Turn Claude Into
a Market Analyst

Overview

What's In This Guide

The Data

What You're Actually Connecting

Before the setup, know what you're plugging in. The Unusual Whales MCP gives Claude 100+ live market-data endpoints across 15 categories, plus 30+ built-in analysis routines. You never have to know a tool name. You ask in plain English and Claude routes to the right data.

Step 1

Get Your API Key

Step 2

Connect It to Claude

No config files, no terminal. Set it up entirely from the app:

https://api.unusualwhales.com/api/mcp?token=YOUR_API_KEY

If you live in a coding tool, use the block for your app. Swap YOUR_KEY for your real key, save, then fully restart the app.

Claude Code (one command)

claude mcp add --transport http unusualwhales \
  https://api.unusualwhales.com/api/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Claude Desktop, config-file method (needs Node.js 18+)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unusualwhales": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://api.unusualwhales.com/api/mcp",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unusualwhales": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://api.unusualwhales.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json — note: uses "servers")

{
  "servers": {
    "unusualwhales": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://api.unusualwhales.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

The Whole Point

The Best Prompts

Two ways to use this, both copy-paste. Start with the built-in routines you trigger by name, then steal the natural-language prompts by use case.

The built-in routines (just say the name)

The server ships with 30+ ready-made routines. You trigger them by asking Claude to run them. These are the ones worth memorizing.

Natural-language prompts (just ask)

You don't need the routine names. Describe what you want and Claude routes to the right data. Copy any of these and swap the ticker.

Give me a full market overview right now: market tide, sector sentiment, the biggest options flow, notable dark pool prints, and anything on the economic calendar today. Keep it to the 5 things that actually matter.

Deep dive on NVDA. Pull today's options flow, any unusual activity, dark pool prints, recent insider transactions, short interest, and upcoming catalysts. Tell me what the smart money is doing and where the risk is.

Scan for unusual options flow today. Show me the tickers with the biggest net premium and the most aggressive directional bets, and flag which look like real conviction versus noise.

What have members of Congress bought and sold in the last two weeks? Group it by ticker, show the dollar size, and flag anyone trading ahead of a catalyst.

Walk me through next week's earnings calendar for large caps. For each, give me the expected move from options, the IV rank, and how the stock has historically moved on earnings.

Analyze dark pool activity for SPY over the last few sessions. Where are the biggest prints, what price levels are they clustered at, and what does that suggest about institutional positioning?

Find me stocks with high IV rank AND bullish options flow today. Then cross-check the top 3 against dark pool and insider activity and tell me which has the strongest confluence.

Show me the gamma exposure by strike for SPY for this Friday's expiry. Where is the biggest dealer gamma, and what does that imply for where price gets pinned or where moves accelerate?

Chain them (where it gets powerful)

The real edge is stacking routines into one request. Claude holds the thread the whole way.

Run morning-briefing. Then take the top mover from it and run a full ticker-analysis on it. Then check the gamma exposure on that name and tell me if the options market agrees with the flow.

Run bullish-confluence to find candidates. Take the strongest one, deep dive it, and tell me the bull case, the bear case, and what would make you change your mind.

Make Sure It Stuck

Confirm It's Connected

After connecting and restarting, just ask Claude:

What's the options flow for AAPL today?

If it pulls live numbers, you're connected. If it can't, here's the fix for each common failure:

The Big Picture

The Data Was Never the Hard Part

Unusual Whales has had this data for years. The hard part was reading it, knowing which of fifty dashboards to open, what the numbers meant, and how to connect flow to dark pool to insider activity fast enough to matter.

That's the whole point of plugging it into Claude. You stop hunting through screens and start asking questions. "What's the smart money doing in semis this week?" is now a sentence, not a 40-minute research session.

Connect it once. Steal the prompts. Run morning-briefing before the open tomorrow and see how it feels to get the market read in thirty seconds instead of thirty minutes.