Apologies in advance but it appears there are some issues with the SPY and QQQ charts. Rather than delay publication I have published the report as the key data is the heat maps and the data after that. I will fix it for tomorrows edition. Also please see the note about SKHY - it was left out because it was deep ITM which was incorrect.
Market Pulse
SPY closed at $773.09 on 2026-10-21 above all the key moving averages
QQQ closed at $725.20 on 2026-10-21. The close was below the 8-day EMA ($726.81), below the 21-day EMA ($732.14) and below the 50-day SMA ($726.75) but above the 100-day SMA ($720.31) and the 200-day SMA ($676.49).
VIX 16.68 (-3.64%)
Opening
Single-name options flow is overwhelmingly bullish today, with $172.1M in bullish premium dwarfing $27.6M bearish for a $144.5M net. TSLA leads all names at $22.4M, followed by SNDK at $16.7M and CRWV at $16.3M. The only meaningful bearish conviction is concentrated in PLTR at $7.3M and GLW at $4.7M.
Options Flow Heat Map
Dark Pool Heat Map
Dark Pool Side Accuracy
The prints shown here represent filtered institutional block activity from the raw SIP tape. Extended-hours clearing prints, broker-matched crosses, and post-close settlement noise are removed before scoring. Side direction is classified using execution price relative to the live bid/ask at each print — the AGG% score shows how decisively price crossed the spread: 100% swept the ask, 0% hit the bid.
Prints marked ◆ carry the highest conviction. A corresponding options hedge was detected on the same name within 30 seconds, independently confirming both the block and its direction via Black-Scholes delta matching. Where the options tape and dark pool agree on the same name simultaneously, the signal is institutional across both markets.
For unconfirmed prints, side is a strong inference. Confidence is highest in liquid, tight-spread names. In wide markets or lower-ADV names, treat direction as context rather than conviction until corroborated by the options tape or the technical picture.
There was also approximately 9,000 SKHY 130 deep ITM calls bought that came in around 3 pm - almost $20 million in premium - all opening
