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Tradetrek's advanced training tool, Block Trades, keeps you in touch with the movements of the big players. Block Trades, also referred to as Institution Watch, is one of the most important tools that professional traders use to help themselves make informed investment decisions. The ratio of Buy Block Trades and Sell Block Trades reveals whether institutions and large investors are bullish or bearish on the stock. Tradetrek.com makes this important function available to individual investors with ease through the Internet. Contents: 1. What is a Block Trade? 2. How do I access Block Trades at Tradetrek.com? 3. How do I read and understand the Block Trades table? 4. How do I use Block Trades to help me analyze the stock market? What is a Block Trade? Block refers to a large quantity of stock held or traded. A block trade is a large trading order of a given stock consisting of either 10,000 or more shares or a total market value of $200,000 or greater. Tradetrek's Block Trades recognize stocks with values of $1.00 or greater. Coverage includes NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, and NASDAQ restricted stocks. Back to the Top       How do I access Block Trades? Block Trade information is available to Silver and Gold subscribers only. For Gold subscribers, the information displayed is in real-time, while Silver Package subscribers get the results with a 20-minute delay. You have two choices when trying to access Block Trades. 1) Start by clicking on the "Quantitative" category on the navigation bar as pictured in Figure 1. Next select the "Block Trades" button located on the secondary navigational bar. You have made it to Block Trades! Enter the ticker of your choice in the symbol box and click on "Go." Figure 1. Accessing Block Trades from the Tradetrek navigation bars 2) Your other option is to enter from the homepage. You will need to access the ticker-based toolbar. To access this function, type in a ticker symbol in the "Symbol box" and click on the "GO" button as shown in Figure 2a. Figure 2a. Accessing Block Trades from ticker-based tool bar. Next select the "Block Trades" button in the ticker based tool bar, as shown in Figure 2b. When you click on this button you will be brought directly to the Block Trades feature. Figure 2b. Accessing Block Trades from ticker-based toolbar Back to the Top       How do I read and understand the Block Trades table? (Please see Figure 3 below for a visual explanation). The Block Trades table lists all block trades that occur in today's market session. Tradetrek suggests a Block buy is a block trade executed at a price level higher than the ask price at the moment of sale. The green arrows pointing upward identify them, shown in the last column labeled "Over/Under." If the trade is lower than the bid we demonstrate this with a red arrow angled down and assume that this is a sell. If the trade goes through at current market price, you will see the symbol "-" to show you it is a flat sale. The trade whether it is a buy or a sell, is unknown since it went through at the same price. These flat sales are not included in the volume calculations. Figure 3. Reading and understanding the Block Trades table The Block Trades table also displays the following information: time of the sale, price and volume of the trade, and transaction amount (shown in Figure 3). This data is conveniently placed in the table so you can properly analyze the Block Trades. Please note as you use this feature you must click on "Update Block Trades" to receive the most current data. Block Trades detects trades that occur during market hours. At the close of the market, Tradetrek will post the Block Trades for that day through the night, until early morning hours the next day. Back to the Top       How do I use Block Trades to help me analyze the stock market? Before making a trade, you need to compile some crucial elements. You will want to do basic research on the company's fundamentals, gather as much current market data as you can, and access the most sophisticated indicators possible. Tick Data, Block Data, Money Flow, and VWAP can serve as very powerful indicators that help you see the trading-signals pictured underneath the surface. Block Trade information, in particular, is extremely valuable for monitoring the moves of the institutional buyers/sellers of a specified stock. Block Trades help you to understand the sentiment of the large investors. Review the trades of the institutions, gain insight on the trend of a stock, and form your hypothesizes in relation to the strength or weaknesses of a stock. You can glance at the Summary table to get an instant understanding of an institution's activities (See Figure 3). If there are many more buy blocks than sell blocks, this indicates that most institutions and large investors have been buying the stock, and the stock price will likely move up. If a stock has dropped sharply in the recent past, yet institutions are buying the stock in many blocks (i.e. more green arrows than red arrows), it is a good sign that the stock will soon stop dropping and instead move up in price. Most likely, institutional investors have come to the rescue with a large amount of capital. The opposite is also true. If you observe a stock moving up, and soon discover that institutions are selling the stock, the price is probably getting ready to go down. Historical Block Trades, found at the top of the Block Trades web page (see Figure 3), allows you to research a specific date in recent history for any stock. Enter a trading day that has occurred within the past month from today's date, and it will bring up the daily table of Block Trades for that stock. This is another beneficial tool that helps with your investment research. By reviewing the table, it helps you understand why a stock out-performed or under performed the market. Block Trades offers useful, insightful data used by both large and small investors in order to help decide if their stock trade will be profitable. Tradetrek's Block Trades can provide effective investment research for you. Back to the Top