US Options Trade Only

How to use it

Identify a contract by underlying, expiration, strike and call/put. Most options tick files carry no underlying/root column: the underlying comes from the file path or API identifier, so keep it alongside every row you land. Strikes and prices are plain decimals (not scaled). EventType is a bit field: low 4 bits message type, 16 cancel, 32 call, 64 NBBO, 128 buy/bid side. Check OCC special settlements before comparing prices across a corporate action.

Typical use

Options pricing, volatility, and flow research on US-listed equity and index options.

Limitations

Delivered as recorded from the source feed: AlgoSeek does not remove crossed or locked quotes, bad prints, or out-of-sequence packets unless contracted to. Consumers own cleaning. Contract identity per row = ExpirationDate + StrikePrice + CallPut within a per-chain file; the root/underlying is NOT in the row (no Ticker, no UnderSymbol, no OSI/OCC symbol) and must be taken from the file name/path. StrikePrice (e.g. 202.5) and Price are plain decimals in dollars per underlying share, not scaled by 1000; the contract multiplier is not in the file. EventType decoding verified on the sample: 33 = 32 call + 1 Trade; 1 = put Trade; 7 = put Halted; 135 = 128 + 7. Bit 4 (16) would mark a cancelled prior trade; no cancel rows appear in the sample, but cancel conditions A, C, E and G exist in Conditions. Halted rows come in pairs at one Timestamp (EventType 7 and 135) with Side blank, Price 0 and Quantity 0; filter on Action = T to get trades only.

Coverage

All trades from the consolidated OPRA feed for options on equities, ETFs, ETNs and ADRs across the 16 SEC-approved options exchanges; the product page says all US equity options exchanges reporting via OPRA. Start date not stated.

Usage constraints

• Licensed vendor data: never export raw rows to a tenant-local destination or include them verbatim in a public artifact; serve only through entitlement-checked platform reads.
• Do not treat the vendor's `Ticker` as a stable identity across time; join on an AlgoSeek security key (SecId or ASID, which are distinct) or the platform symbol mapping.

Known issues (17)

• Primary key is inferred; AlgoSeek's guide does not name one.
• Documentation discrepancyNeither the guide nor the sample has a Ticker/root column: the underlying of each row is only implied by the file, so rows are not self-describing.
• Documentation discrepancyGuide field table orders EventType, Side, Action; the sample header orders EventType, Action, Side.
• Documentation discrepancyGuide types EventType as 'integer' (other options guides say 'string'); sample values are plain decimal integers.
• Documentation discrepancyGuide Timestamp is HHMMSSmmm (9 characters); sample Timestamp and LastBid/AskTime values lack the leading zero before 10:00 (e.g. 93000008), and UnderLastTradeTime has 14 digits instead of 15 (e.g. 92959996516310), so they were evidently stored as numbers.
• Documentation discrepancy54 cells in the published sample CSV and JSON preview are date-mangled prices in dd.mm.yy form (Price 15, LastBidPrice 20, LastAskPrice 19), e.g. 02.03.23 for 2.3 and 06.06.23 for 6.6; the true format is plain decimal.
• Documentation discrepancySample includes Halted rows (EventType 7 and 135, Action 'H', Price 0, Quantity 0, Conditions 'T'); the guide and page describe the dataset as trades only.
• Documentation discrepancyGuide has no quote-condition table for LastBidCondition/LastAskCondition; sample shows space, *, A, B, O, Y (A/B/O/Y match the quote conditions defined in sibling guides) and '*' is undocumented anywhere.
• Documentation discrepancyGuide intro says 16 options exchanges, but Table 2 lists 31 codes including FINRA, OPRA, SIAC, THOMSON and UNKNOWN.
• Documentation discrepancyThe catalog page title reads 'US Options Trade Only Minute Bar Data' although the dataset is tick-level.
• Documentation discrepancyFirst sample row has blank LastBid*/LastAsk* fields (no NBBO yet); the guide does not describe missing-value behaviour.
• Documentation discrepancyUnderlying bid can exceed the underlying ask in the sample (9 of 100 rows), so UnderBidPrice/UnderAskPrice are not guaranteed to be an uncrossed quote.
• Documentation discrepancyGuide Table 6 says bits 0-3 are a '3-bit' message type, but bits 0-3 are 4 bits and Table 7 runs to value 11.
• Documentation discrepancyGuide Table 7 names message type 10 'UnderlyingValueSell' while Table 3 names the matching action 'UnderlyingValueSale'.
• Documentation discrepancyGuide Table 7 has no type 12 (Indicative); Table 3 lists action 'I' = Indicative Value and 'IN' = Invalid with no message-type value. The AlgoSeek decoder convention assigns 12 = Indicative.
• Documentation discrepancyGuide describes Quantity as 'Underlying asset quantity'; sample values (1..3444, quote sizes) behave as option contract counts.
• Documentation discrepancyGuide expands OPRA as 'Options Pricing Authority' while the product pages say 'Options Price Reporting Authority'.