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

SPX max pain

Spot (delayed)$7,429
Max pain · Wed, Aug 5$7,500+1.0% vs spot
Expected move (ATM straddle)±$138.2±1.9% by Wed, Aug 5
Put/Call OI1.8343K puts / 24K calls
Call wall$7,650largest call OI
Put wall$6,100largest put OI
IV3014.7%30-day implied vol
Net GEX−$653.2Mper 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

spot7500380045955390618569807775$12.8B$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 · Wed, Aug 5

spot75003800640072707325747575704K4K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)SPX open contracts per strike for Wed, Aug 5.

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, Aug 5

spot75003800640072707325747575702K2K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Today's traded contracts per strike (delayed).

Implied volatility by strike · Wed, Aug 5

spot56006035647069057340777561%11%
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 16.0% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.

Gamma exposure by strike · Wed, Aug 5

spot677572707320745075157690+$142.2M$142.2M
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, Aug 5

Call ΔCall ΘStrikeΓVegaPut ΘPut Δ
0.71-4.3873250.00173.71-4.40-0.29
0.69-4.4973400.00183.85-4.50-0.31
0.65-4.6173600.00204.01-4.62-0.35
0.60-4.6873850.00214.17-4.69-0.40
0.56-4.6974050.00224.26-4.69-0.44
0.55-4.6874100.00224.28-4.68-0.45
0.53-4.6574200.00224.30-4.65-0.47
0.51-4.6074300.00234.32-4.60-0.49
0.46-4.4674500.00244.30-4.45-0.54
0.41-4.2374700.00244.22-4.23-0.59
0.40-4.1774750.00244.19-4.16-0.60
0.39-4.0974800.00244.16-4.09-0.61
0.38-4.0274850.00244.12-4.01-0.63
0.36-3.9474900.00244.07-3.93-0.64
0.34-3.7675000.00233.97-3.75-0.66

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