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Market Overview
This week saw significant institutional activity across the board. The broader market sold off mid-week with SPY dropping from $695 to $677, before bouncing back to $690 on Friday. Dark pool data revealed who was buying the dip — and who was taking profits.
Key events this week: Amazon reported earnings (price dropped from $238 to $210), CIEN announced S&P 500 inclusion (Feb 9), and NVDA continues to see massive institutional flows ahead of Feb 25 earnings.
The focus of these newsletters is to review the current institutional positions and map out possible swing trade setups for the coming week(s). We will discuss key insights as needed and look at how institutional dark pool activity impacts the price.
Dark pools sound like insidious beasts. Retail traders get caught out selling at the bottom and buying at the top. Of course, this happens as these big players need to buy or sell their shares from someone and they can’t use a limit order for 3 million shares — the stock would scream through the chart. This is why the trades happen “off exchange” and after the fact. Our job is to identify these levels and use them as institutional support and resistance.
Does this instantly make more sense? The white dashed lines on the chart start at the date of the trade and the label on the right is the number of shares, date and price that the trade occurred. The blue horizontal lines are the dark pool price levels that big players have interest in.
Remember that institutions are not scalpers. They are in it for the longer term and it takes them a while to accumulate and distribute shares. Switching your view to the mindset of how the big guys trade will help you immensely in your own trading.
This preamble is important for traders who have either never heard of dark pools or institutional trading or know what it is but there is some disconnect on how to trade it.
Now onto our trade setups for the week!
Each ticker below includes the key institutional levels from the last 10–30 days, where price sits relative to those levels, and our trade setup for the week.
🎯 Trade Setups — Entries & Targets
Based on institutional dark pool levels from the past 10–30 days. Bullish bias when price is above key institutional print levels. Bearish bias when price is below. These are NOT recommendations — they’re institutional-grade levels for your watchlist.
📈 Bullish Targets
| Ticker | Price | Above | T1 | T2 | T3 | T4 | T5 | T6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPY | $690.62 | $697.50 | $700 | $702.50 | $705 | $710 | ||
| QQQ | $609.54 | $622.50 | $625 | $627.50 | $630 | $635 | $637.50 | $640 |
| IWM | $265.02 | $267 | $268.25 | $270 | $272.50 | $275 | $280 | |
| NVDA | $185.18 | $190 | $192.50 | $195 | $200 | $203.25 | $207.50 | $210 |
| AAPL | $277.08 | $277.50 | $279.62 | $282.50 | $285 | $290 | $295 | $300 |
| AMZN | $210.05 | $212.50 | $215 | $217.50 | $220 | $225 | $230 | $231.31 |
| MSFT | $403.00 | $405 | $410 | $412 | $414 | $420 | $423 | $427.50 |
| INTC | $50.66 | $51.25 | $52.50 | $53.75 | $54.25 | $55 | $57.50 | $60 |
| AVGO | $333.50 | $335 | $337.50 | $340 | $350 | $365 | $380 |
📉 Bearish Targets
| Ticker | Price | Below | T1 | T2 | T3 | T4 | T5 | T6 | T7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPY | $690.62 | $687 | $685 | $680 | $679 | $678 | $675 | $670 | |
| QQQ | $609.54 | $594.50 | $592.50 | $590 | $585 | $582.50 | $580 | ||
| IWM | $265.02 | $259 | $257.50 | $256 | $252.50 | $250 | $245 | ||
| NVDA | $185.18 | $180 | $178 | $176.01 | $174.19 | $172.50 | $171.25 | $170 | $165 |
| AAPL | $277.08 | $267 | $265 | $262.50 | $260 | $255 | $250 | ||
| AMZN | $210.05 | $205 | $200 | $195 | $192.50 | $190 | $185 | ||
| MSFT | $403.00 | $397 | $395 | $390 | $380 | $370 | $360 | ||
| INTC | $50.66 | $45 | $44 | $42.50 | $40 | ||||
| AVGO | $333.50 | $307.50 | $305 | $300 | $295 | $280 |
🔬 Deep Dives
INTC — The Pullback Accumulation
🟢 ABOVE institutional average
Key Institutional Levels:
- $48–49 MEGA ZONE: 29.4M shares ($1.43B) — 9 prints. THE institutional level.
- $46–47 zone: 8.9M shares — secondary support
- $42–44 zone: Accumulation after a hefty $12 pullback — well below current price
- $53.77–54.25 zone: Jan 21 prints — overhead resistance (4.3M shares)
Intel is showing a classic accumulation pattern. Institutions loaded up heavily at $43–49 through January, with the $48–49 zone becoming a fortress of support — 29.4 million shares worth $1.43 billion.
📈 Bullish above $51.25 → targets: $52.50, $53.75, $54.25, $55, $57.50, $60
📉 Bearish below $46.00 → targets: $45, $44, $42.50, $40
AMZN — Post-Earnings Institutional Catch?
🔴 WELL BELOW institutional average
Key Institutional Levels:
- $237–241 zone: 15.8M shares ($3.77B) — 13 prints. THE institutional position. Now overhead resistance.
- $205–209 zone: 9M shares ($1.86B) — 8 prints ALL from Feb 6. Possible fresh accumulation at lows.
- $209–210 zone: 3.8M shares — current price sitting right here.
- $242–247 zone: 4.3M shares — early Jan prints, well above. These can be upper targets.
Amazon is this week’s drama pick. Institutions built a massive $237–241 position through January — 15.8 million shares, nearly $3.8 billion in dark pool volume. Then earnings hit and the stock cratered.
The big question: is $205 the floor, or are institutions profit-taking on the short side and we may go lower? Either way, we need a plan for both scenarios. The fact that we saw 8 separate prints in a single day at $205–209 suggests fresh accumulation.
📈 Bullish above $212.50 → targets: $215, $217.50, $220, $225, $230, $231.31
📉 Bearish below $205.00 → targets: $200, $195, $192.50, $190, $185
NVDA — Monster Print Bounce (Earnings Feb 25)
🟡 RIGHT AT institutional average
Key Institutional Levels:
- $174–176 zone (ALL Feb 5): 10.95M shares, $1.92B. Two massive prints on the same day during the selloff — the 8.5M monster + 1.3M + 1.15M. This is the floor institutions set.
- $182–189 zone: 20M shares indicating the range of heaviest dark pool interest in January.
NVIDIA is the institutional darling of 2026. In 30 days: 128.7 million shares, $23.7 billion in dark pool volume across 71 prints. The $184–191 range is a fortress.
The headline: On February 5th, an 8.5 million share print at $176.01 — a single trade worth $1.5 billion. That’s someone with deep pockets saying “this is where I want to own it.” Price immediately bounced.
With earnings on February 25th, this is classic pre-earnings institutional positioning. They’re building. “First come the prints, then the news.”
📈 Bullish above $190 → targets: $192.50, $195, $200, $203.25, $207.50, $210
📉 Bearish below $180 → targets: $178, $176.01, $174.19, $172.50, $171.25, $170, $165
📚 The Dark Pool Edge: What Prints Tell You That Charts Can’t
Every trader has heard the phrase: “Follow the money.” It’s repeated in every trading book, every YouTube video, every Discord server. But here’s the problem — most traders have no idea how to actually do it.
Charts show you price and volume. They tell you what happened. But they don’t tell you WHO is behind the moves. A 5-million share print on NVDA at $176 doesn’t show up as anything special on a candlestick chart.
Here’s what makes dark pool data different:
- Size reveals intent. When someone buys 8.5 million shares of NVDA in a single dark pool trade ($1.5 billion), that’s not a retail trader. That’s not even a hedge fund making a speculative bet. That’s institutional conviction.
- Price levels become support and resistance. Institutions don’t buy millions of shares to lose money. The price levels where they accumulate tend to become floors — they’ll defend their positions. This is why dark pool prints often become better support/resistance levels than traditional technical analysis.
- Timing reveals strategy. Look at AMZN — institutions built their position at $237–241 before earnings. When the stock dropped to $205, $1.86 billion in new prints appeared in a single day. That tells you something about institutional conviction at these levels.
As Mark Douglas wrote in Trading in the Zone: “The best traders think in probabilities.” Dark pool data doesn’t give you certainty — nothing does. But it gives you an edge that most traders don’t have: seeing where the biggest players in the market are putting their money.
Next week, we’ll review how these trades did, find more and discuss profit taking.
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About Moby Tick
Moby Tick Trading provides institutional-grade dark pool and block trade intelligence to retail traders. Our platform tracks 10,000+ stocks with 5+ years of historical data, delivering the insights that professional traders use — to everyone.
See what Wall Street sees — before it moves the market.
Most retail traders rely on charts that show what already happened. MobyTick shows you where institutions are quietly positioning right now — the same dark pool data that hedge funds pay millions for.
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Disclaimer: This report is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Dark pool data shows institutional activity but does not guarantee future price movement. Always do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.
