XLU max pain — latest available snapshot
XLU max pain was $43.00 for the 2026-09-11 expiry, from open interest settled on 2026-09-03 · XLU (the utilities sector SPDR) · last price $43.43 on 2026-09-08, 0.99% above that level · 232 option contracts in the chain
Latest available snapshot — open interest settled on 2026-09-03. This is a dated positioning read, not a live number. The static page is rebuilt nightly from the latest upstream chain available; the settlement itself may lag the rebuild, and intraday volume is not reflected.
What did the 2026-09-03 snapshot show?
Max pain for XLU options expiring 2026-09-11 was $43.00, based on open interest as of the 2026-09-03 close. XLU last traded at $43.43 on 2026-09-08, which was 0.99% above that level. At the settlement, 8 calendar days remained before expiry. That same expiration carried 8,128 put contracts against 6,382 calls — a put/call open-interest ratio of 1.27 — with the heaviest single call strike (the call wall) at $44.50 and the heaviest put strike (the put wall) at $42.50. Max pain is the settlement price that would hand option buyers the smallest total payout; it describes where contracts are parked, not where XLU has to trade. Open interest is settled once a trading day, so this is a dated snapshot, never an intraday reading.
How to read XLU max pain
Start with the distance. In the 2026-09-03 snapshot, XLU max pain for the 2026-09-11 expiry was $43.00, while the last price was $43.43 — 0.99% above that level. Because the price was above the level, max pain sat below the last trade. The gap is arithmetic between two reported values; it does not show that XLU was stretched or that price would close it. At that settlement, 8 calendar days remained before expiry. Open interest and max pain can both change at the next settlement, so the snapshot date and expiration belong with the number. Need the arithmetic behind the level? See how max pain is calculated before giving the gap any meaning.
Now the walls. The call wall was $44.50 (+2.48% from the last price) and the put wall was $42.50 (-2.13% from the last price). A wall is simply the one strike where the most contracts are outstanding — nothing more. The last price sat between the two wall strikes. The lower wall was $42.50 (put wall) and the upper wall was $44.50 (call wall). That locates the two largest open-interest concentrations for this expiry; it does not turn either edge into a floor or ceiling.
Finally the ratio. At 1.27, put and call contract counts were similar. That describes the mix of outstanding contracts; it does not reveal trader direction or whether those options were bought or written.
The caveat that matters. Max pain is arithmetic on open interest. It describes positioning — where contracts already sit — and it is not a target, a forecast, or a level XLU owes anybody. We tested the pinning claim against our own nightly snapshots — does max pain pin? — read that before giving this number any predictive weight. Every number on this page is descriptive and educational; none of it is investment advice.
Open interest by strike — 2026-09-11
■ call open interest ■ put open interest — strikes within roughly ±15% of max pain. Each bar is the number of contracts still outstanding at that strike, not the volume traded that day.
Text version of this chart
For the 2026-09-11 expiration, the three strikes with the most call open interest were $44.50 (1,650 contracts), $42.50 (1,473 contracts), $43.50 (705 contracts). The three strikes with the most put open interest were $42.50 (3,675 contracts), $43.00 (1,441 contracts), $43.50 (922 contracts). Max pain for this expiration was $43.00 and the last traded price was $43.43.
XLU max pain by expiration
Every listed expiration in the 2026-09-03 chain. Each row is computed independently: max pain for a monthly contract can sit far from the weekly one, because different expirations attract different crowds.
| Expiration | Max pain | Price vs MP | Put/call | Call wall | Put wall | Call OI | Put OI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-11 · front | $43.00 | +0.99% | 1.27 | $44.50 | $42.50 | 6,382 | 8,128 |
| 2026-09-18 | $44.50 | -2.42% | 0.76 | $45.00 | $42.00 | 149,853 | 113,360 |
| 2026-09-25 | $43.00 | +0.99% | 0.59 | $44.00 | $43.00 | 6,806 | 4,012 |
| 2026-10-02 | $43.00 | +0.99% | 1.02 | $46.00 | $41.00 | 2,369 | 2,406 |
| 2026-10-09 | $43.50 | -0.17% | 5.97 | $43.50 | $42.50 | 58 | 346 |
| 2026-10-16 | $43.00 | +0.99% | 1.02 | $44.00 | $42.00 | 30,073 | 30,633 |
| 2026-10-23 | $43.00 | +0.99% | 0.46 | $43.50 | $38.50 | 11 | 5 |
XLU max pain history
One row per nightly snapshot we have kept, newest first, always for the front expiration. Read it as a series of separate photographs, not a price line. The front contract rolls forward every week or so, and when it rolls the max pain figure jumps to a completely different chain — so always compare the expiration column, not just the date.
| Snapshot date | Front expiration | Max pain | Price | Price vs MP | Put/call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-03 | 2026-09-11 | $43.00 | $43.43 | +0.99% | 1.27 |
| 2026-09-02 | 2026-09-04 | $43.00 | $42.85 | -0.36% | 0.49 |
| 2026-09-01 | 2026-09-04 | $43.00 | $42.18 | -1.91% | 0.47 |
| 2026-08-31 | 2026-09-04 | $43.00 | $42.32 | -1.58% | 0.49 |
| 2026-08-28 | 2026-09-04 | $43.00 | $42.03 | -2.27% | 0.55 |
| 2026-08-27 | 2026-09-04 | $43.50 | $42.73 | -1.77% | 0.63 |
| 2026-08-14 | 2026-08-21 | $44.00 | $44.31 | +0.70% | 0.39 |
| 2026-08-13 | 2026-08-14 | $43.00 | $44.31 | +3.05% | 0.25 |
| 2026-08-12 | 2026-08-14 | $43.00 | $44.04 | +2.42% | 0.24 |
| 2026-08-11 | 2026-08-14 | $43.00 | $43.84 | +1.95% | 0.26 |
| 2026-08-10 | 2026-08-14 | $44.50 | $43.63 | -1.96% | 0.83 |
| 2026-08-07 | 2026-08-14 | $45.00 | $43.13 | -4.16% | 0.98 |
| 2026-08-06 | 2026-08-07 | $44.50 | $43.61 | -2.00% | 0.40 |
| 2026-08-05 | 2026-08-07 | $44.50 | $43.38 | -2.52% | 0.51 |
| 2026-08-04 | 2026-08-07 | $45.00 | $43.66 | -2.98% | 0.54 |
| 2026-07-31 | 2026-08-07 | $46.00 | $44.36 | -3.57% | 0.79 |
| 2026-07-30 | 2026-07-31 | $46.00 | $44.35 | -3.59% | 0.60 |
| 2026-07-29 | 2026-07-31 | $46.00 | $44.66 | -2.91% | 0.56 |
| 2026-07-28 | 2026-07-31 | $46.00 | $44.91 | -2.37% | 0.57 |
| 2026-07-27 | 2026-07-31 | $46.00 | $45.52 | -1.04% | 0.54 |
| 2026-07-24 | 2026-07-31 | $45.50 | $45.52 | +0.04% | 0.44 |
| 2026-07-23 | 2026-07-24 | $45.00 | $46.29 | +2.87% | 0.76 |
| 2026-07-10 | 2026-07-17 | $45.00 | $45.41 | +0.91% | 1.28 |
Common questions
What was XLU max pain in the latest available snapshot?
Using open interest settled at the close on 2026-09-03, XLU max pain was $43.00 for the 2026-09-11 expiration. The last price of $43.43 sat 0.99% above that level, and 8 calendar days remained before expiry. Max pain is the settlement price that would pay option buyers the least in total.
What does max pain mean in options trading?
Max pain is the expiration price at which the combined payout to everyone holding options would be smallest — so option buyers as a group lose the most and option sellers keep the most. You find it by testing every strike as a hypothetical settlement price, adding up what all the in-the-money calls and puts would pay out, and picking the price with the smallest total. It is a description of where contracts are concentrated, not a forecast.
Is XLU max pain a price target?
No. Max pain describes where XLU options open interest is stacked; nothing in the arithmetic says the share price must move toward it. We measured this question directly on our own nightly snapshots — the study "Does max pain pin?" at quantdata.uk/research/does-max-pain-pin reports what the data shows and does not show, with every sample size stated. Treat the number as context about positioning, never as a target price or a reason to trade.
When does XLU max pain update?
Open interest — the count of contracts still outstanding — is settled once per trading day by the clearing house, so max pain can only change once a day. Quant Data recomputes it nightly from that end-of-day file. Intraday option volume does not move open interest until the next nightly settlement, so no max pain number anywhere is a live intraday reading.
New to this? Start here
If the words on this page are unfamiliar, read them in order. What is max pain works the sum through by hand on a five-strike example, so you can see there is no black box in it. Call wall and put wall explains the two strike figures in the table above — where they come from, and why the gamma wall on the GEX page is a different calculation rather than another name for the same thing. What is gamma exposure covers the other half of the picture: what the dealers who sold all these contracts have to do in the shares to stay hedged. Max pain vs gamma exposure puts the two side by side and shows what it means when they disagree. And since every number on this page starts from the same raw input, what is open interest explains how that input is created, destroyed and settled once a day — and why it is not the same thing as volume.
The dealer-hedging view of the same XLU chain
Max pain asks a settlement question: where would the payout be smallest on expiry day? Gamma exposure asks a daily question: as XLU moves, how many shares must the dealers who sold these options buy or sell to stay hedged? Same open interest, different lens. See XLU gamma exposure for net GEX, the gamma flip level, and the largest gamma walls.
The same settled file also drives two narrower views: XLU put/call ratio tracks the puts-to-calls balance by expiration with daily history, and XLU open interest lists the heaviest strikes and per-expiration totals behind the chart above.
Pointing an AI agent at this? This page is plain static HTML with real tables, so an agent can read it without a scraper or a key. The JSON version of this table is GET /v1/maxpain/{symbol} — any optionable US stock or ETF, not just the tickers on this site, with every expiration and the full oi_by_strike detail. One $149/month plan covers it and the other three Quant Data endpoints. See the API reference and pricing.
Everything on XLU in one place — the four positioning readings plus what published research said about it — is at /stocks/xlu.
Max pain for other tickers
See every ticker in one table.
Derived from end-of-day open interest. This page is rebuilt nightly from the latest available chain, but its values are stamped to 2026-09-03, not build or fetch time — a computed metric, not raw market data or a live quote (how we compute it). Educational only: not investment advice, not a recommendation, not a price forecast.