Max pain // Cboe delayed data · as of Aug 6, 10:41 PM ET

DGXX max pain

Spot (delayed)$3.76
Max pain · Fri, Aug 21$5+33.0% vs spot
Expected move (ATM straddle)±$0.85±22.6% by Fri, Aug 21
Put/Call OI0.5813K puts / 23K calls
Call wall$6largest call OI
Put wall$3largest put OI
IV30118.1%30-day implied vol
Net GEX−$17Kper 1% move · flip ≈ $2

Event risk before this expiration: Jobs report Fri, Aug 7 · CPI release Wed, Aug 12 — macro releases historically overwhelm pinning effects; max pain reads weakest in event weeks.

Max pain levels

ExpiryMax painvs spotDTE
Fri, Aug 21$5+33.0%15d
Fri, Sep 18$4+6.4%43d
Fri, Dec 18$5+33.0%134d
Fri, Jan 15$6+59.6%162d
Fri, Mar 19$4+6.4%225d
Fri, Jan 21$3-20.2%533d

The writer-loss curve — where max pain comes from

spot514691114$17M$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 — 5 — is the max pain price.

Open interest by strike · Fri, Aug 21

spot5147101310K10K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)DGXX 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

spot514710135151
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Today's traded contracts per strike (delayed).

Implied volatility by strike · Fri, Aug 21

spot14691114435%85%
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 136.3% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.

Gamma exposure by strike · Fri, Aug 21

spotflip 2246810+$37K$37K
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
1.0010.00130.000.00
0.990.0020.02400.00-0.00-0.01
0.85-0.0130.25980.00-0.01-0.15
0.44-0.0140.43390.00-0.01-0.56
0.16-0.0150.25230.00-0.01-0.84
0.06-0.0060.10870.00-0.00-0.95
0.02-0.0070.04380.000.00-0.99
0.01-0.0080.01760.000.00-1.00
0.000.0090.00730.00-0.00-1.00
0.000.00100.0031-0.00-1.00
0.00110.0014-0.00-1.00

Quoted contract greeks from the delayed feed (not modeled here); the highlighted row is nearest to spot. Showing 11 strikes around the money — all 14 are in the CSV. Δ per $1 of underlying · Θ per day · vega per IV point.

Stacked — layer the expirations

spot0.5258111419K0
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

spot0.5258111425K25K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Every expiration combined: 100K call contracts, 46K 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: DGXX workspace · max pain, explained in full · options profit calculator · GEX, defined · pin risk