📉 Ultraflow (UF) Chart

Overview

📝 A note on names: The UF Chart was previously called UltraFlow. You'll still hear the community use both names — they refer to the same thing.

The UF Chart in BigShort (app.bigshort.com/uf/UFSPY) is a powerful tool designed to provide traders with a holistic view of market activity within different indexes. By aggregating data from all constituent tickers, the UF Chart offers insights into the collective flow of dollars, trading volume, and momentum across the index. This unique perspective allows traders to identify trends, manipulations, and anomalies that may not be apparent when analyzing a single stock or ETF.

🔍 To Clarify: For example, when you look at Net Option Flow on UFSPY, you are not seeing the puts and calls being traded for the SPY ticker, you are actually seeing the sum of all puts and calls of all 500 companies that comprise the S&P 500! (Yes, this is a crazy amount of data, but we still bring it to you in real time.)

UF Symbols

UF symbols are prefixed with UF — type one into the symbol box to load it (for example, UFSPY for the S&P 500 constituents). The UF data does not include the index ticker itself:

• Ticker Inclusion: UF QQQ shows the cumulative data for all 100 tickers tracked by the Invesco QQQ Trust but does not include data from the QQQ ticker.

• Cumulative Indicators: FastFlow, MomoFlow, Manipulation, and Net Option Flow all show the aggregate of the index's constituent tickers.

• Index Indicators: Price and Dark Pools show activity on the index ticker itself.

🔍 Looking Deeper: FastFlow and MomoFlow are calculated based on dollar-weighted values. This means flows are multiplied by share prices before aggregation, ensuring accurate representation of market activity.

Why was the UF Chart created?

The UF Chart was developed to bridge the gap between ETF-level and individual stock-level insights. While SPY and other ETFs are derivatives of their underlying stocks, trading activity in the constituents doesn't always align perfectly with the ETF's movements. The UF Chart helps traders:

• Spot divergences between constituent flows and ETF performance.

• Identify institutional activity, such as simultaneous trades in major S&P 500 stocks.

• Gain a deeper understanding of how collective stock movements influence overall market behavior.

Navigating the UF Chart

Symbol & Date

In the upper left you can type a UF symbol and pick the session date you want to view. It defaults to today. This area also shows the current price information for the index ticker of the UF you selected.

Timeframes & Toolbar

The 5m / 1hr / 1d buttons switch the candle timeframe. The toolbar also offers:

• Trendline tools — draw and erase trendlines on the chart

• % — toggle percentile threshold lines

• OR — opening-range shades on the 5m chart (right-click to choose 15m / 30m / 1h / Toby Crabel)

• SS — SimSearch, which overlays similar historical price patterns (a feature so cool it needs its own article!)

• Indicator values — a draggable live readout panel of every enabled indicator

• Y: fit candles, an hours toggle (regular vs. pre/post), and a GEX panel toggle

Chart Settings

The ⚙️ Settings panel controls which indicators are drawn, grouped just like the main chart: Traditional, Core Flow, Option Flow, Greeks, Price Levels, BigShort Elite Indicators, and Lame Lagging Indicators. You can save named indicator sets — including their on-chart order — with Saved Sets.

Two things are different from the main chart:

• The Elite set is different here. The UF Chart's Elite indicators are Quantum Cobra, Quantum Cobra 3.1, Quantum Cobra Tally, and M2 RC1 + RC2. (SmartFlow 3 and 3.1 are main-chart Elite indicators and do not appear here. Quantum Cobra draws as up/down green/red bars — dark when aligned with Momo, light when against it — and enabling it also turns on Quantum Badger, a separate indicator that draws as the orange line in the same pane.)

• Some indicators don't apply here. Directional Dealer Stress, Dealer Lean, Delta Flow, Charm Drift, Charm Drift Arrow, and Charm Flip appear in the panel but are disabled on the UF Chart — that's chart applicability, not a subscription limit. Panican Pelican/Orangutan is main-chart only.

Candlestick Pane

The largest and most important pane in the chart area. Here you can see the price candlesticks and dark pools, along with other indicators like SMA and Bollinger Bands if you have enabled them in your chart settings.

💡 Tip: Remember that price and dark pools are for the ETF ticker (eg: SPY), not an aggregation of the constituent tickers.

FastFlow (FF) & MomoFlow (MF)

This displays the cumulative FF and MF data for all constituent tickers of the index you selected. For more information on this chart, click here.

Manipulation

This pane shows the Manipulation and MM Price Discovery data. MM Price Discovery is reported for the index ticker and Manipulation is showing the sum of the constituent tickers.

Net Option Flow

The Net Option Flow (NOF) chart visualizes real-time sentiment in the options market by tracking net call and put premiums, unusual activity, and daily cumulative flow for all constituent tickers of the index selected. So it's not just buys and sells of calls and puts on SPY for example, but the sum of all buys and sells of calls and puts of MMM, AOS, ABT, ABBV, ACN, and the other 495 companies in the S&P 500.

For more information on this indicator, click here.

Navigator

The strip at the bottom of the chart lets you adjust the start and/or end time of the current view, effectively zooming in or out.

Tips for Using the UF Chart Effectively

1. Compare with ETF Data: Use the UF Chart alongside SPY or QQQ data to identify divergences and potential opportunities.
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2. Monitor the Flows: FastFlow and MomoFlow, calculated in dollars, can highlight where money is moving within the index, potentially signaling shifts in market sentiment.
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3. Engage with the Community: Share observations and strategies in the BigShort community. Crowd-sourced insights can provide new ways to interpret UF data.

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