Max pain // Cboe delayed data · as of Sep 12, 3:44 AM ET

SPX max pain

Spot (delayed)$7,657
Max pain · Thu, Sep 17$7,675+0.2% vs spot
Expected move (ATM straddle)±$90.7±1.2% by Thu, Sep 17
Put/Call OI1.8049K puts / 27K calls
Call wall$7,950largest call OI
Put wall$7,075largest put OI
IV3012.1%30-day implied vol
Net GEX−$354.2Mper 1% move

Event risk before this expiration: FOMC decision Wed, Sep 16 — macro releases historically overwhelm pinning effects; max pain reads weakest in event weeks.

Max pain levels

ExpiryMax painvs spotDTE
Mon, Sep 14$7,675+0.2%2d
Tue, Sep 15$7,675+0.2%3d
Wed, Sep 16$7,675+0.2%4d
Thu, Sep 17$7,675+0.2%5d
Fri, Sep 18$7,500-2.1%6d
Mon, Sep 21$7,700+0.6%9d
Tue, Sep 22$7,680+0.3%10d
Wed, Sep 23$7,675+0.2%11d

The writer-loss curve — where max pain comes from

spot7675460052805960664073208000$11.6B$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 — 7675 — is the max pain price.

Open interest by strike · Thu, Sep 17

spot76754600690072507525767077703K3K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)SPX open contracts per strike for Thu, Sep 17.

Open-interest change · 2026-09-102026-09-11

spot520070507325757577007825+3K3K
Net contracts opened (up, green) or closed (down, red) per strike since the previous snapshot — where the walls are building and where they’re unwinding. Biggest moves: 7075 +3K · 7250 +881 · 7350 +798 · 7460 +697

Volume by strike · Thu, Sep 17

spot76754600690072507525767077703K3K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Today's traded contracts per strike (delayed).

Implied volatility by strike · Thu, Sep 17

spot68007040728075207760800040%7%
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 11.7% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.

Gamma exposure by strike · Thu, Sep 17

spot680072007450760077057825+$248.8M$248.8M
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, Sep 17

Call ΔCall ΘStrikeΓVegaPut ΘPut Δ
0.78-3.4675500.00212.92-3.46-0.22
0.74-3.7275750.00243.23-3.72-0.26
0.73-3.7775800.00253.30-3.77-0.27
0.69-3.9075950.00273.48-3.90-0.31
0.68-3.9376000.00283.53-3.93-0.32
0.65-3.9976100.00303.63-3.99-0.35
0.61-4.0576250.00323.77-4.05-0.39
0.53-4.0176500.00343.90-4.01-0.47
0.46-3.8676700.00363.89-3.86-0.54
0.44-3.8076750.00363.87-3.80-0.56
0.42-3.7376800.00363.84-3.73-0.58
0.39-3.5776900.00363.76-3.57-0.61
0.35-3.3977000.00353.65-3.39-0.65
0.33-3.2977050.00343.58-3.29-0.67
0.26-2.8277250.00323.23-2.82-0.74

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

spot5800742575757685776078758K0
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 — nearest expiry vs price

07-2808-0508-1308-2108-3109-0877997316
— max pain (nearest expiry)- - delayed closeOne point per snapshot day since 2026-07-28; unobserved days are gaps, not guesses.

All expirations combined — total open interest

spot600520064007200770083001.3M1.3M
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Every expiration combined: 10.0M call contracts, 13.9M 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