Event risk before this expiration:FOMC decision Wed, Oct 28 — macro releases historically overwhelm pinning effects; max pain reads weakest in event weeks.
■ 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 — 19 — is the max pain price.
Open interest by strike · Wed, Oct 28
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)VIX open contracts per strike for Wed, Oct 28.
Open-interest change · 2026-10-23 → 2026-10-26
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. Only strikes observed on both days are compared. Biggest moves: 18 +6K · 19 +6K · 17 +4K · 20 +3K
Volume by strike · Wed, Oct 28
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Today's traded contracts per strike (delayed).
Implied volatility by strike · Wed, Oct 28
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 280.2% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.
Gamma exposure by strike · Wed, Oct 28
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, Oct 28
Call Δ
Call Θ
Strike
Γ
Vega
Put Θ
Put Δ
1.00
—
13
0.0001
—
—
—
1.00
—
13.5
0.0003
—
0.00
0.00
1.00
—
14
0.0011
—
0.00
-0.00
1.00
0.00
14.5
0.0033
0.00
-0.00
-0.00
0.99
-0.00
15
0.0084
0.00
-0.00
-0.01
0.97
-0.02
16
0.0361
0.00
-0.02
-0.03
0.90
-0.10
17
0.0953
0.00
-0.10
-0.10
0.69
-0.57
18
0.1285
0.00
-0.57
-0.30
0.86
-0.01
19
1.5013
0.00
-1.26
-0.45
0.21
-0.11
20
0.2928
0.00
-1.31
-0.53
0.05
-0.02
21
0.0966
0.00
-1.30
-0.58
0.04
-0.02
22
0.0555
0.00
-1.27
-0.62
0.00
—
23
0.0008
0.00
-1.26
-0.65
—
—
24
0.0520
0.00
-1.25
-0.67
—
—
25
0.0474
0.00
-1.23
-0.69
Quoted contract greeks from the delayed feed (not modeled here); the highlighted row is nearest to spot. Showing 15 strikes around the money — all 48 are in the CSV. Δ per $1 of underlying · Θ per day · vega per IV point.
Stacked — layer the expirations
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
— max pain (nearest expiry)- - delayed closeOne point per snapshot day since 2026-07-28; unobserved days are gaps, not guesses.
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.