Understanding Time & Sales for U.S options

1. What is Direction of Trade?

The direction of trade in Time & Sales is a fundamental aspect of understanding the capital flow within the market. It helps in tracking liquidity and discerning the movement of funds in and out of securities. Two primary types of trade directions are outlined:

• Buy: It indicates trade belongs to inflow capital.
• Sell: It indicates trade belongs to outflow capital.

2. Different Trade Types in the U.S. Options Market

Every executed transaction on the exchange is classified by a specific trade type, with each category exerting a distinct influence on market dynamics. All trades update the cumulative trade volume, regardless of the trade condition.Here are the trade types of U.S. options that do not update Last Price:

• Oc： Cancel the trade reported except last or opening report (Out-of-sequence cancellation) 
• Ot：Transaction is being reported late and is out-of-sequence
• Ic：Cancel the last reported trade (In-sequence cancellation) 
• Cf：Cancel the first trade of the day
• O：Late report of the opening trade and is out-of-sequence. Send an open price
• C：Transaction was the only one reported this day for the particular option contract and is now to be cancelled
• Op：(Multilateral Compression Trade of Proprietary Data Products)Transaction represents an execution in a proprietary product done as part of a multilateral compression. Trades are executed outside of regular trading hours at prices derived from end of day markets. Trades do not update Open, High, Low, and Closing Prices, but will update total volume
• E：(Extended Hours Trade)Transaction represents a trade that was executed outside of regular market hours. Trades do not update Open, High, Low, and Closing Prices but will update total volume