block trades on ES question

After taking four years off from trading ES and other minis, i'm back in the game now that our daughter is off to school... long story. Anyways, i'm trying to remember if you can tell if blocks are bought after being shorted or simply sold after being bought... I completely forget if there is a way of knowing. I'm using Ninja 7.
thanks
J

 

you mean whether outstanding contracts increase or decrease upon a trade?

 

A block trade is a cross between a buyer and seller. What the two parties decide to do with their positions is unknown.

 

Ok, take the "block" out of it and make it a 50+ amount of contracts being either sold or bought.

 

yes

 

Then you should not use the term "block trades" as it refers to something different.

You can essentially not gauge whether a contract was opened or closed. You can only look at the overall number of open contracts but to my knowledge that is not assessed in real time upon each trade. Maybe someone else can chime in as I do not trade US equity futures. I just tried to clarify what you are talking about.

 

thanks for clearing this up!!