What are Signals?
Signals are price or volume related events in stocks. New signals are added in real-time, triggering any notifications that have been set.
How is this different from BZ Signals in the newsfeed?
BZ Signals contains a small subset of heavily filtered signals. By using this tool, you can create custom filters and notifications to receive the signals you want.
Some examples:
Price Spikes for stocks under $5 in the Healthcare sector.
Option Activity for stocks with less than 15 million outstanding shares (low float)
Price Spikes
Sharp moves in price & volume in under 1 minute. Mid-day price spikes are often related to breaking news so it can be useful to turn on a voice notification so you don't miss these. There is usually a flurry of spikes within the first a few minutes after market open that are just routine volatility. Price spikes will fire at most once every 5 minutes for a given symbol. The % move that triggers a spike is based on the percent move and price.
The format for the signal is: Price Spike [direction] +/- [% move of spike] < 1 minute. (Quote: [price] +/- [net change] +/-[% change])
Measures change % over 1 minute
Price < 1, minimum change % = 10
Price 1-2, minimum change % = 8
Price 2-4, minimum change % = 6
Price 4-8, minimum change % = 4
Price 8-10, minimum change % = 2
Price 10+, minimum change % = 1
Minimum volume (1minute) > 1000
Maximum 1 price spike per 5 minutes per symbol
Option Activity
This signal includes 2 types of option activity, large blocks traded at or near the bid or ask, and option sweeps executed at or near the bid or ask. In other words, only large and aggressive trades. This is a fairly active signal with sometimes dozens of signals per hour.
How to use:
Because this signal only picks up aggressive option trades, it can be an indication that someone is anxious to take a large bet on a stocks direction.
Note: Options Signals is a premium feature. Additional subscription charges apply.
Block Trades
Block trades are large trades. A common definition of a block trade is at least 10,000 shares or a quantity of stock having a market value of $200,000 or more, whichever is less. However, those are extremely frequent, this signal captures only large blocks that are greater than 0.0005% of market cap. The NBBO (national best bid and offer) is also captured at the time of the block.
Here are the variations of block description that you will see:
HMNY 1.2M @ $0.016 at the bid
HMNY 687,700 @ $0.018 at the ask
PDD 750,000 @ $18.50 above ask of 18.48
COTV 602,796 @ $44.68 below bid of 44.7
ZNGA 500,000 @ $4.035
Halts & Resumes
Stocks may be halted during any session, sometimes because of volatility and other times because news is pending. Know immediately when a stock is halted or resumed by using this signal. This is a good signal to turn on voice notifications for as they don't happen too often but can provide trading opportunities.
Session High & Session Low
This is a high volume signal that triggers each time a stock hits a new session high or session low.
How to use:
Mid day when the market is slow you can turn this signal on with no filters to see stocks making fresh session highs or lows. Stocks making fresh session highs or lows midday are more likely to be in-play and provide trading opportunities.
During pre & post market this is a good signal to watch for stocks reacting to news such as press releases. While it's extremely chatty, look for stocks making a series of new lows or highs within a second or two.
52 Week High/Low
A single 52-week high/low signal is sent for stocks hitting a fresh 52-week high or low. This signal works for pre-market, regular and after-market. A signal will be resent during the regular session even if it hit a new 52-week high or low during pre-market. A signal will also be sent after-market but only if one wasn't already sent during the regular session.
New Day High/Low Series
Day high/low series is a filtered version of the New Day High/Low signal. This can be helpful if you find the New Day High/Low signal to chatty. This filter only sends a signal out when there is at least 3 new highs or lows within 2 seconds, and will wait until no new highs/lows are reached for another second before sending the block of new highs/lows.
How to use:
This signal is helpful in identifying sharp breaks to new highs/lows instead of stocks making just one new high/low at a time. It's also useful midday to find stocks on the move.