Heat Score

What is Heat Score?

Heat Score is InsiderFinance’s 0–100 rating of the conviction behind an options trade. Thousands of option trades hit the tape every session, and Heat Score tells you which ones carry real money and real urgency. It is built to raise your win rate the direct way: your attention and your capital go to the prints big money is paying up for.

What goes into the Heat Score?

Heat Score rates each print on premium against the ticker’s normal trade, size against the open interest at the strike and against the ticker’s typical order, sweep execution, distance out of the money, time to expiration, and open interest against normal. It combines them into one score from 0 to 100, and the weighting is proprietary.

Premium well above the ticker’s typical trade scores higher. A sweep adds execution urgency. Shorter expirations and strikes further out of the money score higher, because they are the most leveraged ways to take a view. Size against open interest and against the typical trade shows concentration. The more of those signals land on one print, the higher it scores.

How traders use Heat Score

Read the color first. The stripe beside each score runs from gray through yellow and orange to red, and red is the top of the scale, where size, urgency, and timing stack on one trade. Sort the Heat Score column and the hottest prints of the session rise to the top. To see only the red prints, open Filters on Flow, choose High Heat under Flow Type, and select Apply Filters; Contract Type and Trade Side narrow it further.

Then read the whole trade. Identify the ticker, call or put, strike, and expiration, and read the fill against the bid and ask. Calls bought at or above the ask at a red score are a trader paying whatever it takes to get long before the move, and red prints stacking on the same strike and expiration are a position being built. From there, the gamma exposure dashboard maps the call wall, put wall, and gamma flip around the underlying, and the options profit calculator tests the payoff, breakeven, maximum loss, and target of the chosen option or spread.

Common Heat Score mistakes

• Reading the score as direction. Heat Score measures conviction; the fill against the bid and ask gives direction. A 92 on calls bought at the ask is a buyer reaching for the offer. The same 92 on calls sold at the bid is a seller.
• Reading one leg as the whole trade. Compare strikes, expirations, sizes, execution sides, and trade conditions around the print. A matching leg turns a big call buy into a spread, a roll, or a stock hedge, so read the exposure of the complete position.
• Stopping at one print. A lone red print is one trade; red prints stacking on the same strike and expiration are a campaign. The next open-interest report shows whether the series grew, so compare it with the full session’s flow around the 2,400-contract print.
• Sizing the trade from the score. Heat Score ranks prints against prints. Measure scale separately, here $1,442,400 in premium and contract volume at 4.38 times open interest, then price your own position in the options profit calculator: payoff, breakeven, maximum loss, and probability of profit.

Bottom line

Sort by Heat Score and the most aggressive money on a busy tape is the first thing you read. Check the side and the neighboring strikes on the top prints, map them against dealer positioning and the chart, then build the trade in the calculator with its entry, size, and exit set before the order.