All docs pages
Signals: Graded Order Flow
Signals are institutional options prints that clear a fixed bar, scored 0–100 at the moment they fire, and then graded in public by one rule that never moves. This page covers what a Signal is, how to read its score and status, and where the record lives. It is a beta feature — the tab is labeled BETA · v1 weights until the first cohorts resolve.
- A Signal is one contract, one side, one fill: at least $100K in premium and a score of 60 or higher.
- The score is a confluence measure of how far outside the normal tape the print sits and how well-supported it is — not a probability of profit.
- Every Signal is graded: WIN, LOSS, or MATURING until it resolves. Nothing is deleted or re-scored.
- The rule: the option's price prints +30% above the alerted fill before it prints −50% below it, first touch decides, clock runs to expiry.
- Peak % is the best print seen and is not a return; index/ETF and 0DTE Signals are listed apart.
- The public record and the full methodology live at /track-record and /methodology once published.
- Educational context only. None of this is financial advice.
What fires
The engine watches the live options tape for single prints that clear a premium floor, then scores each one from a fixed set of inputs: premium tier, aggressor and moneyness, sweep and opening-interest behaviour, repeat hits on the same contract, days of runway to expiry, agreement from other prints on the same ticker, an earnings date inside the contract's life, and where the strike sits on the day's dealer-positioning map. Weights are versioned and shown as an engine version on every row.
A print that scores at or above the threshold becomes a Signal and lands in the feed with the contract, side (BOUGHT or SOLD), premium, score, and a plain-language read of why it scored. Nothing about the fill is assumed better than what printed.
Reading a Signal row
| Field | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Contract | Ticker, strike, call or put, expiry, and days to expiry at fire time. |
| Side | BOUGHT (lifted the ask) or SOLD (hit the bid). Direction combines side and type: bought calls and sold puts read bullish; bought puts and sold calls read bearish. |
| Premium | Dollars the print represents. |
| Score | 0–100 confluence score, computed once at fire time and never revised. |
| Status | MATURING while the clock runs; WIN or LOSS once a rail is touched or the contract expires; EXCLUDED with a reason when it cannot be graded. |
| Peak / Last | Best print seen since the alert, and the latest mark, both as a percentage of the alerted fill. Peak is a high-water mark, never a return. |
| Why | The factors that contributed to the score, and the ones that did not, so the number is never a black box. |
How grading works
Every Signal is measured against the same rule, published before the record started: a WIN is the option's price printing +30% above the alerted fill before it prints −50% below it. First touch decides, checked bar by bar from one-minute trade data; a same-bar tie counts as a loss. The clock runs to the contract's expiry, and expiry without +30% is a LOSS. Sold-side prints are inverted the same way.
The +30 / −50 pair is a measurement convention, not guidance. It exists so that every Signal is held to one bar, in public, with the misses on the same page as the hits.
Reading the record
- Headline win rate covers single-name, dated-expiry Signals and ships with its sample size and a 95% Wilson interval.
- Index/ETF and 0DTE get their own numbers because they move differently; they are never blended into the headline.
- Slices (confidence, direction, side, days to expiry, premium, dealer-positioning context, lane) each show n; anything under n=30 is amber and unranked.
- Life of a Signal shows where peaks landed and how quickly wins reached the upper rail.
- Exclusions (no verifiable fill, no timestamp, multi-leg structures) are counted and listed by reason.
- Engine version is on every row; the record is reported per version, and old cohorts are never re-scored under new weights.
FAQ
- Why did a big print not become a Signal?
- Premium alone does not clear the bar. The score needs support from the other inputs — aggressor, opening interest, runway, consensus, positioning — and a print that lacks it stays below the threshold.
- Can the same contract fire twice?
- Repeat prints on a live Signal are folded into it as repeat hits rather than creating a new row, so the feed stays quiet and the original fill is the one graded.
- Where is the public page?
- At /track-record, with the full rule at /methodology. Both publish once the first cohorts have resolved; until then the feed inside the platform shows the record building.
- Is a Signal a recommendation?
- No. It is a measurement of institutional order flow, shown with its reasoning and graded by a fixed rule, for your own read. Nothing here is investment advice.