Unusual Whales prints in. Interactive Brokers orders out.
An Unusual Whales subscription produces reads; an Interactive Brokers account produces fills. This page documents the disciplined pipeline between the two: the surfaces Radon ingests, the stages a print passes through on its way to an order, and what each side requires. The instrument itself is covered separately, in the terminal built on these rails.
Four surfaces in, one score out.
Radon's evaluation pipeline names its inputs explicitly. Dark pool and OTC prints are milestone two of the seven-milestone method. Options flow is milestone three, with open-interest changes as a required sub-step, not an optional one. Seasonality enters early and stays in its place: it is context that can color a read, it never gates a trade, and strong flow overrides weak seasonality by rule. The endpoint surface behind these inputs is documented as a fixed contract in the project's Unusual Whales API specification, so what the scanner consumes is enumerable rather than vague.
None of it is trusted alone. Every Unusual Whales surface is reconciled against the Interactive Brokers realtime tape before scoring, and the integration runs in that order by design: Interactive Brokers first for the live tape, Unusual Whales second for the off-exchange record the tape cannot see. During market hours a partial session's dark pool volume is interpolated by session progress, and both the actual and the interpolated figures are always reported together, with confidence graded from very low in the opening minutes to high in the final quarter of the session.
Dark pool and OTC prints: the primary evidence of accumulation or distribution, scored before the lit price moves.
Sweeps and blocks, read for side dominance: ask-dominant flow is buying, bid-dominant flow is selling.
Open-interest deltas confirm whether the flow opened new positions or closed old ones. Required, not optional.
Historical bias as context only. It informs the read; it never decides the trade, and strong flow overrides it by rule.
What sits between a print and a fill.
A print that arrives without discipline is a temptation. A print that arrives through these stages is either a defined-risk order or nothing. The stages run in order, each has a pass condition, and a failure at any point stops the trade with the failing stage named. The thresholds each stage applies are documented in the full method with thresholds.
Unusual Whales prints
Off-exchange and OTC prints, sweeps, and options flow arrive from Unusual Whales and are checked against the Interactive Brokers realtime tape before anything is scored.
ingest · UW + IB tapeVenue weighting
Volume is venue-weighted and normalized to a rolling z-score. Directional pressure is inferred from print-side and size clustering, not from a single loud print.
score · z-score / clusteringFlow score
The output is a threshold-crossing flow score with a lead window measured per ticker. A score that misses its threshold is discarded, whatever the chart looks like.
signal · lead windowFour gates
Convexity requires gain of at least twice the loss with defined risk. Edge requires a specific signal that has not moved the lit price. Risk requires fractional Kelly under a hard cap. The fourth gate, a naked-short block, is disabled by operator policy with its logic preserved. Any failure stops the trade and names the gate.
gate · sequentialStructure
A defined-risk options structure is selected from the catalog to express the read with convexity. Multi-leg combos are preferred over single-leg directional bets.
convexity · defined riskKelly size
Fractional Kelly sets the position against bankroll, capped hard at 2.5% per position. Conviction adjusts within the cap, never past it.
risk · ≤ 2.5% bankrollVerify
The mandatory pre-trade chokepoint computes max loss, margin impact, and naked-short exposure on the assembled combo. It is not optional and cannot be bypassed.
chokepoint · pre-tradeInteractive Brokers order
The cleared structure is assembled into an Interactive Brokers BAG combo order and submitted through the account's own routing.
execute · BAG comboJournal
Every fill lands in an append-only journal with lot-matched profit and loss, preserving the full chain from print to position.
record · lot-matched P&LWhat each side supplies.
The live instrument stands on two commercial relationships, both of them yours rather than Radon's. A subscription to Unusual Whales supplies the dark pool prints, sweeps, and options flow that scoring is built on; that link is a referral link, and the referral is the extent of the relationship. A funded Interactive Brokers account supplies the realtime tape, the margin, and the order routing: orders go out under your account, not through an intermediary. Radon is not affiliated with either company beyond being a customer of both.
The demo requires neither. It runs the full instrument against seeded data, with no brokerage connection and no flow subscription, so the pipeline can be inspected before either relationship exists.
| Component | Supplies | Required for |
|---|---|---|
| Unusual Whales subscription | Dark pool prints, sweeps, options flow, OI changes | Live flow scoring |
| Interactive Brokers account, funded | Realtime tape, margin, order routing | Live tape and execution |
| Radon demo · demo.radon.run | Full instrument on seeded data | Neither subscription |
Why prints are scored against the tape.
A print, taken alone, states a venue, a size, and a price. It does not state intent, and it does not state whether the market has already absorbed it. Scoring Unusual Whales prints against the Interactive Brokers realtime tape closes both gaps. Venue weighting exists because venues differ in what a print there tends to mean, and normalizing volume to a rolling z-score keeps a loud session from masquerading as a signal. Direction comes from print-side and size clustering across the stream, not from any single print.
The reconciliation is also the false-positive filter. A print whose implication is already visible in the lit price fails the edge gate by definition: the requirement is a specific, data-backed signal that has not yet moved price. Checking the feed against the tape is how that requirement becomes testable rather than rhetorical.
And the lead is measured, not assumed. The scanner reports a lead window per ticker, derived from when the print stream turned against when the lit price followed. A flow score that misses its threshold is discarded, whatever the chart looks like. That refusal is the discipline the rest of the pipeline inherits.
Asked about the integration.
What the two subscriptions cover, what the demo covers, and where Radon stands relative to both companies.
Do I need both subscriptions?
For live use, yes. Unusual Whales supplies the dark pool prints and options flow that scoring is built on, and a funded Interactive Brokers account supplies the realtime tape, margin, and order routing. The free demo at demo.radon.run requires neither.
Can I act on Unusual Whales alerts without Radon?
You can. An alert is a read, and nothing stops a trader from acting on it directly. What Radon adds is the discipline between read and order: reconciliation against the Interactive Brokers tape, four sequential gates, fractional Kelly sizing hard-capped at 2.5% of bankroll per position, a mandatory pre-trade risk check, and a journaled audit trail.
Which Unusual Whales data does Radon use?
Dark pool and OTC prints, options flow including sweeps, open-interest changes, and seasonality. Prints and options flow drive the flow score, open-interest changes are a required confirmation step, and seasonality is context that never gates a trade.
Is Radon affiliated with Unusual Whales or Interactive Brokers?
No. Radon is a customer of both companies and nothing more. The Unusual Whales link on this page is a referral link, and it is disclosed as one.
Run it against the live tape.
The demo carries the full instrument on seeded data: scanner, gates, sizing, journal. No subscription to either service required.