SourcePut open interest divided by call open interest
As ofCboe delayed snapshot Nov 2, 7:42 PM ET
How3 put contracts / 10 call contracts = 0.30 for the 2027-05-21 expiration. Open interest is published once a day, before the open, so it describes the previous session.
Too thin to read: 13 open contracts across 5 strikes. Max pain, walls and gamma print from 100 contracts across 5 strikes.
Event risk before this expiration:Jobs report Fri, Nov 6 · CPI release Tue, Nov 10 · Jobs report Fri, Dec 4 · FOMC decision Wed, Dec 9 · CPI release Thu, Dec 10 — macro releases historically overwhelm pinning effects; max pain reads weakest in event weeks.
Too thin to read: 13 open contracts across 5 strikes. Max pain, walls and gamma print from 100 contracts across 5 strikes.
Open interest by strike · Fri, May 21
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)ESI open contracts per strike for Fri, May 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, May 21
Implied volatility by strike · Fri, May 21
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 45.5% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.
Greeks by strike · Fri, May 21
Call Δ
Call Θ
Strike
Γ
Vega
Put Θ
Put Δ
0.61
-0.01
34
0.0344
0.10
-0.01
-0.41
0.47
-0.01
38
0.0359
0.10
-0.01
-0.56
0.41
-0.01
40
0.0349
0.10
-0.01
-0.62
0.29
-0.01
45
0.0298
0.09
-0.01
-0.76
0.20
-0.01
50
0.0238
0.07
-0.01
-0.86
Quoted contract greeks from the delayed feed (not modeled here); the highlighted row is nearest to spot. Δ per $1 of underlying · Θ per day · vega per IV point.
Stacked — layer the expirations
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.
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.
Max pain, walls and gamma print only when an expiration holds at least 100 open contracts across 5 strikes, and max pain also needs to stay within 5% of spot when its single heaviest strike is removed. Below that the expiration reads as thin rather than printing a level one trade could move.
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.