Is Unusual Options Activity Bullish? A Data-Driven Look at UOA Directional Signals

Unusual options activity (UOA) is defined as an options trade whose premium or contract count exceeds a statistically significant threshold relative to normal activity for that ticker, typically the 95th percentile of trailing 30-day trade size or any trade above $500,000 in premium.

Unusual options activity (UOA) is defined as an options trade whose size or premium substantially exceeds normal activity for that ticker -- typically a single trade with premium above $500,000 or contract count above the 95th percentile of trailing-30-day volume for that strike. The question every retail trader asks: does UOA mean the stock is about to rise? The honest answer is that UOA is directionally informative roughly 60% of the time, but only when filtered for three signals: whether the trade went off at the ask (aggressive buying) or the bid (aggressive selling), whether open interest increased or decreased, and whether the stock has enough liquidity for the size to carry signal. I have tracked UOA across roughly 50 liquid tickers since early 2024, from SPY and QQQ down to single-name stocks like NVDA and AAPL. The most common mistake I see is treating every large call purchase as bullish. Sell-to-open call volume -- where the seller bets the stock stays flat or falls -- carries the opposite implication, yet prints as a "large call trade" in raw data.