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Unusual options activity: last completed session vs. each underlying's own 20-session average

Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-08-25, from Unusual Options Activity: Last Session.

as of table 10×8read in context →
Unusual options activity: last completed session vs. each underlying's own 20-session average — 10 rows by 8 columns, computed from US exchange, SIP and OPRA data.
tickervol_ratiosession_volume_kbaseline_volume_kprior_high_volume_ksession_labelsession_idbaseline_session_count
MRNA14.8591.640112.9Aug 192026081920
PURR13.2131.29.920.1Aug 192026081920
NVAX8.242.85.212.2Aug 192026081920
TEM7.9134.11730.6Aug 192026081920
MSOS7.386.411.921.9Aug 192026081920
UTHR6.837.75.567.1Aug 192026081920
MRK6.71602454.2Aug 192026081920
RXRX6.759.28.928.1Aug 192026081920
ETHA5.9737.6124.6312.3Aug 192026081920
MDT5.4651228.3Aug 192026081920
Rows × columns
10 × 8
Computed
Completeness
No missing values
Source
US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
Licence
Strasmore terms · free, no signup
Formats
JSON · CSV · the SQL below

What each column holds

Column definitions for Unusual options activity: last completed session vs. each underlying's own 20-session average, derived from the stored result.
ColumnTypeRangeNotes
ticker text 10 distinct values (ETHA, MDT, MRK…)
vol_ratio number 5.4 to 14.8 ratio or rate
session_volume_k number 37.7 to 737.6 count
baseline_volume_k number 5.2 to 124.6 count
prior_high_volume_k number 12.2 to 312.3 US dollars
session_label text 1 distinct value (Aug 19)
session_id number every row is 20,260,819
baseline_session_count number every row is 20 count

Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.

the exact SQL behind every number
WITH tape AS (
    SELECT toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS d,
           sum(toFloat64(volume)) AS vol
    FROM global_markets.options_minute_aggs
    WHERE window_start >= toDateTime(today() - 45, 'America/New_York')
    GROUP BY d
),
ranked AS (
    SELECT d, vol, row_number() OVER (ORDER BY d DESC) AS raw_rn
    FROM tape
),
cal AS (
    SELECT d, vol, rn, sum(if(rn BETWEEN 2 AND 21, 1, 0)) OVER () AS baseline_sessions
    FROM (
        SELECT d, vol, row_number() OVER (ORDER BY d DESC) AS rn
        FROM ranked
        WHERE vol >= 0.75 * (SELECT quantileExact(0.5)(vol) FROM ranked WHERE raw_rn > 1)
    )
),
day_root AS (
    SELECT substring(ticker, 3, length(ticker) - 17) AS root,
           toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS d,
           sum(toFloat64(volume)) AS vol
    FROM global_markets.options_minute_aggs
    WHERE window_start >= toDateTime(today() - 45, 'America/New_York')
    GROUP BY root, d
),
scored AS (
    SELECT r.root AS root,
           sumIf(r.vol, c.rn = 1) AS last_vol,
           avgIf(r.vol, c.rn BETWEEN 2 AND 21) AS base_vol,
           maxIf(r.vol, c.rn BETWEEN 2 AND 21) AS prior_high,
           countIf(c.rn BETWEEN 2 AND 21) AS root_sessions,
           max(c.baseline_sessions) AS baseline_session_count,
           maxIf(toYYYYMMDD(c.d), c.rn = 1) AS session_id,
           maxIf(formatDateTime(c.d, '%b %e'), c.rn = 1) AS session_label
    FROM day_root r INNER JOIN cal c ON r.d = c.d
    WHERE c.rn <= 21
      AND r.root NOT IN ('SPCX')
      AND r.root NOT IN ('KORU','SOXL','SOXS','TQQQ','SQQQ','NVDL','NVDS','NVD','TSLL','TSLQ','TSLZ','SPXL','SPXS','UPRO','SPXU','LABU','LABD','FAS','FAZ','TNA','TZA','YINN','YANG','UDOW','SDOW','BOIL','KOLD','UCO','SCO','USD','SSO','SDS','QLD','QID','ERX','ERY','DRN','DRV','CURE','SOXY','MUU','SNXX','UVXY','SVXY','UVIX','SVIX','BULZ','WEBL','WEBS','DPST','DRIP','GUSH','AGQ','ZSL','BITX','ETHU','MSTX','MSTU','CONL','DUST','JNUG','JDST','NUGT')
    GROUP BY r.root
    HAVING last_vol >= 25000 AND base_vol >= 5000 AND root_sessions >= 18
)
SELECT root AS ticker,
       round(last_vol / base_vol, 1) AS vol_ratio,
       round(last_vol / 1000, 1) AS session_volume_k,
       round(base_vol / 1000, 1) AS baseline_volume_k,
       round(prior_high / 1000, 1) AS prior_high_volume_k,
       session_label,
       session_id,
       baseline_session_count
FROM scored
ORDER BY vol_ratio DESC, ticker ASC
LIMIT 10

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