Résumé

Web app · Markets analytics

Unusual

A markets dashboard for retail options traders. It streams unusual options activity, measures r/wallstreetbets chatter and scores every due-diligence author against what the stock actually did.

Visit unusual-mvp.vercel.app Overview
Unusual landing page: Know who’s actually right, above an analyst leaderboard
12,922Reddit DD posts analysed
6return horizons, 1 day to 1 year
256backend test cases

The challenge

r/wallstreetbets produces a constant stream of confident stock calls, and nobody keeps score. A post with ten thousand upvotes looks the same whether its author has been right nine times or wrong nine times.

The options-flow tools that could add context are expensive and built for professionals. I wanted one calm dashboard that shows what the crowd is saying, what the options market is doing and who has actually been right.

The approach

Unusual is a Next.js app in front of a single Node process. The backend polls option chains, scrapes WSB every ten minutes and keeps everything in memory plus one SQLite file. Three pages read from it: a flow tape, a sentiment radar and an analyst leaderboard.

The leaderboard is the core. Every DD-flaired post is parsed for its ticker and direction, entered at the first close on or after the post and scored at six horizons from one day to one year. Authors are ranked by the Wilson 95% lower bound of their win rate, so a few lucky calls cannot outrank a long record.

  • Options flow tapeContracts with unusual volume, graded active, warm or hot by volume against open interest and premium, streamed to the browser.
  • WSB sentiment radarTicker mentions scored with a custom WSB lexicon and set beside real call and put volume and price.
  • Analyst leaderboardEvery DD author’s calls, scored against daily closes and ranked by a statistically cautious win rate.
  • Plans and alertsClerk sign-in, Stripe subscriptions on two tiers and an opt-in email digest sent through Resend.

From Reddit post to scored call

  1. 01ScrapeWSB posts and comments, every 10 minutes
  2. 02ExtractTickers, direction and options chatter
  3. 03ClassifyClaude Haiku picks the real bet
  4. 04PriceEntry and exits at daily closes
  5. 05RankWilson lower bound, 3-call minimum

How it’s built

Two deployables: a Next.js app on Vercel and one long-running Node process on Render. The backend uses no web framework and no build step; TypeScript runs natively on Node 22.

  1. 01
    Snapshot diff engineThe free feed gives point-in-time option chains, not trades. The poller remembers each contract’s cumulative volume and emits an event only when it rises by 25 contracts or more.
  2. 02
    Live streamEvents reach the browser over Server-Sent Events: the whole tape on connect, then one message per event, with a heartbeat every 15 seconds.
  3. 03
    Sentiment pipelineA fallback chain of Reddit sources feeds ticker extraction, lexicon scoring and a parser for options chatter such as “TSLA 420c 6/20”. Each cycle is written to SQLite in one transaction.
  4. 04
    Analyst scoringDD posts become directional calls, scored on the stock’s move after 1 day, 1 week and 1, 3, 6 and 12 months, then aggregated per author.
  5. 05
    Accounts and billingClerk handles sign-in and holds each user’s plan and watchlist in its metadata, so there is no user database. Stripe webhooks update the plan.
  6. 06
    Next.js front endThree signed-in pages and a landing page. The flow page keeps the 80 newest contracts and flashes each new print as it arrives.

Technical decisions

Signal tiers a trader can check
A contract is hot when volume is at least 4× open interest or premium passes $25M, and warm at 2.2× or $8M.
A lexicon instead of a model
Sentiment is tanh(sum ÷ 6) over about a hundred WSB terms, bigrams and emoji with negation handling, scored on the 120 characters around each ticker. It is fast, free and explainable.
Spikes against a ticker’s own baseline
Chatter is flagged by z-score against that ticker’s previous 24 hours, warm at 2σ and hot at 3σ, so a normally quiet stock can still stand out.
Regex first, LLM second
A regex pass finds every ticker in a post. Claude Haiku only chooses which of those the author is betting on, so the model cannot invent a ticker.
Wilson score for ranking
Authors are ranked by the lower bound of a 95% confidence interval on win rate, with a three-call minimum, which rewards a long record over a hot streak.
The paywall lives on the backend
The server verifies the Clerk token and blanks any horizon above the caller’s plan before responding, so locked data never reaches the browser.

Who has actually been right.

The leaderboard ranks WSB authors by reputation, with win rate, call count and average return beside it. Handles are masked on the public page.

Unusual analyst leaderboard ranking six masked Reddit authors by reputation, win rate, calls and average return

Every call, scored at six horizons.

An analyst’s page lists each call with its entry date and price and the return after a day, a week and one, three, six and twelve months. Returns are on the stock, not the option.

Analyst profile with reputation, win rate and average return cards, a record by horizon and a call history with return chips

A tape that grades itself.

Each contract shows volume against open interest, premium, bias and a signal tier. This capture is from an early build on simulated data; the live feed runs about 15 minutes behind the market.

Unusual options flow page with premium, call/put and sentiment cards above a table of flagged contracts

What the data can and can’t say

What it does

  • Scores every call on the underlying stock at real daily closes
  • Reads option chains from CBOE’s free feed, about 15 minutes delayed
  • Labels buy or sell side as an estimate from where the last price sits in the spread

What it never does

  • Shows true sweep, block or split prints without a paid real-time feed
  • Adjusts returns against a benchmark or prices the option itself
  • Gives investment advice

Tools

  • TypeScript
  • Next.js
  • Node.js
  • SQLite
  • Server-Sent Events
  • Claude API
  • Clerk
  • Stripe

A personal build on free, delayed market data and public Reddit feeds; its own README calls it a personal, learning build. The landing page and leaderboard captures are from unusual-mvp.vercel.app, where the figures are illustrative. The analyst profile has the account and Reddit handle blurred.

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