Screen
Market activity moves through consistent structure checks before it ever reaches your dashboard.
ALGORITHMIC EARLY SIGNAL DETECTION FOR CALL OPTIONS
Distilled down to a handful that matter.
Smoke Signal's automated system is purpose-built to find notable call option activity on contracts with potentially outsized upside. Early and often.
It reads the call option tape every day, then applies a detailed multi-stage screening methodology and a proprietary scoring algorithm. Only the contracts that clear every system hurdle are shown to you.
MARKET DATA FROM — & SMOKE SIGNAL'S ALGORITHMIC SCREENING:
1 Prior — trading days of call flow, market-wide. Most screening runs publish fewer than ten contracts.
call flow / last 10 sessionslast run 08:30 ET
multi-stage screenobservation only
signal size ($)
screened
Smoke, then fire / — cases
When the screen was early.
Each of these started the same way. Serious money moved into a call contract nobody was watching. That was the smoke.
Smoke Signal caught it and qualified it.
Then an event — the fire — launched it higher. Sometimes a company catalyst, sometimes something broader. For these, where there was smoke, there was fire.
These 0 are selected examples from a longer record. Most screened contracts do not perform this way, and many lose value. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The dollar figure is the size of the flow that triggered the screen. The percentage is how far the contract's price rose from that day to its highest point. We do not know who placed the trade, why, or whether they held it — that is the nature of flow data. Peak is measured from the screen date. It is not a result anyone is claimed to have captured, and it assumes no exit. Smoke Signal publishes no exit rules.
What the screen looks for
First, volume where there wasn't any.
The signal is simple. Real money — several hundred thousand or millions of dollars — moving into call options on a contract that was barely trading the day before. Someone is building a position that did not exist yesterday. The screen finds those, then tests whether the structure holds up in the next phase. The system asks: is this smoke "real" and can it lead to fire?
HOW A SIGNAL LOOKSunexpected volume
Then, it has to survive the checks.
Structure comes first. A set of mandatory conditions covering the contract's mechanics and the state of the market around it. Every one has to pass. There's no weighting and no partial credit at this stage: fail one, and the contract is dropped before it's ever scored. What survives goes to the proprietary algorithmic scoring model, which grades it across several weighted dimensions and produces a single final determination. On a typical run, the overwhelming majority of what came in doesn't make it out.
Observation → checks → deliverysurvivors only
From a full tape to a short list.
Loading market data. On the most recent session, through its systematic hurdles and algorithmic scoring, Smoke Signal narrowed that universe to — contracts and then finally down to only — that scored high enough. Runs vary. Most end in fewer than ten, delivered straight to your dashboard automatically.
Let it build in the background
Every signal, on your dashboard and in your history.
Each signal is logged with the flow that triggered it, its passing score, and what happened afterward. Look up prior signals and screening runs, or refresh an old signal to see if it still passes all system hurdles.
Score
Surviving observations receive a consistent final assessment. The underlying mechanics remain private.
Track
Every published signal stays in the record with its outcome. Including the ones that did not work.
The instrument panel
Your signals, and the tools to read them.
Every published signal comes with the machinery to follow it. Track what you're watching, see how a contract has moved since it was screened, and keep the full history in one place.
Dashboard Picks
A new screen runs automatically every trading day and delivers contract picks to you. You only see picks that passed all systematic algorithmic scoring hurdles. How soon you see each pick depends on your plan.
Outcome History
Look back at every past pick and see how it turned out.
Watchlists
Save the contracts you want to keep an eye on, all in one place.
Contract Tracking
See how any contract has moved since Smoke Signal first flagged it.
Bundle Tracking
Group contracts together and track how the group performs as a whole.
Performance Analytics
See how your tracked picks have performed, measured against the S&P 500 (SPY).
Sample Bundles
Browse real examples of past contracts that were "winners" and "losers" to see how their signals played out over time.
Exit Rules
Set your own paper stop-loss, stop-limit and holding-period rules, and see how your tracked picks would have played out under them.
Charts
See a contract’s price, trading volume, and performance on an interactive chart. Pro users can dive deeper to chart how Delta, IV, and IV Rank have moved over time.
Pick Refresh
Refresh any current or historical pick on demand, including its latest contract price, underlying price, and scoring hurdle determination.
News & Context
Explore company news, trades by a company's C-suite and directors, and congressional disclosures alongside your charts, with automated summaries that put the reported events in context.
Alerts
Get notified when new picks publish, and when a contract you're tracking hits your target, paper stop loss, or a target DTE.
Cohort Analysis
Compare the picks that worked with the ones that didn't, and see what set them apart.
Excel Exports
Download your data to a spreadsheet for your own analysis.
Filters
Narrow your picks, history and watchlist by sector, expiration, volatility, size and more.
LOOKING FOR OUR SOCIAL MEDIA?
We don't have any. That's on purpose.
Smoke Signal began as an invite-only tool for a select group of users, and it's still built that way. No influencers, no promoted picks, no private chat servers, no daily posting schedule to keep up with. The system isn't here to drive engagement. It's here to be utilized and routinely validated by its user base.
It also keeps the record clean. Keeping picks inside Smoke Signal means the outcomes you see are likelier to reflect the "true" market, not audience-driven movements.
STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?
A research tool for signals, not raw flow.
Smoke Signal uses its proprietary algorithm to surface atypical signals within the massive volume of noisy call options flow. Whereas most publicly available tools simply show a raw feed of the flow, Smoke Signal distills down that down to a curated few contracts that may have asymmetric upside potential. While plans vary, all users get access to samplings of dozens of real "winning" and "losing" contracts to aid in their research and monitoring of contract values. Read our FAQ to learn more.
Smoke Signal is a research and screening tool. Outputs are observations, not trade instructions, financial advice, personalized advice, or forecasts. Options can lose their entire value. Past screening results and/or the implied performance thereof do not indicate future results.