Find & understand
Dark Pool
Dark Pool organizes large off-exchange trades reported to FINRA so you can review size, price and buyer-versus-seller lean from the previous session.
What Are Dark Pools?
Dark pools are private trading venues where large orders can be completed away from public exchanges. Those trades are later reported through FINRA Trade Reporting Facilities.
astrostock turns those reports into a searchable view. A large print shows that a trade happened; it does not reveal the participant's identity, motive or next action.
Dark Pool Landing
Navigate to Dark Pool from the sidebar to access the landing page. From here you can:
- Search for any stock symbol
- Click trending tickers (SPY, QQQ, AAPL, NVDA, TSLA, etc.) for instant access
- Read education cards explaining dark pool concepts
No market-data request is made until you choose a symbol.
Symbol Detail View
Click any symbol to review its off-exchange activity:
Hero Stats (5 Cards)
Timeframe Selector
Choose from 1H, 2H, 4H, or 1D lookback windows to focus on the activity that matters most to your trading horizon.
Price Ladder
A grouped view of reported volume at each price level. Wider bars mean more activity completed near that price.
Top Blocks
The largest individual prints ranked by dollar value. Each block shows time, price, size and whether it completed near the bid or ask.
Print Tape
A filterable tape of reported prints. Each row shows time, price, size, dollar value and bid/ask lean.
Short Volume
Switch the symbol view from Prints to Short volume — or type SIV and a symbol in the ⌘K palette — for FINRA's daily short sale volume, a year at a time:
- Short ratio — short sales as a share of the volume reported to FINRA in the latest session, beside the Short volume in shares
- 20-day average, 1Y percentile and vs 1Y average with a z-score — how the latest ratio compares with the stock's own year
- Streak — sessions in a row above or below the 20-day average
- A daily chart of the ratio with its 20-day average and the year's mean, and a table of every session (sold short, exempt and reported shares)
Short volume counts shares sold short in off-exchange trades. Most of it is market makers selling short to fill customers' buy orders, then covering — so a high ratio often reflects heavy buying rather than bets against the stock. It is not short interest (the shares still held short, reported twice a month), which is in the symbol's Ownership view. FINRA publishes each session's file after the close, around 6 PM ET.
Dark Pool Teaser (Stock Detail Page)
On every stock detail page, a compact 4-stat Dark Pool summary appears showing Notional, Volume, VWAP, and Sentiment. Click "View full" to jump to the complete Dark Pool view for that symbol.
Data Notes
- Dark pool data comes from a licensed market-data feed (FINRA/Nasdaq TRF trades)
- Data is batched by UTC day — the freshest window is the previous US session (T-1)
- When showing prior-session data, a "LAST SESSION" amber badge appears
- Auto-refreshes every 60 seconds
Access
- Free / Basic Plan: Illustrative demo with 10 curated tickers (not real market data)
- Pro Plan: Full live dark pool data for any US equity