This is your plain-language reference for the words you'll see all over TradingFlow. Other chapters link back here instead of re-explaining the basics, so if a term ever looks unfamiliar, this is the page to come back to.

You don't need a finance background. Read it once to get the big ideas, then keep it open as a cheat sheet while you watch Option Trades or scan Rank Contracts.

Options in 60 seconds

An option is a contract that gives the buyer the right (not the obligation) to buy or sell a stock at a set price before a set date. Every option trade you see in TradingFlow is described by a handful of fields:

• Call — the right to buy the stock at the strike price. People buy calls when they expect the price to go up.
• Put — the right to sell the stock at the strike price. People buy puts when they expect the price to go down (or want protection).
• Strike — the agreed price at which the option can be exercised.
• Expiration (expiry) — the date the contract expires. Closer expiries are more of a short-term bet; further-out expiries are longer-term.
• Size — how many contracts changed hands in the trade. One contract usually represents 100 shares.
• Premium — the total dollars that moved in the trade. Roughly: price per contract x size x 100. Big premium = big money on the table, which is what most traders watch for.

That's enough to read a single row. The rest of this page is about reading intent — who was the aggressor, and what they were betting on.

Bid / Ask and what "aggressive" means

Every option has two live prices at any moment:

• Bid — the highest price buyers are currently willing to pay.
• Ask — the lowest price sellers are currently willing to accept.

The gap between them is the spread. Where a trade actually prints inside (or outside) that spread tells you who was in a hurry — and that's the single most important clue in flow reading.

• A buyer who pays at the ask is "crossing the spread" to get filled right now. That's an aggressive buyer — they wanted in badly enough to pay up.
• A seller who accepts the bid is "hitting the bid" to get out right now. That's an aggressive seller.
• A trade in the middle could be either side, so we treat it as neutral.

TradingFlow labels this as the trade's side:

The key idea: at-ask-or-above = the buyer was the aggressor; at-bid-or-below = the seller was the aggressor. There's no literal "buy" or "sell" flag in the market data, so TradingFlow infers the aggressor from where the trade printed.

Sentiment: bullish, bearish, or neutral

Now combine two things you already know — whether it's a call or put, and who was the aggressor (side) — and you get sentiment: a quick read on whether the trade leans bullish (betting up), bearish (betting down), or neutral.

The logic is simple once you see it laid out:

In words:

• Buying calls aggressively = betting the stock goes up = bullish.
• Buying puts aggressively = betting the stock goes down = bearish.
• Selling calls leans bearish; selling puts leans bullish (the seller is comfortable with the opposite outcome).
• Mid-market trades are neutral.

Sentiment is a helpful shorthand, not gospel — a single trade can be a hedge, a spread leg, or a roll. It's most useful in aggregate: lots of bullish premium piling into the same name is a louder signal than any one print.

Moneyness: ITM, ATM, OTM

Moneyness describes where the strike sits relative to the current stock price. It tells you how aggressive or speculative a bet is.

• In the Money (ITM) — the option already has real exercise value. For a call, the strike is below the stock price; for a put, above. More expensive, more like owning the stock.
• At the Money (ATM) — the strike is right around the current price. Most sensitive to near-term moves.
• Out of the Money (OTM) — the strike is beyond the current price (call strike above price, put strike below). Cheaper, more speculative, bigger payoff if it works. Heavy OTM buying often signals a strong directional bet on a move.

Seeing it in the table

All of these fields live side by side in the Option Trades table:

Each row is one trade: read Type (call/put) + Side together to understand the Sentiment shown on the right.

DEX and DEI: directional money, at a glance

Two metrics summarize how much directional conviction is behind the flow. You don't need the math — just the intuition.

• DEX (Delta Exposure) — a dollar-weighted measure of how directional a trade or a group of trades is. Big positive DEX means a lot of money is positioned for the stock to rise; big negative means positioned for a fall. Think of it as "net directional dollars."
• DEI (Delta Impact) — a measure of how much a trade adds to or removes from the existing directional pressure. It helps separate fresh, market-moving bets from routine activity.

Both build on delta, one of the option Greeks. For the full picture of delta, gamma, and how dealer positioning can pin or accelerate a stock, see Greeks & GEX.

Vol/OI: the unusualness signal

Two numbers tell you whether a contract is seeing real, fresh interest:

• Volume (Vol) — how many contracts traded today.
• Open Interest (OI) — how many contracts are already open (held overnight from prior days).

The ratio Vol / OI is one of the fastest ways to spot something new happening:

• Vol/OI around or below 1 — today's activity fits within positions that already existed. Routine.
• Vol/OI well above 1 — today's volume dwarfs what was open before, meaning new positions are being opened. That's a flag worth a closer look.

A deeper look at OI, how it builds over days, and what rising-OI-plus-rising-volume means lives in Option Chain & OI.

What makes a trade "unusual" — and "smart money"

Unusual options activity (UOA) simply means an option (or a whole stock's options) is trading far more than normal. "Smart money" is the informal label for large, conviction-sized flow that often comes from institutions. None of it is a guarantee — it's a way to focus your attention on where real money is moving.

A trade tends to stand out when several of these line up:

A practical rule of thumb:

• A few very large trades (block trades) often point to institutional conviction — that's the flow most traders care about.
• Many tiny trades are more often retail or market-maker activity and carry less directional signal.
• The strongest setups stack signals: big premium + high Vol/OI + aggressive side + one-directional sentiment.

You don't have to weigh these by hand. TradingFlow surfaces the standouts for you in Rank Contracts (the loudest individual contracts) and on the live Option Trades feed.

What to do next

Now that the vocabulary makes sense, go watch it live. Open Option Trades to see side, moneyness, and sentiment update in real time, then jump to the ranked standouts in Rank Contracts.

To go deeper on the metrics, continue to Greeks & GEX, and to understand open interest in depth, read Option Chain & OI.

这是你在 TradingFlow 各处都会遇到的术语的通俗参考。其他章节会直接链接回这里，而不是重复解释基础概念，所以只要哪个词看着陌生，回到这一页就对了。

你不需要金融背景。先读一遍掌握大方向，然后在看期权交易流或浏览合约榜单时把它当作随手查的小抄。

60 秒看懂期权

期权是一份合约，赋予买方在约定日期前，以约定价格买入或卖出某只股票的权利（而非义务）。你在 TradingFlow 看到的每一笔期权交易，都由几个字段来描述：

• 看涨期权（Call） —— 以行权价买入股票的权利。当人们预期股价上涨时会买入看涨期权。
• 看跌期权（Put） —— 以行权价卖出股票的权利。当人们预期股价下跌（或想做保护）时会买入看跌期权。
• 行权价（Strike） —— 期权可以被行权的约定价格。
• 到期日（Expiration / Expiry） —— 合约到期的日期。临近到期更像短线押注；更远的到期则是长线布局。
• 数量（Size） —— 该笔交易成交了多少张合约。通常一张合约代表 100 股。
• 权利金（Premium） —— 该笔交易动用的总金额。大致为：每张合约价格 x 数量 x 100。权利金大 = 投入的钱多，这正是多数交易者最关注的点。

掌握这些就够读懂单独一行了。本页其余部分讲的是如何读出意图：谁是主动方，他们在押什么。

买卖盘（Bid / Ask）与“主动”是什么意思

任意时刻，每个期权都有两个实时报价：

• 买价（Bid） —— 买方当前愿意支付的最高价。
• 卖价（Ask） —— 卖方当前愿意接受的最低价。

两者之间的差距就是价差（spread）。一笔交易最终成交在价差内部（或外部）的位置，会告诉你谁更着急——这也是读懂资金流最关键的线索。

• 在卖价成交的买方是在“跨越价差”以求立刻成交。这是主动买方——他们急到愿意付高价进场。
• 在买价成交的卖方是在“砸向买盘”以求立刻离场。这是主动卖方。
• 在中间成交的交易可能来自任一方，因此视为中性。

TradingFlow 把它标记为交易的方向（side）：

关键点：在卖价及以上成交 = 买方是主动方；在买价及以下成交 = 卖方是主动方。 市场数据里并没有真正的“买”或“卖”标记，所以 TradingFlow 通过成交位置来推断谁是主动方。

情绪：看涨、看跌还是中性

现在把你已经知道的两件事结合起来——是看涨还是看跌期权，以及谁是主动方（方向）——就能得出情绪（sentiment）：快速判断这笔交易偏向看涨（押上涨）、看跌（押下跌）还是中性。

把逻辑画出来就一目了然：

用大白话说：

• 主动买入看涨期权 = 押股价上涨 = 看涨。
• 主动买入看跌期权 = 押股价下跌 = 看跌。
• 卖出看涨期权偏看跌；卖出看跌期权偏看涨（卖方对相反结果感到安心）。
• 中间价成交为中性。

情绪是有用的速记，但不是金科玉律——单笔交易可能是对冲、组合策略的一条腿，或是移仓。它在汇总时最有价值：大量看涨权利金涌入同一只股票，比任何单笔成交都更响亮。

价值状态：实值、平值、虚值

**价值状态（moneyness）**描述行权价相对当前股价的位置，它能告诉你这笔押注有多激进或投机。

• 实值（ITM） —— 期权已经具有真实的行权价值。对看涨期权，行权价低于股价；对看跌期权，高于股价。更贵，更接近直接持有股票。
• 平值（ATM） —— 行权价就在当前价格附近。对近期波动最敏感。
• 虚值（OTM） —— 行权价超出当前价格（看涨的行权价高于股价，看跌的行权价低于股价）。更便宜、更投机，押对了回报更大。大量买入虚值期权，往往意味着对某个方向的强烈押注。

在表格里看

这些字段在期权交易流表格中并排呈现：

每一行是一笔交易：把类型（看涨/看跌）和方向结合起来读，就能理解右侧显示的情绪。

DEX 与 DEI：一眼看懂方向性资金

有两个指标用来概括资金背后有多大的方向性信念。你不必管公式，只需要直觉。

• DEX（Delta 敞口） —— 以金额加权衡量一笔或一组交易的方向性有多强。DEX 大幅为正，意味着大量资金押注股价上涨；大幅为负，则押注下跌。可以理解为“净方向性资金”。
• DEI（Delta 影响） —— 衡量一笔交易对既有方向性压力的增减程度。它有助于把新鲜的、能撬动市场的押注，与日常常规活动区分开。

两者都建立在 delta（期权希腊字母之一）之上。关于 delta、gamma，以及做市商持仓如何“钉住”或加速股价的完整解读，参见 Greeks 与 GEX。

Vol/OI：异常信号

有两个数字能告诉你某个合约是否正出现真实的新增兴趣：

• 成交量（Vol） —— 今天成交了多少张合约。
• 未平仓量（OI） —— 已经持有的合约数（从此前几天隔夜留存下来的）。

比值 Vol / OI 是发现“有新事情发生”的最快方式之一：

• Vol/OI 约等于或低于 1 —— 今天的活动在既有持仓范围内。常规。
• Vol/OI 远高于 1 —— 今天的成交量远超此前的未平仓量，说明正在开立新仓位。这是值得细看的信号。

关于 OI、它如何在多日内累积，以及“OI 上升 + 成交量上升”意味着什么的深入讲解，见期权链与 OI。

什么算“异常”——以及“聪明钱”

**异常期权活动（UOA）指某个期权（或一只股票的全部期权）成交量远超常态。“聪明钱”**是给那种大额、信念十足的资金流起的非正式标签，它往往来自机构。这些都不是保证——它们只是帮你把注意力聚焦到真金白银在流动的地方。

当下面这几项同时出现时，一笔交易往往会脱颖而出：

一条实用的经验法则：

• 少数几笔超大交易（大宗交易）往往代表机构的信念——这正是多数交易者最在意的资金流。
• 大量极小的交易更多是散户或做市商活动，方向性信号较弱。
• 最强的形态会叠加多个信号：大权利金 + 高 Vol/OI + 激进方向 + 单一方向的情绪。

你不必手动逐项权衡。TradingFlow 会替你把脱颖而出的标的呈现出来：合约榜单（最响亮的单个合约）和实时的期权交易流。

下一步做什么

既然词汇都讲明白了，去看它实时运行吧。打开期权交易流，看着方向、价值状态和情绪实时更新，再跳到合约榜单看排名靠前的标的。

想更深入地了解各项指标，继续阅读 Greeks 与 GEX；想透彻理解未平仓量，请读期权链与 OI。