OptionMetrics has launched IvyDB TradeFlow, a database that lets institutional desks break down options market activity by buying and selling order flow, retail trading behavior, and participation in zero-days-to-expiration (0DTE) contracts.

The product arrives as desks face a structural problem: standard options data feeds report consolidated volume and open interest, but they do not separate investor-initiated trades from market-maker flow. That gap matters for execution analysis. A desk that cannot distinguish customer buy-side pressure from dealer hedging flow cannot cleanly measure its own footprint in the market or benchmark the liquidity it received.

IvyDB TradeFlow addresses this by classifying trades according to the aggressing side and by the type of participant, OptionMetrics said. The classifications give portfolio managers and traders a view of who is buying and who is selling — the buy- versus sell-side split that equity desks have long taken for granted in tape data but that has been harder to reconstruct in listed options.

Three use cases anchor the launch.

First, institutional insights on buying and selling order flow. Users can identify trading activity attributable to different investor groups rather than a blended, venue-level total. For execution desks, that translates into better ability to gauge prevailing demand and supply at the strike and expiry level before working larger orders.

Second, retail trading behavior. The database isolates retail participation, allowing desks to track how smaller-lot activity evolves across underlyings and expiries. Retail flow has become a material component of options volume, and desks routing options orders increasingly need to know where that flow concentrates and how it behaves around catalysts.

Third, participation in 0DTE options trading. Contracts expiring the same day now account for a substantial share of single-name and index options volume, and IvyDB TradeFlow lets users analyze who is active in those contracts — including how different participant groups enter and exit positions intraday. For risk teams, participant-level attribution in 0DTE names is a input to hedging and exposure models that currently rely on aggregate volume prints.

The data also supports quantitative research applications, OptionMetrics said, including factor construction and sentiment proxies derived from signed flow rather than raw volume.

For technology teams, IvyDB TradeFlow extends the OptionMetrics IvyDB suite, which research desks already use as a base dataset for volatility modeling and derivatives analytics. Adding flow classification to that stack means quant and execution groups can join flow attributes to the existing options history without integrating a second vendor's symbology or calendar conventions — a non-trivial cost consideration when onboarding a new dataset.

The commercial terms — pricing, delivery format, and history depth — were not disclosed in the announcement. Desks evaluating the product will want to confirm the classification methodology, the latency of updates, and how the vendor handles trades that are difficult to sign before wiring it into execution workflows.

OptionMetrics said it built IvyDB TradeFlow to give institutions a clearer picture of market participation in listed options as flow composition shifts toward shorter-dated contracts and heavier retail involvement. The company expects the dataset to support both pre-trade analysis and post-trade evaluation as desks adapt to those structural changes.