Option contract chart guide

A stock can move as expected while its option does not respond as much. The contract chart brings the option and underlying stock together so you can compare their moves, place activity in time, and review liquidity and remaining time. First check the symbol, call or put, strike, and expiry: a different contract on the same stock can behave very differently.

Open the chart and understand its starting point

• In Options Chain, click a cell in the contract row on the call or put side you want, not the save star. This opens the selected contract, not necessarily a signal at a particular time.
• In Flow, Momentum, Confluence, and Watchlist, use the contract chart button beside the row or card. When that entry supplies a trade or signal time, the chart marks it.
• Volume, score, and Greek-score badges come from the row you opened. Some appear in one product but not another. Read the score label before comparing numbers from different tools.
• Extra radar tabs appear when the row includes radar confirmations, as in Contract Momentum. Opening a contract from Chain or another list does not automatically provide those tabs.

Which panels show the contract and which show the stock?

On a small screen, panels stack vertically; scroll inside the modal to reach the sizes. Scroll the tab row horizontally if it extends beyond the screen. Arrow keys, Home, and End move between tabs when using the keyboard.

Read volume and open interest separately

• Vol describes trading activity. OI describes outstanding contracts at the available reading; it does not rise with every trade.
• The open-interest chart beneath the daily side shows this contract's OI history. It remains contract data when you select a stock tab; it is not stock open interest or buy volume.
• Buy Size and Sell Size sum trade sizes classified as buying or selling in the site's data, grouped into fifteen-minute intervals. They do not count traders or establish whether positions opened or closed.
• Buy and sell sizes need not add up to candle volume because the classified data may not cover every execution. A missing bar or a zero is not enough to conclude that no trading happened.

Candle-volume colors follow whether the candle rose or fell; they are not the trade classifications in the Buy Size and Sell Size panels. Scrolling or zooming the main chart moves its linked lower panels to help compare the same period.

Check executable quotes, not just the last candle

Candles record traded prices; they do not promise a price available now. Return to the source table, especially Options Chain, to compare Bid, the quoted buying price, and Ask, the quoted selling price, with Last, the latest available execution price. These are not three fixed fields in the chart modal header.

Last can be old in a thinly traded contract, and the bid–ask spread can be wide. Check data time and liquidity instead of assuming you can trade at Last. IV is the available implied-volatility reading and DTE is remaining days. The Momentum guide explains EMS, BRS, EVS, and VES when those badges appear.

Use drawing tools on the intraday contract chart

1. Select Horizontal Line, then click the price you want to mark on the fifteen-minute chart.
2. Select Vertical Line, then click the time you want to compare with the contract move.
3. Select Trend Line, then click its starting point and ending point.
4. To cancel an unfinished drawing, click the active tool again or press Esc. While a tool is active, Esc cancels it first rather than immediately closing the modal.
5. The trash button removes all your intraday drawings, not a trade or a saved contract.

Read radar confirmations and their timing

When confirmations are supplied, stock tabs appear for their timeframes: fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, one hour, three hours, daily, or weekly. This is not a selector offering every timeframe for every contract. Extra tabs require a confirmation for that timeframe, and hourly confirmations reuse Stock 1H.

You may see AVWAP, MACD, Squeeze Pro, RSI-2 Snapback, and SMC Setup. A marker on a stock candle identifies the radar, direction, and timeframe. Read its description and signal time; do not confuse a radar arrow with the line marking the contract signal time. When multiple lower studies are available, study buttons switch between them.

• D-1: the trading session before the contract signal session.
• D: the contract signal session itself.
• D+1: the next trading session.

The comparison uses US-market sessions in New York time, not necessarily three consecutive calendar days. Radar confirmation descriptions show ET timestamps; take care if your row times use another timezone.

Copy the contract or inspect its executions

The copy icon beside the title copies the contract symbol in TradeStation format. Check symbol, expiry, call or put, and strike after pasting. Copying does not send an order or connect a trading account.

View all trades takes you to this contract's executions in Options Flow. From Flow itself, it closes the chart and filters the page to the exact contract. From other pages it opens a new Flow tab with that contract filter. Results remain limited to available history; the label does not mean every execution since the contract was created.

What if part of the data is unavailable?

If a loading failure includes Retry, use it. No data or OI history unavailable means that section is not providing a usable reading now; do not turn the absence into a market conclusion. A contract chart may work while stock or radar loading fails, so check each panel separately.

A missing radar tab means that entry has no supplied confirmation for that timeframe, not that the entire site has no signals. An AVWAP notice about insufficient anchor history does not invalidate the stock direction. Consult the product guide or support if the problem persists.

A short review routine

1. Check the contract identity, expiry, and time of the row you opened.
2. Compare Options Daily with Stock 1H, then inspect the intraday move and sizes.
3. Review liquidity and Bid and Ask in Chain rather than rely on Last alone.
4. If radars appear, separate signals before the contract event from those afterwards. Add a temporary line if it helps your review.

The chart helps you understand events and compare evidence. Candles, scores, and radars do not choose a trade for you or guarantee a price or return.

Return to the options product guides

• Options Chain
• Options Flow
• Contract Momentum
• Options Confluence
• Options Watchlist