Institutions Bought These Before the Move. Here Is What They Are Buying Now.

When institutions move, they leave tracks. 

Most traders never see them. The BlockHunter console is built specifically to find them.

Here is what that looks like in practice.

On March 25th, the console flagged significant call option buying in semiconductors. Institutional blocks of calls, bought in size, at levels that told you exactly where the money thought the stock was going. The semis broke out to all-time highs shortly after and led the entire market higher.

Two to three weeks ago, the console flagged institutional call buying in financials. That sector led the next rally leg.

Both of those were readable before the move. The prints showed you where the money was going before the stock confirmed it.

Here is the difference between what most traders see and what the console sees. When a large block trade hits the tape, most people note the ticker and the direction. 

That is one piece of information out of four. The other three are target price, timeframe, and the mechanical hedging pressure that flows from the trade itself.

When an institution buys calls in size, the market maker who fills that order has to hedge. 

As price approaches the strike, they buy stock. That buying feeds on itself and has nothing to do with the news cycle. It is mechanical.

On Friday, with the market feeling good after a strong week, the console flagged put buying coming into Intel. INTC is up 2.8% this morning. The puts are still live. That is the setup I am watching into this afternoon.

I am going live at 2 PM ET today to walk through what the console is seeing right now in this tape. 

Active prints, live setups, where the institutional flow is pointing before the afternoon session opens.

With oil moving hard, earnings season underway, and this market moving on headlines by the hour, the prints matter more right now than they have in weeks.

See you at 2 pm ET.

—Brandon Chapman