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Max pain // Cboe delayed data · as of Jul 29, 12:43 AM ET

QQQ max pain

Spot (delayed)$679.88
Max pain · Wed, Jul 29$688+1.2% vs spot
Expected move (ATM straddle)±$9.75±1.4% by Wed, Jul 29
Put/Call OI1.0587K puts / 83K calls
Call wall$720largest call OI
Put wall$495largest put OI
IV3025.8%30-day implied vol
Net GEX−$244.6Mper 1% move

Max pain levels

ExpiryMax painvs spotDTE
Wed, Jul 29$688+1.2%today
Thu, Jul 30$690+1.5%1d
Fri, Jul 31$700+3.0%2d
Mon, Aug 3$690+1.5%5d
Tue, Aug 4$686+0.9%6d
Wed, Aug 5$688+1.2%7d
Thu, Aug 6$682+0.3%8d
Fri, Aug 7$700+3.0%9d

The writer-loss curve — where max pain comes from

spot688495543591640688736$1.3B$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 — 688 — is the max pain price.

Open interest by strike · Wed, Jul 29

spot68849564567668669670710K10K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)QQQ open contracts per strike for Wed, Jul 29.

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 · Wed, Jul 29

spot68849564567668669670771K71K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Today's traded contracts per strike (delayed).

Implied volatility by strike · Wed, Jul 29

spot61063566068671173670%23%
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 31.8% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.

Gamma exposure by strike · Wed, Jul 29

spot610655679689700714+$56.0M$56.0M
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 · Wed, Jul 29

Call ΔCall ΘStrikeΓVegaPut ΘPut Δ
0.68-2.656700.02880.13-2.65-0.33
0.65-2.966710.03000.13-2.96-0.35
0.52-4.286750.03320.14-4.28-0.48
0.49-4.256760.03360.14-4.25-0.51
0.45-3.936770.03370.14-3.93-0.55
0.42-3.506780.03360.14-3.50-0.58
0.39-3.066790.03320.14-3.06-0.61
0.35-2.656800.03260.13-2.65-0.65
0.32-2.276810.03170.13-2.27-0.68
0.28-1.936820.03050.12-1.93-0.72
0.25-1.626830.02910.11-1.62-0.75
0.22-1.356840.02740.11-1.35-0.78
0.19-1.106850.02560.10-1.11-0.81
0.17-0.906860.02350.09-0.90-0.84
0.14-0.726870.02130.08-0.73-0.86

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

spot49064567969470973853K0
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 history

History starts accruing now: first snapshot taken 2026-07-28. We chart only days we actually observed — check back as the record builds. The measured hit-rate across all tickers lives on the accuracy ledger.

All expirations combined — total open interest

spot350550620690750830389K389K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Every expiration combined: 4.5M call contracts, 6.0M 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: QQQ workspace · max pain, explained in full · options profit calculator · GEX, defined · pin risk