A tour of the screen
- Filter Options. Choose the symbol, expiry and historical date, with live updates (about every 20 seconds) and a backtest mode for historical expiries.
- OI Spurts Board. Names the symbol, expiry and the number of top strikes by OI change in the latest bucket, with a 5, 15, 30 or 60-minute timeframe switch.
- Summary cards. Top strikes (how many are listed), the dominant bucket (which quadrant leads), the largest OI change and the refresh mode.
- Replay timeline. Play back snapshots or move the cursor to a time.
- Four quadrant tables. Long Buildup, Short Buildup, Short Unwinding and Long Unwinding, each with a strike count and its own pagination.
Each table shows the strike with its option type (CE or PE), the last price with the previous bucket's price underneath, the price change, open interest with the previous value underneath, the OI change in absolute and percentage terms, and traded volume.
The four quadrants
| Quadrant | Option price | Open interest | What it is consistent with |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long buildup (LB) | Rose | Rose | New positions added into a rising premium. |
| Short buildup (SB) | Fell | Rose | New positions added into a falling premium, often writing. |
| Short unwinding (SC) | Rose | Fell | Positions closed while the premium rose, often called short covering. |
| Long unwinding (LU) | Fell | Fell | Positions closed while the premium fell. |
A spurt is a sharp bucket-to-bucket jump in open interest, so the board shows where activity is accelerating now rather than where open interest is large in total. Every label is a pattern, not proof of intent: each open contract has a buyer and a seller, and implied-volatility changes and time decay can move a premium without any directional view behind it.
Reading the board
- Look for agreement. The best reads come when one quadrant expands and the opposite quadrant on the other side of the chain confirms the same idea, for example call short buildup alongside put long buildup.
- Weight proximity. A large spurt one or two strikes from the money usually matters more than a similar print far away, unless the session is event-driven.
- Check the base. A very high percentage change on a tiny old base can mislead. Compare the percentage with the absolute change, the previous OI shown beneath each figure, and volume.
- Watch persistence. A strike that stays on the board across several buckets usually matters more than a one-bucket surprise. The replay timeline makes this easy to check.
- Use it for confirmation. The board is strongest for confirming where participation is concentrating before or during a move, together with price structure.
Limits
Because the scan compares one bucket with the previous one, it is built for fresh intraday change and is not an all-day average; changing the timeframe changes which spurts appear. A spurt can also be noise in a thin stock option or on a small base. Short-covering bursts after failed breakdowns can be a temporary clean-up rather than the start of a trend. For the largest changes in absolute terms, with moneyness and an interval chart, use Big OI Movement; for the underlying chain, see the option chain guide.