Q21: What is Block Trades? How can this function help me make good buy/sell decisions?

A: Block Trades (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. For the first time in history, Tradetrek.com makes this important function available to individual investors on the Internet.

The Block Trade table lists all block trades (defined as "trades of at least 10,000 shares or $200,000") occurred in today's market session until now. A Block Buy (or Sell) is a block trade executed at a price level equal to or higher than the ask price at the moment (in the case of Sell, equal to or lower than the bid).

To access this function, type in a ticker symbol in the symbol box and click on the "Block Trades" button on the ticker-based toolbar. The table shown will then display each block trade along with the following information: time of the sale, price and volume of the trade, and transaction amount. In addition, the last column features an Above/Below indicator: a green arrow for a Buy Block Trade and a red arrow for a Sell Block Trade.

If there are many more Buy Block Trades (represented by green arrows) than Sell Block Trades (red arrows), it means 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, and you find out that institutions are buying the stock in many block trades (you see many more green arrows than red ones at Tradetrek's Block Trades page), it is a good indication that the stock will soon stop dropping and move up, because institutional investors have come to the rescue with a large amount of capital and they usually would hold on to the stock for a long time. The opposite is also true. This is why we also call this feature the Institution Watch.

The Historical Block Trades table makes Institutional trades, by day, over the past month available. By entering a trading day that has occurred within the past month from today's date, you can bring up the daily table of the Block Trades. This allows you to research a specific date in the recent history for any stock. This is another beneficial tool to help your investment research.

This function is available to the subscribers of Silver and Gold service packages only. For Gold Package subscribers, the information displayed is in real-time, while Silver Package subscribers get the 15 to 20 minute delayed data. To sign up for the Silver or Gold Packages, please click here.