A large share of daily equity volume never touches a public exchange. It's matched in dark pools — off-exchange venues built for institutions to move size discreetly. These prints are reported to a Trade Reporting Facility after execution, giving you a window into where the biggest participants are actually putting money to work.
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Off-exchange liquidity
Dark pools are private venues where institutions trade large blocks away from the public order book. Because size isn't advertised in advance, big players can build or unwind positions without tipping their hand — the print only appears after the trade is done.
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Buy vs. sell pressure
Each print is classified by where it executed against the National Best Bid and Offer. Prints at or above the ask lean buy-side, prints at or below the bid lean sell-side, and prints inside the spread are neutral. Aggregate that across the day and you get a read on net institutional intent.
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Size tiers
Every print is bucketed by dollar value, from Block up to Whale. The largest tiers are the strongest conviction signal — a cluster of Mega and Whale prints in one name often marks meaningful accumulation or distribution that isn't obvious from price alone.
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Reading the flow
Pair the sentiment split with the tier mix and the top-symbol charts. Heavy buy-side value concentrated in a few tickers, or an outsized single Whale print, is worth a closer look on the by-symbol view before it shows up in the broader tape.
How traders use this data
- Spot unusual institutional interest before it's reflected in price action.
- Confirm or challenge a thesis by checking whether smart money is leaning the same way.
- Track a single ticker's dark-pool footprint over the session with the by-symbol view.
- Gauge broad risk appetite from the market-wide buy/sell ratio and net value.
Size tiers at a glance
◼Block$10K – $200K
◆Large$200K – $1M
⬢Mega$1M – $10M
🐋Whale$10M+
Free accounts see dark-pool prints on a 4-hour delay; Sensa Plus unlocks real-time data. This information is provided for research and educational purposes only and is not investment advice.