What is a dark pool?
Large trades arranged privately, away from the public exchanges, and reported afterwards. They are often the reason a stock moved when nothing visible happened.
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Dark pool, in full.
An institution that needs to buy millions of shares cannot simply put that order on an exchange — the order itself would move the price against them before it filled. So the trade is matched privately, in a venue that does not display its orders. That is a dark pool.
Dark does not mean secret. The trade is reported publicly after it prints; what was hidden was the intention beforehand, not the transaction afterwards. Roughly a substantial share of all US volume goes through venues like these.
The reporting delay is exactly why these are worth watching. A stock that moved on no news often moved on something that had not been printed yet.
It explains moves that otherwise look causeless, and it shows institutional buying that never appeared on a public order book.
Words that go with it.
See it happening.
Today's market board is open to anyone, and so is the record of how our trade ideas actually turned out. Neither asks for a card.
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