Max Pain is the settlement price at which option buyers would collectively receive the smallest payout on expiration day. Put differently, at that price the largest share of options expires worthless: the most "pain" for holders and the best outcome for sellers.
How Max Pain is calculated
The principle is simple and well known. For every possible settlement price, take all open options in the series and add up what their holders would be paid: calls pay out when price is above the strike, puts when it is below. Each strike is weighted by its open interest. The price with the smallest total is Max Pain.
Three things follow from this:
- Max Pain belongs to one specific series. October and November options each have their own. In the indicator you pick the series with the arrows in the "Contract" row.
- The level changes every day because open interest changes. Turn on "Contract history" to see how it moved from report to report.
- Max Pain is a property of positions, not anyone's intention. It shows where contracts are concentrated, not who bought and who sold them.
The expiration magnet: what to watch
Many traders call Max Pain the "expiration magnet": on expiry day the whole options market has its eyes on it. We read it together with other levels, and our observations on CME data (expirations from June to September 2026) point to two levels worth keeping in view:
- Expired Max Pain. When a series settled far from its Max Pain, price reached that level within the next 20 trading days in 47% of cases versus 27% for a "mirror" level at the same distance. The sample is 30 expirations.
- The open-interest balance point (Balance COI). Price moved toward it in 44% of cases versus 30% for the mirror level.
That is why OLIMP has an "Expired series MP" row and a "Max Pain" arrow in notification mode: they highlight such situations right away. Max Pain answers "where are the positions", which makes it a useful reference.
How to read Max Pain on the chart
- Distance to price. The "From price" row of the info panel shows how far above or below Max Pain sits, in percent. Compare it with the ±1σ corridor: if Max Pain is well outside, getting back to it before expiration would take a move larger than the market expects.
- Neighboring series. Flip to the next month. When the Max Pain levels of two series sit close together, positions at that level are backed on two horizons.
- Agreement with the balances. Max Pain next to COI, Capital and Equilibrium is a tight cluster of centers of gravity. When they drift apart, the market is skewed, and the direction of the gap shows which way.
- After expiration. Flip to the series that just expired and check where it settled relative to its Max Pain. If far, that level is worth keeping on the chart for the next few weeks.
Where to see Max Pain
In the OLIMP indicator the Max Pain line is switched on under "Contract" → "More", and the value is repeated in the info panel. It is available without a key too. Without installing anything, current values for every instrument are in the Analytics section: for example gold, EUR/USD, S&P 500, WTI crude.
Example: gold, early October 2026
On October 2, gold futures traded near $4,165. Max Pain for the series expiring October 27 was $4,340, and the open-interest balance point was $4,323. Both sat about 4% above price. The ±1σ corridor to expiration ran from $4,006 to $4,344.
What follows from that. Max Pain sat at the very top of the expected range: a return to it before expiration would need close to a full one-sigma move. Max Pain alone does not promise such a move, as the test above shows. At the same time, the previous series expired on September 24 with Max Pain at $4,400 while futures were near $4,335, so it settled away from its level. In our observation price reached the expired level more often than the mirror one in such cases; the 20-trading-day window here closes on October 22. This is an example of how to read the levels, not a forecast: in the same sample price failed to reach the expired Max Pain more than half the time.
Questions and answers
How often does the level update? Once a day, after the CME daily report is published. On exchange holidays there is no report and the level stays where it was.
Why is the level not where I expect on my broker's chart? Max Pain is calculated in futures prices. If your chart is spot or a CFD, turn on alignment on the "FP" tab; see Configuring level display.
Is there Max Pain for stocks or crypto exchanges? OLIMP works with options on CME futures: currencies, metals, energy, indices, Bitcoin and Ether. Single-stock options and crypto-exchange data are not part of the calculation.
Common mistakes
- Treating Max Pain as a forecast. It is a snapshot of positions as of yesterday's close. Tomorrow it may shift.
- Looking at the wrong series. A weekly series expiring on Friday has its own Max Pain, which can sit far from the monthly one.
- Ignoring the size of open interest. When there are few positions near price, Max Pain drifts far away and stops being a useful reference. On the Analytics pages we say so explicitly when that happens.
- Using it alone. Read Max Pain together with walls, open-interest flows and PCR.
Learn more
More on reading Max Pain on a chart is in "Max Pain: how to read the point of maximum pain".
This article describes open positions based on exchange data and is not investment advice.