Max pain // Cboe delayed data · as of Sep 20, 11:30 PM ET

DELL max pain

Spot (delayed)$571.09
Max pain · Fri, Oct 16$500-12.4% vs spot
Expected move (ATM straddle)±$73.38±12.8% by Fri, Oct 16
Put/Call OI1.2146K puts / 38K calls
Call wall$700largest call OI
Put wall$400largest put OI
IV3058.5%30-day implied vol
Net GEX+$18.4Mper 1% move · flip ≈ $560

Event risk before this expiration: Jobs report Fri, Oct 2 · CPI release Wed, Oct 14 — macro releases historically overwhelm pinning effects; max pain reads weakest in event weeks.

Max pain levels

ExpiryMax painvs spotDTE
Fri, Sep 25$570-0.2%5d
Fri, Oct 2$545-4.6%12d
Fri, Oct 9$535-6.3%19d
Fri, Oct 16$500-12.4%26d
Fri, Oct 23$550-3.7%33d
Fri, Oct 30$565-1.1%40d
Fri, Nov 20$460-19.5%61d
Fri, Dec 18$300-47.5%89d

The writer-loss curve — where max pain comes from

spot500110258406554702850$1.2B$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 — 500 — is the max pain price.

Open interest by strike · Fri, Oct 16

spot5001102403504505506504K4K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)DELL open contracts per strike for Fri, Oct 16.

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, Oct 16

spot5001102403504505506501K1K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Today's traded contracts per strike (delayed).

Implied volatility by strike · Fri, Oct 16

spot110258406554702850228%57%
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 58.3% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.

Gamma exposure by strike · Fri, Oct 16

spotflip 560310390470550630750+$4.3M$4.3M
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, Oct 16

Call ΔCall ΘStrikeΓVegaPut ΘPut Δ
0.81-0.455000.00290.42-0.45-0.19
0.78-0.495100.00320.47-0.49-0.22
0.74-0.535200.00350.51-0.54-0.26
0.70-0.575300.00370.55-0.58-0.30
0.66-0.605400.00400.58-0.61-0.34
0.62-0.635500.00410.60-0.63-0.38
0.58-0.655600.00420.62-0.65-0.42
0.54-0.665700.00430.63-0.66-0.47
0.49-0.665800.00430.63-0.67-0.51
0.45-0.655900.00430.62-0.66-0.55
0.41-0.646000.00420.61-0.65-0.59
0.37-0.636100.00410.60-0.63-0.63
0.34-0.606200.00390.57-0.61-0.67
0.30-0.586300.00380.55-0.59-0.70
0.27-0.556400.00350.52-0.56-0.74

Quoted contract greeks from the delayed feed (not modeled here); the highlighted row is nearest to spot. Showing 15 strikes around the money — all 60 are in the CSV. Δ per $1 of underlying · Θ per day · vega per IV point.

Stacked — layer the expirations

spot220345435505567.56302K0
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

spot6013522036050064017K17K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Every expiration combined: 254K call contracts, 394K 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: DELL workspace · max pain, explained in full · options profit calculator · GEX, defined · pin risk