Latest news with #UnusualWhales
Forbes
28-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
What Is Unusual Whales? A Platform For Options Flow And Congressional Trade Tracking
Unusual Whales is an excellent platform for retail traders seeking actionable insights from options ... More flow data to political trading activity to leverage for profit. Unusual Whales was launched in 2020 during an era defined by retail traders holding their own against Wall Street during the GameStop short squeeze. This period highlighted the necessity of institutional-level data and trading tools for main street investors which previously would have been inaccessible due to financial or arbitrary constraints. Unusual Whales, a financial data and analytics platform, now exists to fill this gap by providing access to options flow data, institutional activity and political trading activity. In this guide, you'll learn how the platform works, the key offerings and constraints of the platform, and whether it's right for you based on your experience level and trading needs. What Is Unusual Whales? Unusual Whales is a platform for options flow and congressional trade tracking, founded in 2020 by an anonymous team of traders and data analysts. Their mission is to level the playing field by making market insights available to retail traders, whether they're advanced in their trading ability or beginners. The platform pulls options flow and congressional trades data from exchanges and filings and provides these alongside proprietary tools to democratize informed trading. How Unusual Whales Works Unusual Whales works by displaying options activity in real time from exchanges and political trading activity from STOCK Act filings. This platform makes institutional-level data and tools available to retail traders, making it easier for traders to acquire alpha whether they're discerning trends from whale trades, spotting anomalies in trade activity which could indicate future price moves or capitalizing on market sentiment. Traders can make use of advanced screeners and set filters to identify profitable trades. Unusual Whales has been doubling down on increasing access to congressional trade tracking by making data from the STOCK Act database available and searchable through its platform. Like the Dub app, users can find out how politicians and their associated members are trading, and trade along them to achieve the high returns of the public servants who are potentially trading on insider information. Users can detect trends through politician trade tracking, search for trades by politician or party, or find action in specific sectors or by ticker. Key Features Of Unusual Whales Unusual Whales offers a suite of advanced tools and advanced data access for both institutional and retail traders. With these tools and this data, traders can trade on insights whether they're reviewing options flow, block trades or the trades of politicians. Unusual Whales' Real-Time Data feature delivers a real-time feed of options flow, block trades and trades by institutional players. Users can detect trends immediately as trades occur, and set alerts for trade activity for both their phones, desktops or even Discord servers. Unusual Whales' stock and options screeners offer traders the ability to search through millions of trades by characteristics like ticker, sector or trade size. Users can scan for unusual activity, big price changes or anomalies within options flow. Users can also set up custom screens and set alerts as well as filter across trades by expiration data or level of institutional activity. Politician Trade Portfolios is an innovative feature, similar to the Autopilot app, which displays trades by Senators, members of the House and their families and staff. Users can review these trades by sector or time period, and review the success or failures of these trades by individual or party. Politicians Trade Portfolios also enables users to detect trends based on politicians' trade activity. Whales Activity Monitors is a useful feature which shows institutional-sized trades and large block trades in both equities and options. Users can use this feature to detect trends in specific sectors, for certain stocks, and within filters like trades by market cap or price range. This feature also enables users to set alerts for when large trades occur in general. Options Flow Scanner offers users a scanner of options trades which are institutional-sized. Users can filter by expiration, sector, price range and more. This feature can be used to review trades within a certain time frame and to detect a breakout or reversal for a particular ticker. The Congressional Trades Tracker reveals trades by Senators, members of the House and other political actors. This feature enables traders to review transactions by sector or company as well as purchases or sales of equities by party or political position. Traders can use the Tracker to detect patterns which may result in future price movements as well as predict future actions by Congress or the White House by trade action. Options flow reveals institutional activity by whales across options trades like puts, calls and spreads. Options flow can be used to review market sentiment from large trades and to detect reversals or the breakout of a trend from trading activity. Options flow can also be used by traders to assess risk versus reward for trades. Criticisms and Concerns To Know Unusual Whales is a useful platform for advanced traders but the data offered could be overwhelming for beginner investors who don't know how to leverage it for successful trading. Another downside of the platform is that its widespread offering of real-time data could reduce the data's edge for traders. Finally, the platform's price tag of $50+ a month could be a bit pricey for investors who don't fully utilize all of the data offered or who don't trade at the volume of higher-volume traders. On the congressional trading side, if too many traders are trading on data like a certain congressperson's trades, this could decrease the efficiency of the market while also inflating the politician's positions. Politicians' trades may also not be informed despite their wealth of information access, resulting in losses for investors. Congressional trade filing delays can also result in losses in traders if politicians exit the position before the next filing date. What Type of Investors May Use Unusual Whales? Unusual Whales is ideal for experienced retail traders looking for an edge by gaining access to institutional trading activity. For example, an options trader could gain an edge by detecting an early signal of an institutional trading play through Unusual Whales. Day traders also utilize the platform to monitor options flow. The platform's political and congressional insights are also useful for investors who are trying to detect political trends and leverage this for trading. Through congressional trading data, investors can predict potential geopolitical or legislative moves on the horizon like a military action or change in trade policy. Bottom Line Unusual Whales is an excellent platform for retail traders seeking actionable insights from options flow data to political trading activity to leverage for profit. With activity monitors for institutional trades and advanced filtering and alert abilities, sophisticated traders can find the signal necessary to effectively trade along with a community of like-minded investors making waves in the market. Unusual Whales continues to add new tools and data access, increasingly making it an ideal option for retail traders seeking alpha. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Is Unusual Whales Free To Use? Unusual Whales does offer limited free access but for its advanced tools, data and API access, you'll need to pay for subscriptions starting at $50 a month. How Accurate Is Unusual Whales' Congressional Trade Data? Unusual Whales' congressional trade data is very accurate as it sources its data from official STOCK Act filings and updates this data in nearly-real time. Is Unusual Whales Beginner Friendly? Unusual Whales offers advanced analytics and trading tools which do have a learning curve for beginners but if sufficiently motivated, beginners can learn and utilize the tools and data offered. Where Does Unusual Whales Get Its Data From? Unusual Whales gets its options flow data from market exchanges and congressional trade data from STOCK Act filings.
Telegraph
10-04-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Conspiracy in Trumpworld? Market manipulation claims fly
Within moments of Donald Trump's bombshell social media post backing off from his tariffs, allegations of wrongdoing were flying. The stock market soared and the president's opponents alleged an insider trading conspiracy as the billions of dollars in gains piled up for those who saw it coming. Now, a former White House ethics expert has called on Trump's inner circle to be barred from buying and selling shares while the trade war rages on. 'Until this whole tariff thing is sorted out, anyone who is an appointee of the president should not be buying and selling stocks,' says Richard Painter, formerly George W Bush's chief ethics lawyer. 'Elon Musk, anyone who is an appointee of the president, should abstain from trading.' In a pointed critique of Trump's tendency to rule by social media, Painter said he would have 'had a fit' if he were working for a president who talked so publicly about buying and selling stocks. It comes after Trump wrote 'THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY' on his Truth Social website just hours before his tariff climbdown led to the S&P 500 posting its biggest jump since 2008. 'I made it clear in the Bush White House that this kind of thing couldn't happen,' says Painter. 'We're not investment advisers.' He has called on Trump to issue an executive order to block any of his aides from trading, while also stressing that there should be 'no more talking about the market'. Although there is no evidence that anyone close to Trump has acted on inside information, anger is building. Nasdaq call volumes spiked in the hour before Trump unveiled his turnaround, as traders bought the right to purchase shares at a certain price. Unusual Whales, a research firm that tracks market data, said that some of the trades were what is known as 'zero DTEs', meaning zero days to expiration. An analyst at the firm said: 'These options, as the name implies, expire the same day as purchase, making them much riskier than farther-dated options. The sharp increase in equities [last night] created exponential gains for those correctly positioned.' And for every dollar gained, someone else lost out. 'Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public's expense?' said Adam Schiff, a Democrat senator in California, on social media, as he called for an urgent investigation into potential insider trading. Following Wednesday's swing in the markets, traders around the world said they had never seen anything like it. Peter Hargreaves, the billionaire co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown, said the recent turmoil caused by Trump's tariffs was 'in a different league' to what he had experienced before. It was only a week ago that the world's 500 wealthiest people saw their combined riches plunge $208bn (£160bn) in just 24 hours after Trump's 'liberation day' tariffs blitz. However, that same group gained a combined $304bn after the president announced a 90-day tariff pause on Wednesday. It marked the largest one-day gain in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with the biggest prizewinner being Elon Musk, who added $36bn to his fortune. These are numbers the president is proud of. Gesturing towards two businessmen in a video posted online in the aftermath of Wednesday night's stock market rally, Trump said: 'He made $2.5bn today, and he made $900m. That's not bad.' Unsurprisingly, outraged Democrats have been quick to raise concerns. 'Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now,' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Left-wing House representative, wrote on X, adding: 'It's time to ban insider trading.' Schiff has also penned a letter to the White House to 'demand who knew in advance that the president was gonna once again flip flop on tariffs? And are people cashing in?' The question now is to what extent will those inside Trumpworld face scrutiny? Joe Gallina, a former lawyer who set up the Call to Activism campaign group to monitor the Trump administration, issued a warning to the president's loyal fan club. 'While a sitting president is largely shielded from insider trading laws, those around him are not,' he says. 'If anyone in Trump's circle used privileged information to profit from this swing, that could potentially violate securities laws. 'This isn't just about one suspicious trade – it's about a pattern where political power appears to intersect with financial opportunity. 'When policy decisions from someone like Trump can move markets by billions, and those decisions are reversed with no clear rationale, it opens the door to exploitation. 'The Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice should be examining not just the trades themselves, but who knew what and when. 'The American people deserve confidence that our markets aren't being manipulated by those in the room where the decisions are made.'
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Conspiracy in Trumpworld? Market manipulation claims fly
Within moments of Donald Trump's bombshell social media post backing off from his tariffs, allegations of wrongdoing were flying. The stock market soared and the president's opponents alleged an insider trading conspiracy as the billions of dollars in gains piled up for those who saw it coming. Now, a former White House ethics expert has called on Trump's inner circle to be barred from buying and selling shares while the trade war rages on. 'Until this whole tariff thing is sorted out, anyone who is an appointee of the president should not be buying and selling stocks,' says Richard Painter, formerly George W Bush's chief ethics lawyer. 'Elon Musk, anyone who is an appointee of the president, should abstain from trading.' In a pointed critique of Trump's tendency to rule by social media, Painter said he would have 'had a fit' if he were working for a president who talked so publicly about buying and selling stocks. It comes after Trump wrote 'THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY' on his Truth Social website just hours before his tariff climbdown led to the S&P 500 posting its biggest jump since 2008. 'I made it clear in the Bush White House that this kind of thing couldn't happen,' says Painter. 'We're not investment advisers.' He has called on Trump to issue an executive order to block any of his aides from trading, while also stressing that there should be 'no more talking about the market'. Although there is no evidence that anyone close to Trump has acted on inside information, anger is building. Nasdaq call volumes spiked in the hour before Trump unveiled his turnaround, as traders bought the right to purchase shares at a certain price. Unusual Whales, a research firm that tracks market data, said that some of the trades were what is known as 'zero DTEs', meaning zero days to expiration. An analyst at the firm said: 'These options, as the name implies, expire the same day as purchase, making them much riskier than farther-dated options. The sharp increase in equities [last night] created exponential gains for those correctly positioned.' And for every dollar gained, someone else lost out. 'Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public's expense?' said Adam Schiff, a Democrat senator in California, on social media, as he called for an urgent investigation into potential insider trading. Following Wednesday's swing in the markets, traders around the world said they had never seen anything like it. Peter Hargreaves, the billionaire co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown, said the recent turmoil caused by Trump's tariffs was 'in a different league' to what he had experienced before. It was only a week ago that the world's 500 wealthiest people saw their combined riches plunge $208bn (£160bn) in just 24 hours after Trump's 'liberation day' tariffs blitz. However, that same group gained a combined $304bn after the president announced a 90-day tariff pause on Wednesday. It marked the largest one-day gain in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with the biggest prizewinner being Elon Musk, who added $36bn to his fortune. These are numbers the president is proud of. Gesturing towards two businessmen in a video posted online in the aftermath of Wednesday night's stock market rally, Trump said: 'He made $2.5bn today, and he made $900m. That's not bad.' Unsurprisingly, outraged Democrats have been quick to raise concerns. 'Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now,' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Left-wing House representative, wrote on X, adding: 'It's time to ban insider trading.' Schiff has also penned a letter to the White House to 'demand who knew in advance that the president was gonna once again flip flop on tariffs? And are people cashing in?' The question now is to what extent will those inside Trumpworld face scrutiny? Joe Gallina, a former lawyer who set up the Call to Activism campaign group to monitor the Trump administration, issued a warning to the president's loyal fan club. 'While a sitting president is largely shielded from insider trading laws, those around him are not,' he says. 'If anyone in Trump's circle used privileged information to profit from this swing, that could potentially violate securities laws. 'This isn't just about one suspicious trade – it's about a pattern where political power appears to intersect with financial opportunity. 'When policy decisions from someone like Trump can move markets by billions, and those decisions are reversed with no clear rationale, it opens the door to exploitation. 'The Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice should be examining not just the trades themselves, but who knew what and when. 'The American people deserve confidence that our markets aren't being manipulated by those in the room where the decisions are made.' The White House has denied any suggestion of insider trading. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
MAGA Fooled by ‘Official' RFK Jr. Plan to Ban Pharma Ads on TV
Allies and adversaries of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. alike were elated when an X post on Monday claimed the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary planned to ban pharmaceutical ads from television. But Kennedy made no such announcement, and no such plans exist. 'BREAKING: Robert F. Kennedy Jr has announced plans to ban pharmaceutical advertisements on television,' wrote an X account named 'Unusual Whales' early Monday. Unusual Whales is a service that provides data on unusual stock trading activity. Politicians and media personalities circulated the news, most of whom praised Kennedy for acting on his long-stated desire to bar such ads from the airwaves. 'Great idea,' Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) wrote on X. 'Oh huge,' conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf chimed in. 'What about podcasts?' MAGA podcaster Tim Pool mused. The praise wasn't limited to MAGA types. 'Pharmaceutical Ads Banned on TV, Could Fuel Station Group M&A,' media analyst Rich Greenfield wrote alongside a flame emoji. 'I think most of us in public health would support this,' Dr. Ashish Jha, former President Joe Biden's COVID-19 response coordinator, wrote, though he noted that court challenges have impeded such efforts in the past. Unusual Whales did not provide a source for its claim, which was also circulated on an eponymous subreddit with 223,000 members. A follow-up post pulled text from a December New York Times story that indicated Kennedy had sought to ban the ads. The department's press office said the news was false. 'The social chatter you are hearing that HHS banned pharmaceutical advertising is not accurate,' HHS told the Daily Beast. The incident shows how easily misinformation can spread on X despite its use of 'community notes'—a feature that allows users to add context to a post. The Unusual Whales post did not get flagged by users with a community note. Kennedy has indeed expressed the desire to ban pharmaceutical ads from television. Only two countries, the U.S. and New Zealand, permit the ads to run unrestricted—a fact Kennedy mentions frequently. But efforts to ban the advertisements have often been met with legal challenges. Courts have long found that commercial advertisements represented protected speech under the First Amendment. In 2011, the Supreme Court struck down a Vermont law that regulated pharmaceutical ads. The pharmaceutical industry has grown to nearly $40 billion in advertising this year, according to an AdWeek report this month, up from $12.2 billion in 2015. Kennedy has found others sympathetic to his views within the Trump administration. Elon Musk expressed support for Kennedy's proposed ban on pharma ads in an X post in November, declaring 'no advertising for pharma.' Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr has also said he would help enforce a ban.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion - Should Congress be banned from stock trading? The devil is in the details.
A January 2025 report by Unusual Whales, a financial data platform for retail traders, revealed how members of Congress once again beat average market returns last year. Not surprisingly, debate has resurfaced in Washington about whether it is time to pass legislation, such as that proposed by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), to ban stock trading by elected representatives. Ossoff has championed this issue in one form or another since first being elected to the Senate in 2020, and its current, bipartisan permutation, the Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act, reflects a principle with which I and a large majority of the American electorate agree. However, as former presidential candidate Ross Perot famously opined, 'the devil is in the details.' By any reasoned standard, government officials profiting from the regulations and laws they help enact constitutes a serious ethical issue. The magnitude of this problem was revealed starkly last September, when it was reported that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) husband sold 2,000 shares of Visa stock for $500,000 just weeks before the Justice Department sued the company's debit card business in a lawsuit many legal experts consider unjustified. The actions by Mr. Pelosi ignited increased public concern that officials may be using their positions, and the inside information they obtain as a result, to influence the market for their own benefit. It is not just Pelosi's husband who appears to be a beneficiary of such maneuvering. The new Unusual Whales report shows that in 2024 one member of Congress gained an eye-popping 149 percent in stock trades — more than 124 percent greater than the S&P 500's 2024 benchmark. While this report highlights the significance of this potential conflict of interest problem, an outright ban on members trading stocks is not the appropriate remedy. In 2012, Congress passed the STOCK Act, which bars lawmakers from trading on insider information. The Pelosi scandal, however, shows why that law needs strengthening. For example, the ban must apply to representatives' immediate family members as a way to close loopholes like the one by which Pelosi's husband profited so handsomely. An outright stock trading ban for all members paints with too broad a brush and would be grossly unfair. Contrary to popular belief, not all members of Congress are extraordinarily wealthy. Members earn $174,000 annually, with those in leadership positions receiving slightly more. That is, of course, a comfortable salary, but it does not represent 'I don't need to invest' wealth, especially considering the high cost of living in the Washington, D.C. environs. Broadly speaking, the stock market remains one of the best tools with which all Americans can build their financial futures, and public servants should not be excluded from participating in it. That said, reform is necessary to address the unresolved conflicts of interest that come with congressional stock trading. Instead of outright banning members' stock trading, federal lawmakers should focus on improving the enforcement of the STOCK Act by strengthening its penalties — as low as $200 for a first-term violation. Such de minimus penalties may be why Business Insider's investigation of financial disclosures found that 57 members of Congress and at least 182 top Capitol Hill staffers were late in filing their stock trades as demanded by the STOCK Act in 2020 and 2021 alone. Increasing the STOCK Act's penalties would go a long way toward improving members' compliance and rooting out corruption and insider trading. Federal decisionmakers' proposals and lawsuits should also be subject to greater scrutiny from key congressional committees of jurisdiction — oversight that surely would help limit, if not stop actions that are either illegal or unjustly motivated by personal or political gain. For example, if the House Judiciary Committee, on which I served during my eight years in Congress, had held the Justice Department's feet to the fire over its seemingly baseless Visa debit card lawsuit, and demanded that it explain the reasoning behind its actions (or inactions), then the lawsuit may not have ever been filed, and the appearance or reality of Congress profiteering from such overreach would have been avoided. Finally, incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi can (and should) establish an independent ethics panel and task it with regularly examining the financial activities of federal officials and their families. Through stronger enforcement of existing law, Congress can better address the root of the congressional stock trading problem without unduly constraining the financial freedom of its members. Bob Barr currently serves as president of the National Rifle Association. He represented Georgia's 7th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and in the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta and serves as head of Liberty Guard. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
