Max pain // Cboe delayed data · as of Aug 18, 1:39 AM ET

AER max pain

Spot (delayed)$150.45
Max pain · Fri, Aug 21$150-0.3% vs spot
Expected move (ATM straddle)±$3.4±2.3% by Fri, Aug 21
Put/Call OI2.562K puts / 971 calls
Call wall$160largest call OI
Put wall$150largest put OI
IV3022.9%30-day implied vol
Net GEX−$2.5Mper 1% move

Max pain levels

ExpiryMax painvs spotDTE
Fri, Aug 21$150-0.3%3d
Fri, Sep 18$135-10.3%31d
Fri, Oct 16$145-3.6%59d
Fri, Jan 15$80-46.8%150d

The writer-loss curve — where max pain comes from

spot150100120140160180200$11M$0
■ put-side pain■ call-side painTotal payout option writers would owe at each settle price (both sides, all open interest, ×100 shares) — low settles hurt put writers, high settles hurt call writers. The minimum — 150 — is the max pain price.

Open interest by strike · Fri, Aug 21

spot1501001251401551702001K1K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)AER open contracts per strike for Fri, Aug 21.

Open-interest change — building vs unwinding

Needs two observed snapshot days for this expiration — the comparison appears automatically once the next weekday snapshot lands. We diff real observations only; nothing is estimated.

Volume by strike · Fri, Aug 21

spot1501001251401551702003131
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Today's traded contracts per strike (delayed).

Implied volatility by strike · Fri, Aug 21

spot13514214915616317077%18%
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 26.7% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.

Gamma exposure by strike · Fri, Aug 21

spot100125140155170200+$2.5M$2.5M
Net dealer gamma per strike, in dollars per 1% move, assuming the standard convention (dealers long calls, short puts) — an assumption, not an observation. Above the amber flip level hedging tends to dampen moves; below it, to amplify them.

Greeks by strike · Fri, Aug 21

Call ΔCall ΘStrikeΓVegaPut ΘPut Δ
0.99-0.021150.00110.00-0.03-0.01
0.99-0.031200.00160.00-0.03-0.01
0.99-0.041250.00260.01-0.04-0.01
0.98-0.051300.00440.01-0.05-0.02
0.97-0.071350.00810.01-0.07-0.03
0.94-0.101400.01690.02-0.10-0.06
0.85-0.151450.04190.04-0.15-0.14
0.56-0.221500.09530.06-0.22-0.44
0.20-0.171550.05530.04-0.17-0.81
0.08-0.111600.02340.02-0.11-0.92
0.04-0.071650.01150.01-0.07-0.96
0.03-0.051700.00640.01-0.05-0.98
0.02-0.041750.00390.01-0.04-0.99
0.01-0.021850.00170.00-0.02-0.99
0.00-0.012000.00060.00-0.01-1.00

Quoted contract greeks from the delayed feed (not modeled here); the highlighted row is nearest to spot. Showing 15 strikes around the money — all 16 are in the CSV. Δ per $1 of underlying · Θ per day · vega per IV point.

Stacked — layer the expirations

spot1001201401601802008970
Call open interest per strike, stacked across the checked expirations — each color is one expiry. Strikes are pruned to the liquid center of each chain.

All expirations combined — total open interest

spot4575951251601951K1K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Every expiration combined: 12K call contracts, 6K put contracts open.

Reading this honestly

Max pain is arithmetic, not prophecy: the settle price that would minimize what option writers pay out at expiration, computed from open interest alone. Prices sometimes gravitate toward heavy strikes into expiry — dealer hedging is a real flow — but the evidence that max pain predicts settlement better than chance is mixed, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Use it as a map of where positioning is stacked, next to the fundamentals and the earnings calendar, not as a target.

Data: Cboe delayed public feed (~15 minutes), refreshed here about every 15 minutes. Open interest itself updates once daily, before the open. Educational information, not investment advice.

Keep going: AER workspace · max pain, explained in full · options profit calculator · GEX, defined · pin risk