Open interest is one of the most-cited and most-misread numbers in the option market. It tells you how many contracts at a strike are still outstanding — but it does not tell you whether those contracts were bought or sold, and a buy and a sell carry totally different meanings. The single-number "open interest" suppresses that distinction. A trader writing a covered call and a trader buying a long call both add to the same OI count, so resting support, resistance, or "high conviction" reads on OI alone can be quietly misleading.
That's the problem we set out to solve — and the reason we built this. We kept seeing traders make decisions off the surface OI bar without any way to know whether the institutions behind it were leaning long or leaning short. So we went the other way: trace every large print individually, record its direction, and surface that directionality right on the chart so the OI bar finally tells a story.
How we decoded it
Our pipeline traces the originating trade for each large unusual options activity print — its side (BUY or SELL), its option type (call or put), its premium, and the OI it landed against. We then cross-check that print against the daily option tape and the pre-market OI refresh the next morning, so we can tell whether the position actually opened (OI rose by the trade size) or was closed.
The result is a decoded view of OI: instead of a single anonymous bar at a strike, you see the individual directional opening prints that built it, with date, side, type, strike, premium, and confirmation status — all anchored to the same y-axis as the price line, so the strike, the OI mass, and the price level line up at a glance.
ARM, May 19, 2026 — a bullish accumulator in plain sight
Look at the Recent Unusual Prints list for ARM at the bottom of the chart. The $170 strike alone has been hit by Long Call buys four times in the last month:
- Apr 20 — $170C BUY · Long Call · $12.0M
- May 13 — $170C BUY · Long Call · $31.0M
- May 15 — $170C BUY · Long Call · $29.0M
- May 19 — $170C BUY · Long Call · $30.0M ·
PENDING OI
That is roughly $102 million of long-call premium accumulated at the same strike, by the same direction, over five weeks. Without decoding, the $170 OI bar on the chart could plausibly be call writers, call buyers, or a mix — directionally ambiguous. With the decoded list, the story is unambiguous: a persistent buyer is accumulating deep-in-the-money long calls at $170 while ARM trades around $223. That is a bullish accumulator, sitting in plain sight inside the OI bar.
The PENDING OI tag on the May 19 row is the live half of the picture. Today's print exists on the tape, but next-day OI hasn't refreshed yet to confirm whether the position actually opened. Until it does, the print shows on the chart as a hollow dashed diamond on the price line — visible immediately. Tomorrow morning the OI refresh runs, and that print either flips to a confirmed open (gaining its OI-bar sub-section automatically) or drops off if it closed out intraday. No action required.
What's on the chart now
On every ticker page (e.g. optionpilot.ainvest.com/SPY, optionpilot.ainvest.com/NVDA) you'll now see:
- OI-bar sub-sections — each unusual print is a highlighted segment on its strike's call or put OI bar, color-coded by direction (green = bullish, red = bearish). The bar length still tells you OI size.
- Dotted strike connector + dated diamond on the 1-year price line — so you see when the print landed against the price at the time.
- Hollow dashed diamonds for today's
PENDING OIrows — visible immediately, auto-promoted to confirmed once next-day OI refreshes. ↑$X/↓$Xedge labels for strikes outside the chart's visible price band — far-OTM or deep-ITM positioning is still represented.- Y-axis zoom (the small
−/+/↺controls top-right of the chart) to pull more OI strikes into view in one click.
What you see by tier
The decoded prints are tier-gated so today's flow stays a paid signal:
| Tier | What you see |
|---|---|
| Anonymous | Archive only — articles 60+ days old |
| Free | Archive 30+ days old |
| Option Pilot Pro | 15-day delayed flow |
| AIme Premium | Today's flow live, including PENDING OI rows |
AIme Premium reads today's institutional flow with no delay — the PENDING OI rows above only appear for Premium subscribers in real time. Pro reads articles 15+ days old; Free 30+; Anonymous 60+. The chart shows you exactly which prints are locked, and unlocking moves you up the ladder.
See it in action
This is live today. Open any ticker on optionpilot.ainvest.com and scroll to the chart — the decoded prints sit right below it.
NVDA carries persistent unusual flow at multiple strikes, so the overlay lights up immediately. Prefer something else? Try ARM — the bullish accumulator from the walkthrough above — or SPY for broad-market institutional positioning on the chart everyone watches.
💌 Talk to us
At ainvest we take options data seriously. Our job is to surface it in the most probabilistic, easiest-to-read form we can — so when you make an investing decision, you're working from the clearest picture the tape allows. Help us understand how we can address your issues in the option market — email support@ainvest.com with the subject #optionfeature. Your feedback shapes what we ship next 🛠️.
If you want to see today's flow live, upgrade to AIme Premium. Or jump into the full Unusual Flow feed.
See This Analysis Live — Free
Sign up free to access the full options screener with 5-pillar scores for 5,000+ stocks, daily signals, strategy recommendations, and radar charts. No credit card required.
Free account includes: screener · 5-pillar scores · daily signals · strategy picks · radar charts
Or just get the weekly recap
Sundays. What moved this week, what catalysts and earnings drive next week, and the 5-pillar setups that stand out. No account needed.
Free. One email per week. Unsubscribe with one click.