Funding extremes
Rank the universe by funding and take the tails. Crowded longs and crowded shorts are both worth knowing about, and a rank adapts to a market where every rate has drifted.
Screens
Perps carry signalsspot does not have
Funding says what holding a side costs. Open interest says how much is committed. The long/short ratio says who is committed. None of these exist on a spot chart, and together they are the closest thing to seeing the crowd’s position.
The three signals, and how to screen on them
Funding is a price, and it is paid
A perpetual has no expiry, so a periodic payment keeps it tethered to spot. Positive funding means longs pay shorts; deeply positive funding means being long is crowded and expensive. Screening for extremes finds positioning, not direction — a heavily positive funding rate is a reason to be careful about joining longs, not an automatic short.
Open interest is commitment, not volume
Volume counts trades; open interest counts contracts still held. Price up with open interest up is new money taking the move; price up with open interest down is shorts covering, which ends when they are done. Screening on the two together is far more informative than either alone.
The long/short ratio is the crowd, and the crowd is often wrong at extremes
Available as a provider feed and screenable like any other condition. The useful screens are for extremes and for changes in the ratio, not for its level — a ratio that has been at 2 for a month says less than one that went from 1 to 2 today.
The mistake that cost us a screen
On this platform a perpetual is market type "futures", not "perpetual" — market data, portfolio and risk all label it that way. A screen written with the wrong market type scans exactly zero symbols and reports a clean run with no hits, which looks identical to a quiet market. The screen builder now takes venue, market type and quote from the registry rather than from typing, so the spec that scans nothing is not writable by hand.
Screens worth having
OI divergence
Price making a new high while open interest falls — a move being carried by closing, not by conviction.
Ratio shift
A meaningful change in long/short over a window, rather than a level that may have been true for weeks.
Positioning plus the setup
Any of the above as a filter in front of a technical condition, so the entry is a chart event and the context is a positioning one.
Questions about perp screening
Which venues?
Derivative feeds come from the venues the platform reads, and screens run per venue with that venue’s own universe and quote asset — taken from a registry rather than typed, so a screen cannot name a market that does not exist there.
Does a perp screen size differently?
Sizing comes from your stop and your risk fraction either way. What changes is that a resting perp order creates leveraged exposure, which is why placing live orders on a futures venue was a separate decision here and a separate certification.
Can I combine spot and perp conditions?
In one screen the market type is fixed, because an indicator on a spot series and one on a perp series are different series. Two screens, and an assistant turn that reads both, is the honest way to compare them.
Point a screen at the perp universe
Free paper accounts get the derivatives feeds and the whole screener.