Sweep

What this order is

A Sweep (Sweep) is a large buy or sell order that is split automatically and hit on every exchange at once, eating all the available liquidity at the best prices and beyond, instead of quietly negotiating one price in one place.

Why it is read as a signal

Because its shape gives away its intent. Someone who deliberately accepts worse spreads across ten venues in fractions of a second is saying “speed matters more than price”. It is the behavior of someone who knows something urgent or fears missing an imminent move. The opposite is patient, sliced orders that hide for days.

Reading it with its conditions

A meaningful sweep is with the flow (buying at the ask or above), in short-dated out-of-the-money contracts (the leverage of someone who wants a blowout soon), at a size many times the norm, and repeated in the same direction. A lone sweep is noise. A series of them in one stock is a story.

Hypothetical example

A series of buy sweeps on weekly calls in a quiet stock, with total premiums in the millions of dollars within an hour: someone is in a big hurry for a near-term bullish bet. Two days later an acquisition is announced. This is the classic pattern flow scanners look for.

Common mistake

Copying every sweep blindly is a mistake. Some are position closes, a leg of a neutral structure, or a hedge. Copying without context (the stock's direction, its levels, whether the pattern repeats) is a gamble on an unknown motive.

What a sweep does not tell you

It does not reveal its owner's intent. It may be a new bet, a close, a leg of a neutral structure, or a hedge of a position in the same asset. That is why it is read together with open interest the next day. A rise suggests opening and a fall suggests closing.

Where to see it on the platform

The flow scanner detects sweeps and sorts them by size, direction and expiration, with the symbol's context on its card.

The flow scanner sorts sweeps by size, direction and expiration, with the symbol's context.