Max pain // Cboe delayed data · as of Nov 10, 9:14 PM ET

VXZ max pain

Spot (delayed)$46.58
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EVIDENCE — filed/published fact
SourceCboe delayed quote, underlying price
Fieldcurrent_price
As ofCboe delayed snapshot Nov 10, 9:14 PM ET
HowAbout 15 minutes delayed.
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Max pain · Fri, Mar 19Not showntoo thin to read
Expected move (ATM straddle)±$9.45
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INFERENCE — derived by arithmetic
SourceAt-the-money straddle midpoint
As ofCboe delayed snapshot Nov 10, 9:14 PM ET
HowCall midpoint plus put midpoint at the strike nearest spot for the 2027-03-19 expiration = 9.45 USD, 20.3% of 46.58 spot.
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±20.3% by Fri, Mar 19
Put/Call OI0.13
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INFERENCE — derived by arithmetic
SourcePut open interest divided by call open interest
As ofCboe delayed snapshot Nov 10, 9:14 PM ET
How8 put contracts / 60 call contracts = 0.13 for the 2027-03-19 expiration. Open interest is published once a day, before the open, so it describes the previous session.
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8 puts / 60 calls

Too thin to read: 68 open contracts across 22 strikes. Max pain, walls and gamma print from 100 contracts across 5 strikes.

Event risk before this expiration: Jobs report Fri, Dec 4 · FOMC decision Wed, Dec 9 · CPI release Thu, Dec 10 — macro releases historically overwhelm pinning effects; max pain reads weakest in event weeks.

Max pain levels

ExpiryMax painvs spotDTE
Fri, Nov 20$39-16.3%10d
Fri, Dec 18$50+7.4%38d
Fri, Jan 15too thin66d
Fri, Feb 19too thin101d
Fri, Mar 19too thin129d
Thu, Jun 17too thin219d

The writer-loss curve — where max pain comes from

Too thin to read: 68 open contracts across 22 strikes. Max pain, walls and gamma print from 100 contracts across 5 strikes.

Open interest by strike · Fri, Mar 19

spot3949607382873535
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)VXZ open contracts per strike for Fri, Mar 19.

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, Mar 19

Implied volatility by strike · Fri, Mar 19

spot455462717988136%99%
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 102.3% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.

Greeks by strike · Fri, Mar 19

Call ΔCall ΘStrikeΓVegaPut ΘPut Δ
0.52-0.03390.02150.08-0.01-0.66
0.49-0.03400.02250.08-0.01-0.69
0.34-0.02450.02570.07-0.01-0.80
0.29-0.02460.02600.07-0.01-0.81
0.19-0.01490.02380.06-0.01-0.85
0.11-0.01560.01600.04-0.01-0.94
0.09-0.01580.01400.03-0.01-0.97
0.08-0.01590.01310.03-0.01-0.98
0.08-0.01600.01230.03-0.01-0.98
0.03-0.00690.00630.01-0.01-1.00
0.03-0.00700.00590.01-0.01-1.00

Quoted contract greeks from the delayed feed (not modeled here); the highlighted row is nearest to spot. Showing 11 strikes around the money — all 22 are in the CSV. Δ per $1 of underlying · Θ per day · vega per IV point.

Stacked — layer the expirations

spot3345525868802910
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

spot253647586980291291
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Every expiration combined: 956 call contracts, 220 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.

Max pain, walls and gamma print only when an expiration holds at least 100 open contracts across 5 strikes, and max pain also needs to stay within 5% of spot when its single heaviest strike is removed. Below that the expiration reads as thin rather than printing a level one trade could move.

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: VXZ workspace · max pain, explained in full · options profit calculator · iron condor and credit spread calculator · GEX, defined · pin risk