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Max pain // Cboe delayed data · as of Jul 29, 2:19 AM ET

SPX max pain

Spot (delayed)$7,429
Max pain · Thu, Jul 30$7,500+1.0% vs spot
Expected move (ATM straddle)±$88.35±1.2% by Thu, Jul 30
Put/Call OI1.5276K puts / 50K calls
Call wall$7,550largest call OI
Put wall$6,200largest put OI
IV3014.7%30-day implied vol
Net GEX−$669.7Mper 1% move

Max pain levels

ExpiryMax painvs spotDTE
Wed, Jul 29$7,470+0.6%today
Thu, Jul 30$7,500+1.0%1d
Fri, Jul 31$7,450+0.3%2d
Mon, Aug 3$7,480+0.7%5d
Tue, Aug 4$7,500+1.0%6d
Wed, Aug 5$7,500+1.0%7d
Thu, Aug 6$7,515+1.2%8d
Fri, Aug 7$7,490+0.8%9d

The writer-loss curve — where max pain comes from

spot7500500055606120668072407800$14.0B$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 — 7500 — is the max pain price.

Open interest by strike · Thu, Jul 30

spot75005000645071007450756576209K9K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)SPX open contracts per strike for Thu, Jul 30.

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 · Thu, Jul 30

spot75005000645071007450756576203K3K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Today's traded contracts per strike (delayed).

Implied volatility by strike · Thu, Jul 30

spot61006440678071207460780083%15%
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 21.5% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.

Gamma exposure by strike · Thu, Jul 30

spot692572007450754075957660+$294.1M$294.1M
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 · Thu, Jul 30

Call ΔCall ΘStrikeΓVegaPut ΘPut Δ
0.95-2.7972000.00070.56-2.82-0.05
0.88-6.6372750.00151.06-6.64-0.12
0.86-7.3372850.00171.14-7.34-0.14
0.84-8.4573000.00191.26-8.46-0.16
0.79-10.4473250.00221.48-10.45-0.21
0.74-12.4273500.00261.68-12.43-0.26
0.60-15.2274000.00331.99-15.23-0.40
0.51-15.3674250.00362.05-15.36-0.49
0.42-14.3074500.00362.01-14.30-0.58
0.33-12.0474750.00351.86-12.03-0.68
0.23-8.9175000.00311.58-8.90-0.77
0.21-8.2375050.00301.52-8.22-0.79
0.18-6.8875150.00281.37-6.87-0.82
0.16-6.2175200.00261.30-6.20-0.84
0.15-5.5775250.00251.22-5.55-0.85

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

spot40006675718574207575766534K0
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

spot600500061756800747581501.1M1.1M
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Every expiration combined: 9.2M call contracts, 12.4M 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: SPX workspace · max pain, explained in full · options profit calculator · GEX, defined · pin risk