I track unusual options flow every day. The confirmation gate saved me from 3 bad trades today

I have been logging every unusual options flow alert I receive and measuring what actually happened. Not paper trading; real entries, real outcomes, every one documented.

Today (Monday May 4) was a noisy day. 22 tickers showed up in the morning scan.

That is roughly 4x a normal day. When volume spikes like that it usually means the market is reacting to macro news and institutions are hedging across the board, not positioning in specific names.

Here is what the confirmation gate (a 10:15 AM post-open check) did today:

1. BE: flagged as NOT CONFIRMED at 10:15 AM. Closed down 3% by end of day.
2. GOOG: flagged as NOT CONFIRMED. Closed down 0.7% from open.
3. IONQ: flagged as EXTENDED (meaning the move had already happened).

IONQ hit $49.14 early, up 5.6% from open. Closed at $45.75, down 1.7% from open. Anyone who entered after the initial spike gave back everything and more.

The gate is simple: if the stock is not holding above its VWAP with momentum at 10:15 A the signal is dead. It does not matter how big or bullish the overnight flow was.

From 157 tracked signals in April:

• Win rate WITHOUT confirmation gate: 40%
• Win rate WITH confirmation gate: 64.3%

That 24-point spread is entirely from skipping signals that look strong on paper but fail to hold into the open.

Today was a clean example of why. Three out of five morning signals got blocked. All three closed lower than their open.

Does anyone else filter by post-open behavior? Curious how others handle the difference between overnight flow and intraday follow-through.