Too thin to read: 205 open contracts across 3 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: 205 open contracts across 3 strikes. Max pain, walls and gamma print from 100 contracts across 5 strikes.
Open interest by strike · Fri, Feb 19
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)FTHM open contracts per strike for Fri, Feb 19.
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, Feb 19
Greeks by strike · Fri, Feb 19
Call Δ
Call Θ
Strike
Γ
Vega
Put Θ
Put Δ
0.24
0.00
0.5
2.0673
0.00
0.00
-0.81
0.07
0.00
2.5
0.5849
0.00
—
-1.00
0.04
0.00
5
0.3275
0.00
—
-1.00
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.