A breakdown of every type of Flow Alert on Unusual Whales, as well as Memorial Day Sale
Come understand flow alerts and why we signal different trades!
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Hey all,
Nicholas from the Unusual Whales team, here! We’re going to spend one issue every week walking you through some trades of the week for free to help your trading!
Unusual Whales is running a Memorial Day Sale:
Get 15% off any Flow or Portfolio plan, and an additional 5% off when you upgrade to a higher tier. Offer ends May 28th. Sign up here: https://unusualwhales.com/settings/subscriptions
Also, a quick heads-up: API prices are increasing on Thursday, May 29th!
If you're already subscribed, your current rate is locked in. But if you've been thinking about trying the API, now’s the time to do it before the new rates kick in!!
See updated pricing here: https://unusualwhales.com/public-api#pricing
In this issue, we’re going to cover the different types of Flow Alert Presets that exist on the Unusual Whales platform. There is a lot of jargon and vocabulary surrounding these presets, so we’ll go over each preset Flow Alert in turn, and give examples of how they look in the flow feed!
There are numerous ways to filter and utilize the Flow Alerts feed, and we cover all of those in another article. What this article focuses on are the pre-set Flow Alert Rules already built into your Unusual Whales Flow Alerts feed. Let's break down each of these presets.
Sweeps Followed By Floor
The Sweeps Followed by Floor alert fires when a series of sweep orders (minimum 10) are soon followed by a large floor trader (minimum premium of 100000). Remember, a “sweep”, is a market order in which a (typically) larger size trade 'sweeps' different exchanges (hence intermarket sweep) with the goal of filling their order at the best prices currently offered on the market.
Here’s a representation from the Flow Alert pop-out of a Sweeps Followed By Floor Alert. You can see in the left column the series of orders filling at or near the same time stamp. In the far right column, we see that these orders filled across several different exchanges, and in the column next to that, we see those orders tagged SWEEP to indicate as such, with the final order in the series of transactions filling as a Floor trade.
Repeated Hits
Repeated Hits groups trades based on their chain within 100 milliseconds, filters out any multi leg trades & floor trades.
This alert fires if the total amount of transactions is greater than 5, and the total premium is greater than $10K for smaller market caps, $50K for stocks with a market cap over $50B, and $100K for stocks with a market cap over $500B.
If the fill price is descending from the start of the transactions to the end, it will be called descending fill. Varying fill prices can be due to split orders or simply due to high volume.
With the raw Repeated Hits alert, only orders of same or similar pricing will trigger an alert. For example, below, we see repeated hits on a single contract, and the fill price remains the same or relatively the same.
Repeated Hits Descending Fill
Repeated Hits Descending Fill groups trades based on their chain within 100 milliseconds, filters out any multi leg trades & floor trades.
This alert fires if the total amount of transactions is greater than 5, and the total premium is greater than $10K for smaller market caps, $50K for stocks with a market cap over $50B, and $100K for stocks with a market cap over $500B.
If the fill price is descending from the start of the transactions to the end, it will be called descending fill. For example, here is a Repeated Hits Descending Fill directly from the Alerts page.
Repeated Hits Ascending Fill
The Repeated Hits Ascending Fill follows the same parameters as Repeated Hits Descending Fill, however this alert fires when the fill price of the transactions is increasing, rather than decreasing. So, the alert groups trades based on their chain within 100 milliseconds of one another, and filters out any multi leg trades & floor trades.
This alert fires if the total amount of transactions is greater than 5, and the total premium is greater than $10K for smaller market caps, $50K for stocks with a market cap over $50B, and $100K for stocks with a market cap over $500B, where the fill price increases across the transactions.
If the fill price is ascending from the start of the transactions to the end, it will be called ascending fill.
Before I break down more Flow Alert Presets, as a reminder, API price increases are coming, Here’s a breakdown:
Important API Pricing Update: What You Need To Know
On Thursday May 22nd, 2025, the Unusual Whales API prices will update to:
Trial: $50/week
Basic: $150/month
Advanced: $375/month
Good news for current subscribers: Your existing rate will not change.
Considering our API? Act now through Wednesday May 28th at 11:59PM pacific time to lock-in at the current rates. View features and pricing levels by tier: https://unusualwhales.com/public-api#pricing
And don’t forget! You can get 15% off any flow and portfolio tier, and 20% when you upgrade! Check out pricing and tiers: unusualwhales.com/settings/subscriptions
OTM Earnings Floor
OTM Earnings Floor groups trades based on their ticker within 1000 seconds who meet all three of these criteria: 1. The transactions came from the floor, 2. The stock has earnings within 2 weeks (14 days) of the transactions, and the contract expires within 90 days.
If the total premium spent/received is greater than $250K, an alert will fire.
Low Historic Volume Floor
Low Historic Volume Floor groups trades coming from the floor based on transactions that hit the tape within a time window of 1000 seconds.
If the total volume is greater than the historic 3-day volume for that ticker, the ticker has a market cap less than $150B, and the total premium within that time frame is greater than $50K, an alert will fire.
Floor Trade Small Cap
Groups trades based on their ticker that hit the tape within 1000 seconds, come from the floor, and have a small market cap (minimum cap: $300M | maximum cap: $2B)
If the total premium spent/received is greater than $100K, or if the total volume is greater than 1000, an alert will fire.
Floor Trade Mid Cap
Similar to the Small Cap version of this alert, Floor Trade Mid Cap groups trades based on their ticker within 1000 seconds who come from the floor, only this alert fires for tickers that have a mid market cap (minimum cap: $2B | maximum cap: $10B)
If the total premium spent/received is greater than $100K, or if the total volume is greater than 1000, an alert is created.
Thanks as always for reading! You can find articles like this and MANY others about Options and the Unusual Whales Platform on the new Information Hub!!
And remember!!! Until May 28th, get 15% off any Flow or Portfolio plan, and an additional 5% off when you upgrade to a higher tier.
If you want to try out the API, now’s your chance before prices increase on May 28th! Check pricing and tiers here: https://unusualwhales.com/public-api#pricing
NOTE: This post is not financial advice. The stock market is risky, and any trade or investment is expected to have some, or total, loss. Please do research before any trade. Do not use this information for investment decisions. Check terms on site for full terms. Agree to terms before considering this information.