Unusual Option Activity

Folks, on the blog I have added a link for Google Docs on the right side titled "Unusual Option Activity."  The spreadsheet summarizes all unusual activities starting from April 19, 2010.  I have also dropped in a column for earnings date.  


This will be an ongoing running tool that I will update throughout each day.  This list is obviously not all-inclusive as it is impossible to catch every activity on every stock on a daily basis.  


For the most part, the criteria I use to identify such activities are:


1- Orders should be 1000+ sizes suggesting institutional interest
2- Option volume should be greater than open interest
3- Option volume should be greater than normal daily average
4- There should be corresponding rise or drop in implied volatility depending on the type of activity


This is just a start and I am open to feedback to make it a useful permanent tool going forward.  Additionally, please note you can change the View of spreadsheet from drop-down menu and from there you can sort it as you see fit.  The idea here is to generate sufficient available information to gauge the sentiment from the option market to get a better handle on potential direction of the underlying stock price upon the arrival of event, such as earnings, FDA announcement, analysts' meeting, product announcement, technical breakouts, etc.  


Good luck!