Market tide: cumulative options premium
Estimated call premium and put premium on a fixed list of symbols, added up from the session open. The curves are built from repeated readings of a delayed options chain, so each contract contributes the premium behind its volume for the day. These are not prints and this is not a tape.
Computed from a delayed options chain, not from a tape. Both curves are unsigned: one adds up estimated premium on call contracts, the other on put contracts, and nothing here says who bought or who sold. Delayed at least 15 minutes: every reading is published at least 15 minutes after it was captured. Machine-readable version.
Session 2026-10-23, last completed session
20648 traded contracts (10784 calls, 9864 puts) across 20 of the 21 listed symbols. Captured every 300 seconds and delayed at least 15 minutes: the latest published reading was captured 13:14 PT.
The same numbers as a table
Roughly one row per half hour, so nothing on the chart is readable only by colour.
| Time | Call premium | Put premium | Put share | Contracts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06:30 PT | $6.7M | $3M | 31.1% | 484 |
| 07:00 PT | $596.2M | $592.9M | 49.9% | 12875 |
| 07:30 PT | $1.04B | $1.08B | 51.1% | 15798 |
| 08:01 PT | $1.87B | $1.07B | 36.5% | 17384 |
| 08:33 PT | $2.14B | $1.26B | 37.0% | 18284 |
| 09:04 PT | $2.26B | $1.42B | 38.7% | 18976 |
| 09:35 PT | $2.15B | $1.83B | 45.9% | 19571 |
| 10:06 PT | $2.29B | $2.03B | 47.0% | 20059 |
| 10:38 PT | $2.31B | $2.45B | 51.4% | 20545 |
| 11:08 PT | $2.55B | $2.36B | 48.1% | 20941 |
| 11:39 PT | $2.61B | $2.46B | 48.4% | 21242 |
| 12:09 PT | $2.67B | $2.83B | 51.5% | 21560 |
| 12:40 PT | $2.85B | $3.1B | 52.1% | 21985 |
| 13:14 PT | $2.57B | $2.63B | 50.6% | 20648 |
The symbols behind the curve
The options snapshot universe, not the whole market. Each symbol's chain is captured about every 5 minutes in regular hours, and every point is published at least 15 minutes after the newest capture behind it.
No filter: every captured strike counts, not a flagged subset of unusual contracts.
SPX, SPY, QQQ, IWM, AAPL, MSFT, NVDA, TSLA, META, AMZN, GOOGL, AMD, NFLX, COIN, PLTR, BAC, JPM, GS, XOM, V, SOFI
How the accounting works
No premium is labelled as bought or sold. A delayed chain snapshot does not record which side started a trade, and where the last trade sat against the quote was checked against the next day’s open interest and told us nothing, so it is not used. A higher put curve means more put premium was observed, not that anyone is positioned for a fall.
Volume is cumulative for the session, so each capture restates a symbol's totals; a point rises when any symbol's newer capture is published.
A cell enters a total only when at least 3 of its contracts traded; thinner cells are left out of every total.
Copy for chat
SquawkFlow market tide, session 2026-10-23 (last completed) Cumulative call premium (unsigned estimate): $2.57B Cumulative put premium (unsigned estimate): $2.63B Put share of the total: 50.6% Coverage: 20648 traded contracts (10784 calls, 9864 puts) across 20 of the 21 listed symbols. Peak on the chart scale: $5B. Latest published reading captured 13:14 PT, delayed at least 15 minutes. Universe: The options snapshot universe, not the whole market. Each symbol's chain is captured about every 5 minutes in regular hours, and every point is published at least 15 minutes after the newest capture behind it. No filter: every captured strike counts, not a flagged subset of unusual contracts. A cell enters a total only when at least 3 of its contracts traded; thinner cells are left out of every total. No premium is labelled as bought or sold. A delayed chain snapshot does not record which side started a trade, and where the last trade sat against the quote was checked against the next day’s open interest and told us nothing, so it is not used. A higher put curve means more put premium was observed, not that anyone is positioned for a fall. Volume is cumulative for the session, so each capture restates a symbol's totals; a point rises when any symbol's newer capture is published. Computed from a delayed options chain, not from a tape. Both curves are unsigned: one adds up estimated premium on call contracts, the other on put contracts, and nothing here says who bought or who sold. Delayed at least 15 minutes: every reading is published at least 15 minutes after it was captured. Source: https://squawkflow.com/market-tide?utm_source=share-market-tide&utm_medium=copy&utm_campaign=market-tide
How to read this
- Is this the same as Unusual Whales Market Tide?
- No. Unusual Whales uses the name Market Tide for a signed net premium measure built from trade prints, where premium is classed as bought or sold. This page does not sign anything. It adds up estimated premium on call contracts and on put contracts separately, from repeated snapshots of a delayed options chain, and only on the fixed list of symbols shown on this page rather than the whole market. A contract contributes its day-cumulative volume, not one trade at a time.
- Is this real time?
- No. The upstream is a delayed options chain, read repeatedly through the session. On top of that, every reading is published at least 15 minutes after it was captured, so for the first 15 minutes of a session this page still shows the previous one. Each point on the curve carries the time it was captured.
- Does it show whether premium was bought or sold?
- No. A delayed chain snapshot does not say which side started a trade. Where the last trade sat against the bid and ask is the usual stand-in, and we checked it against the next day’s open interest: contracts whose last trade sat near the ask and those near the bid opened new positions at the same rate. It carries no signal we can measure, so it is not used, and both curves are plain sums of premium.
- Why do the curves mostly rise?
- Each curve is a running total of estimated premium since the open, so it rises as volume accumulates. It can also step when a contract is re-read at a new quote, because the contract’s whole day is re-priced at the current midpoint, and it can dip when a re-read finds a lower midpoint than the last one.
- Why did a curve jump by more than the activity behind it?
- Because each new reading values a contract’s whole day volume at the current quote midpoint, rather than adding only the trades that are new. So a contract seen at 100 lots with a 1.00 mid counts as 10,000 dollars, and the next reading at 101 lots with a 1.50 mid counts as 15,150 dollars: a 5,150 dollar step on one extra contract. Read a sudden jump as a possible re-pricing of premium already on the chart.
- What resets it?
- Each regular trading session (09:30 to 16:00 ET) gets its own curve, which starts with that session's first published capture, about 15 minutes after the open. The previous session stays readable here after the close until the next one starts.
Nothing on this page is advice or a recommendation, and none of it is a forecast. See the risk disclosure.