TL;DR
Heat is the 0–100 score Runir publishes for every name to summarize “how much is happening here” — unusual options volume, vol-to-OI ratios, and IV expansion, rolled into one comparable number. A hot name and a quiet name aren't the same trade in the same conditions; they're different trades that ask different questions. The number tells you which one you're in.
For every name in the universe, Runir computes a 0–100 heat score — the brand's measure of unusual options activity, rolled up into one comparable number per name. It's built from three component reads, weighted and normalized so 50 is “normal day for this stock” and the tails are where attention concentrates.
What heat measures
The three components underneath the score:
- Volume relative to baseline. Today's option volume vs the trailing average. A 5× volume day prints high heat regardless of what kind of contracts are trading.
- Vol-to-OI ratio. How much of today's volume is turnover of existing positioning vs new positioning. High vol/OI signals fresh interest, not just rolls.
- IV expansion. How much the implied volatility moved off its trailing baseline. A vol spike with no obvious catalyst is the market re-pricing risk in real time.
The composite is normalized so each name's heat is comparable against its own baseline. SPCE at 81 means SPCE is at 81 on its own scale — not “more active than NVDA at 60.” Cross-name comparisons of raw heat numbers are noise; per-name heat readings ranked relative to the universe are signal. The leaderboard handles that ranking; reading raw numbers directly is the wrong tool.
Why one number, not five
Five separate metrics — volume, vol/OI, premium, IV, %change — give you a dashboard. A dashboard doesn't rank anything. The whole point of a leaderboard is to put names in an order so a reader can scan the top few without reading every column.
Heat exists to enable ranking. Rolling the five reads into one number is what makes “today's hottest twenty names” a tractable question. Anyone wanting the underlying components can find them on the per-ticker page; the leaderboard is for the scan.
Why 0DTE is filtered before ranking
If you include 0DTE (zero-days-to-expiry) contracts in heat, 0DTE crowds out everything else. SPY 0DTE alone trades multiples of the rest of the chain on most sessions. A heat score that doesn't filter 0DTE ends up mostly a measure of “did SPY trade today.”
Runir's heat — and every board ranked on heat — filters 0DTE contracts before the rollup. The reason is editorial: 0DTE trading represents a different population (high-frequency scalpers, intraday speculation, expiration mechanics) than the structural positioning heat is trying to surface. The “fresh interest in NVDA today” signal is buried under SPY 0DTE noise unless you filter.
This is one of the brand's load-bearing methodology choices. Services that include 0DTE in their unusual- activity rankings are publishing a different number for a different question (intraday momentum, expiration-day flow) than the structural-positioning question Runir is answering. Both questions are legitimate; the filter just says clearly which one we're scoring.
What the horizon badges mean
Boards that rank by heat also tag each row with a horizon badge. The badge segments activity by days-to-expiry:
- WEEKLY (1–7 DTE, 0DTE excluded): short-dated speculation. High decay, high assignment risk, high gamma. Theta-scalper territory.
- MONTHLY (8–45 DTE): the canonical structural-positioning window. Wheel-sellers live here. Most Runir CSP plays surface as MONTHLY.
- LEAPS (45+ DTE): long-dated positional trades. Lower decay, lower gamma, often used for buy-and-hold-like option structures.
A high-heat name with most of its activity in MONTHLY means the structural positioning is meaningful and likely to persist past the next session. A high-heat name dominated by WEEKLY activity might just be intraday flow that won't matter in two days. The badge is the difference between “something durable is being positioned” and “today's casino has a favorite.”
Why a quiet name is a different trade
Here's the editorial pivot the title promises. A quiet name (heat under 30) and a hot name (heat over 70) aren't variations of the same trade. They're different trades that ask different questions.
Quiet names are where the dealer mechanic operates cleanly. Low unusual flow, IV near baseline, no positioning churn — the put wall defends because nothing is disrupting it. The textbook wheel-seller setup. Boring, repeatable, structural. The frameworks Runir publishes are most reliable on names in this regime — that's what quiet conditions are for.
Hot names are where something is happening — a known catalyst, smart-money positioning ahead of news, vol pricing in real risk. The dealer mechanic still exists, but it's competing with whatever's driving the heat. The wall might hold; it might not. The trade-off is meaningful but the trade is no longer just “collect theta at the wall.” It's “collect theta at the wall while taking a view on what the heat means.”
The right move depends on which you're in. A trader who treats every name on the heat leaderboard like the same trade is going to be surprised when the hot ones break differently than the quiet ones. Heat doesn't tell you to take a trade; it tells you which framework applies.
What it doesn't tell you
Heat is a today snapshot. The same name with heat 85 today might be heat 30 tomorrow. Use it to identify “what's happening now,” not “what to trade next month.” The persistence of heat across sessions is its own signal — covered in part by the Biggest Movers board, which surfaces names with the largest day-over-day heat changes.
Heat is also a magnitude, not a direction. A high score doesn't tell you the activity is bullish or bearish — just that it's there. The direction lives in the call-vs-put split, the regime label, and the wall structure. Heat is the volume of the conversation; the other reads tell you what's being said.
And the rate at which our heat-driven rankings have led to follow-through over the next session lives on the methodology page, with the sample size attached — the same accountability discipline that governs everything else Runir publishes, covered end-to-end in the hit-rate piece. A heat reading is a signal worth attention; whether it's a signal worth a trade is what the rate answers.
What to do with this
Open today's heat leaderboard for the top names by activity. Drill into any per-ticker page to see the heat reading alongside the spot, the walls, and the regime label — the four reads together describe the name's full context. Not just whether something is happening, but what the something is.
If you came in cold, read the gamma flip explainer for the regime line that decides whether the dealer mechanic on a hot name still works, and why we publish our hit rate for the accountability layer underneath every heat-based ranking.
Common questions
- What does “heat” mean on Runir?
- A 0–100 score per name summarizing unusual options activity — volume versus baseline, volume-to-open-interest, and IV expansion — normalized so it is comparable against that name's own history rather than across names.
- Why is 0DTE filtered out of the heat score?
- Zero-days-to-expiry contracts, especially on SPY, trade multiples of the rest of the chain. Including them would make heat mostly a measure of 'did SPY trade today' rather than the structural positioning the score is built to surface.
