Data Flow is a tool for discovering new trading opportunities. It is a place where you can see various events as they go, independent of the ticker they happen at. You can order these events by any column and you also can filter them, to narrow down your scope.
Data Flow is a bottom panel where you can have multiple lists (called Flows). Each list displays a given data type (i.e., News or Unusual Options). You can configure which data types (Flow widgets) do you want to see in there.
What is a Flow widget
Think about a Flow widget as of a very basic version of a read-only spreadsheet. All the Flow widgets share the same core concepts:
- Flow displays a given type of data for all the tickers available.
- Each line always has a time stamp (illustrating when the event has occured) and a "relevant ticker". All the other columns depend on the data type.
- You can configure filtering or sorting.
- You can hide or add back the columns.
- Each Flow widget keeps its settings (like filters).
You can have multiple Flow widgets for the same data types, configured to focus on different aspects of data.
Data types supported
Here is the list of data types supported.
- Unusual Options
- News
- Dividends
- Splits
- Earnings
- Analyst Estimates
- Insider Trading
Unusual Options
Unusual Options Flow displays a list of Unusual Options trades for all the tickers we support. We update this data once a minute. You can also see Unusual Options activity for your current ticker by using the Unusual Options sidebar widget; this widget offers some unique visualizations which you can't have in the Flow.
News
News Flow displays all the News data we have. We update it once a minute. You can also see News data for your current ticker by using the News sidebar widget. You can also scan for tickers having particular keywords in their news.
Earnings
Earnings Flow displays all the Earnings events (both past and anticipated). It has events in future (the anticipated ones), but these don't have any data points besides of the date. We update Earnings data once a day. You can also see Earnings for your current ticker on a chart, scan for tickers using Earnings data (i.e., which tickers have recently have a huge negative surprise on EPS?) or use Earnings data when backtesting strategies.
Dividends
Dividends Flow displays all the Dividends events (both past and anticipated). It has events in future (the anticipated ones), but these don't have any data points besides of the date. We update Dividends data once a day. Please note that all the Yield values are annualized. Dividends can be added to your chart or used for scripting. You can also scan for tickers using Dividend data (i.e find tickers that have a specific yield or upcoming dividends being paid out) or use Dividend data when backtesting strategies.
Splits
Splits Flow displays all the Splits events (both past and anticipated). It has events in future (the anticipated ones), but these don't have any data points besides of the date. We update Splits data once a day. Splits can be added to charts or used in scripting. You can also scan for tickers using Split data or backtest strategies using Split data.
Analyst Estimates
Analyst Estimates Flow displays all the Analyst Estimates data we have. We update it once a day. Analyst Estimates can be added to your sidebar or used in Scripting. This data can be added to your chart. You can also utilize this Analyst Estimates in the Strategy Tester or scan for tickers with particular Estimates.
Insider Trading
Insider Trading Flow displays all the transactions US insiders report as per SEC regulations. We update it once a day. Insider Trading data can be added to your sidebar. This data is not currently available for Scripting.
Sample use cases
In example, you can set up your Flow to display recent Insider buys, to see the stocks where insiders are bullish.
You can set up Flow to display next 7 days of Earnings, and use that as a source of knowledge about upcoming volatility.
Set up Flow to see recent Analyst upgrades, to see what they are bullish at.
Notes on filtering Dates
There are operators like "is tomorrow" or "is in 3 days". It's important to understand how they are defined in order to know what to expect. Here is a list of definitions.
is today: greater than or equaltoday 00:00and less thantoday 23:59is tomorrow: greater than or equaltoday 23:59and less thantomorrow 23:59is in 3 days: greater than or equalnowand less than+4 days from now at 00:00is in 7 days: same, but +8 daysis in the future: greater thannowis in the past: less thannowis at date: greater than or equal{date} 00:00and less than{date} 23:59({date}is the date that you have picked in the calendar)is after: greater than{date} 23:59is before: less than{date} 00:00
Please remember that there are time zones out there; all the definitions above work in a given time zone. The time zone in use depends on which Flow your're using. Here's a list.
- News Flow uses
EST(America/New_York) - Insider Trading Flow uses
EST - Unusual Options Flow uses
EST - Al lthe rest of Flow data types use
UTC
Limitations of the current implementation
- Each Flow diget only displays "last 200 records which satisfy your criteria". There is no work around if you want to see more.
- Filtering or sorting by multiple columns is currently not supported. This is going to be fixed.
- Earnings, Dividends and Splits flow can have the number of anticipated events artificially limited (because a full set of all anticipated Earnings reports for US stock market is extremely lengthy).
- While Flows and other parts of our system (like sidebar widgets) share the same data providers, there can be minor discrepancies (i.e., for Insider Trading, we call it a
conversionin the Flow but it's being displayed asOpt.Exin the widget sidebar). These are nothing but different ways for naming the same things. - You can find older events which belong to tickers which do not exist any more. That is to be expected and won't be fixed.