Max pain // Cboe delayed data · as of Aug 15, 5:21 AM ET

VIRT max pain

Spot (delayed)$60.02
Max pain · Fri, Sep 18$50-16.7% vs spot
Expected move (ATM straddle)±$5.55±9.2% by Fri, Sep 18
Put/Call OI0.351K puts / 4K calls
Call wall$55largest call OI
Put wall$46largest put OI
IV3036.4%30-day implied vol
Net GEX+$441Kper 1% move · flip ≈ $50

Event risk before this expiration: Jobs report Fri, Sep 4 · CPI release Fri, Sep 11 · FOMC decision Wed, Sep 16 — macro releases historically overwhelm pinning effects; max pain reads weakest in event weeks.

Max pain levels

ExpiryMax painvs spotDTE
Fri, Aug 21$55-8.4%5d
Fri, Sep 18$50-16.7%33d
Fri, Nov 20$55-8.4%96d
Fri, Dec 18$32-46.7%124d
Fri, Mar 19$40-33.4%215d

The writer-loss curve — where max pain comes from

spot50203346597285$11M$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 — 50 — is the max pain price.

Open interest by strike · Fri, Sep 18

spot502031374350802K2K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)VIRT open contracts per strike for Fri, Sep 18.

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, Sep 18

spot50203137435080656656
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Today's traded contracts per strike (delayed).

Implied volatility by strike · Fri, Sep 18

spot304152637485149%32%
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 37.5% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.

Gamma exposure by strike · Fri, Sep 18

spotflip 50303641466085+$246K$246K
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 · Fri, Sep 18

Call ΔCall ΘStrikeΓVegaPut ΘPut Δ
1.000.00440.00080.00-0.00-0.01
1.00-0.00450.00160.00-0.00-0.02
1.00-0.00460.00320.00-0.01-0.02
0.99-0.00470.00560.00-0.01-0.03
0.98-0.01480.00880.01-0.01-0.04
0.96-0.01500.01720.01-0.01-0.07
0.80-0.03550.04620.05-0.03-0.22
0.51-0.04600.06180.07-0.04-0.50
0.24-0.03650.04630.06-0.03-0.75
0.10-0.02700.02440.03-0.02-0.90
0.04-0.01750.01090.01-0.01-0.96
0.01-0.00800.00460.01-0.00-0.98
0.01-0.00850.00190.00-0.00-0.99

Quoted contract greeks from the delayed feed (not modeled here); the highlighted row is nearest to spot. Showing 13 strikes around the money — all 32 are in the CSV. Δ per $1 of underlying · Θ per day · vega per IV point.

Stacked — layer the expirations

spot3040444865852K0
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.

All expirations combined — total open interest

spot1829364355902K2K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Every expiration combined: 6K call contracts, 3K 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: VIRT workspace · max pain, explained in full · options profit calculator · GEX, defined · pin risk