded | Dark pool |
Prints also carry sale condition codes, which flag late reports, trades outside regular hours and special pricing. What's missing matters as much: no buyer, no seller, no sign of which side started the trade, and no way to tell if this was the whole order or one slice of a bigger one.
Where do dark pool prints come from?
Trades in listed stocks that happen away from an exchange are reported to one of FINRA's trade reporting facilities: the FINRA/Nasdaq TRF in Carteret, the FINRA/Nasdaq TRF in Chicago, or the FINRA/NYSE TRF. From there they are published on the consolidated tape alongside exchange trades, so they count in a stock's volume.
FINRA Rule 6380A sets the clock. A trade must be reported as soon as practicable and no later than 10 seconds after execution, and anything later is marked late. Trades between 4:00 AM and 9:30 AM ET, or between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM ET, are reported the same way with a flag for outside regular hours. That is why prints keep arriving after the close.
Even so, dark pool prints are after-the-fact reports by nature. The biggest trades, such as negotiated blocks, average-price and portfolio trades, are often reported late, sometimes hours later, at a price from earlier in the day, flagged with late or out-of-sequence codes. So nobody reads prints for the exact second a trade happened. They're read for where size built up over days. More in is dark pool data real time?
Dark pool prints vs exchange blocks
Not every big print is a dark pool trade. Here were SPY's four biggest prints on October 30, 2026, when SPY closed at $757.12:
| Time (ET) | Shares | Price | Value | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4:28 PM | 3,684,100 | $769.559 | $2.84B | Dark pool |
| 4:00 PM | 2,899,620 | $755.72 | $2.19B | NYSE Arca |
| 4:18 PM | 1,000,000 | $755.584 | $755.58M | Dark pool |
| 1:58 PM | 1,000,000 | $753.81 | $753.81M | Dark pool |
Only the 1:58 PM print traded during the session. The 4:00 PM trade on NYSE Arca happened on an exchange at the close: it's an exchange block, not a dark pool print (see block trades vs dark pool prints). The 4:18 PM print came after the close, near the closing auction price. And the biggest, at 4:28 PM, was priced at the prior day's close, about $12 above where SPY closed: a late, previously agreed trade.
Does "Dark pool" on a print mean an ATS?
Not necessarily. A trade reported to FINRA's facilities could come from an alternative trading system (a dark pool in the strict sense), a wholesaler filling retail orders, or another broker-dealer trading from its own inventory or crossing client orders. Tradytics shows all of those as one off-exchange category, labeled Dark pool.
That difference is large. In the first quarter of 2023, ATSs handled 10.7% of US stock share volume while all off-exchange venues handled about 44%, according to the SEC. A print labeled Dark pool tells you the trade happened off-exchange, not which kind of firm filled it. How much trading happens in dark pools has the full split.
What can a print tell you, and what can't it?
| A print tells you | A print doesn't tell you |
|---|---|
| The price and size of a trade | Who bought and who sold |
| That it happened off-exchange, or on which exchange | Which side started the trade |
| When it was reported, and if it was flagged late or outside hours | Whether it opened or closed a position |
| How big it was next to the stock's usual day | Whether it was a hedge or one slice of a bigger order |
That right-hand column is why a single print is neither bullish nor bearish on its own, and why traders read prints in bulk. How to read dark pool prints shows the routine on a real day.
How to see it on Tradytics
The Dark pool prints page shows the whole market: totals for the session (value, dark pool dollars, block dollars, shares and prints) and each large print with its time, symbol, price, shares, value and venue. For one stock, open its research page, such as SPY's dark pool page, where the tape lists every print of the day. Live and Pro show prints within about 15 minutes of their report; the Free plan shows yesterday's session.
Common questions
Why do dark pool prints show up after the market closes?
FINRA's rules require trades done between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM ET to be reported within 10 seconds with an after-hours flag, so the tape keeps running after the close. Trades priced at the close are also often reported after it, and late reports of earlier trades can arrive at any time.
Are dark pool prints buys or sells?
Both. Every print has a buyer and a seller, and the public record doesn't say which side started it.
How big does a print have to be to matter?
Judge it against the stock, not in dollars. SPY sees $6.37B of large dark pool and block trades on a usual day, so its 1:58 PM print was about 12% of that, while the same dollar amount would dwarf a usual day in most stocks.
What does a late or out-of-sequence condition mean?
The trade was reported more than 10 seconds after it executed, or out of time order, so its price may come from earlier in the day. Treat those prints as history, not as fresh interest at that price.
Sources
- FINRA, Trade Reporting Facility (TRF): what the TRFs are and the three active facilities.
- FINRA Rule 6380A, Transaction Reporting: the 10-second deadline, late designation and reporting hours for pre-market and after-hours trades.
- FINRA, Where Do Stocks Trade?: ATS trades submitted to a TRF and published on the consolidated tape with exchange trades.
- SEC, Disclosure of Order Execution Information, Release 34-99679 (March 6, 2024): first quarter 2023 shares of volume for ATSs (10.7%) and all off-exchange venues (about 44%).
- Dark pool and block prints on 2026-10-30: 13,984 prints worth $277.16B, $107.38B of it in dark pools.
- Most traded in dark pools and blocks: QQQ ($16.44B), SPY ($14.91B), NVDA ($9.47B), AAPL ($9.03B), MSFT ($6.76B).
Updated 2026-11-02 16:05 UTC