I just read a benzinga post that says - 'Regarding IONQ (NYSE:IONQ), we observe a put option sweep with bullish sentiment. It expires in 7 day(s) on January 24, 2025. Parties traded 200 contract(s) at a $40.00 strike. This particular put needed to be split into 5 different trades to become filled. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $58.4K, with a price of $292.0 per contract. There were 620 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 3760 contract(s) were bought and sold.' Now they say sweep with bullish sentiment but what decides if its bullish or bearish? Put buying is bearish and put selling is bullish - but how do they know if it was sold sweep or bought sweep?
they guess based on if the trade was on the bid side or the offer side. It is assumed the market maker is getting the spread and the speculator is paying it. bid side trade means speculator sold the put.
It sounds reasonable, but I can tell you for sure that this is not always the case. Several times, I went to look at the Times&Sales of trades of mine and this strategy of tape reading was completely wrong. Matter gets even more complicated in cases in which trades are are shopped at a fixed price.
If price sweeps previous highs and closes under them. Good sign of a put sweep. Then wait for the MSS on the lower time frames to validate. Same goes for lows. Price closes above previous lows. Sweep. Lower time frame to validate MSS.
Sounds interesting, but I am not sure that I fully understand what you mean. Could you please post a small example? Thanks in advance.