Max Pain is the settlement price at expiry that minimizes the total intrinsic value (payout) of all outstanding options (calls + puts) for a given maturity, based on current open interest. For each maturity, we evaluate candidate settlement prices and compute the aggregate intrinsic value across all strikes; the price with the lowest total payout is the max pain level. Traders use this as a positioning-based reference for potential pinning near expiration, though it is heuristic and depends on how open interest is held/hedged. Calculations use real-time open interest and update every 10 minutes

This is the Point-in-Time (PiT) variant of Options Max Pain. PiT metrics are strictly append-only and their history is immutable. The historic data does not necessarily reflect the best current knowledge, but the information at the time when a data point was first computed. PiT metrics are ideal candidates for applications in model backtesting and related quantitative purposes. Read our article on PiT metrics for more information.