🧱 Walls & Levels — the price map

This page draws the places where the option book is stacked up — the call wall, the put wall, the gamma flip and max pain — over time. It shows how many contracts really stand behind each one, how long it has stood, and every day price ran through it.

💡 The idea in one picture Think of the call wall as a ceiling and the put wall as a floor, built out of open contracts.
A ceiling made of 80,000 contracts that has stood for 30 days and is still growing is strong.
A ceiling of 3,000 contracts that appeared yesterday is weak.
This page tells you which kind you are looking at. A level is a place, not a prediction.

New words? Glossary → the option book. Controls in the top strip: the top of every ticker page.

30 seconds The chart Today's walls OI over time Walls by expiry Distance Breaks Last sessions Routine

In 30 seconds

Read the Today line above the chart: did price close through yesterday's wall, or cross the gamma flip?
Look at the chart: the white line is the close, the stepped lines are the levels. Where is price between the green ceiling and the red floor?
In Today's walls, read room (how far away) and open interest (how strong).
Done. Everything else is there when you want to check a wall's quality.

The levels chart

The close, with the levels you tick above it. Mouse wheel = zoom · drag = move · double-click = fit · click a name in the legend to hide it. more levels holds the rest.

Line	What it is
call wall	The strike above price with the most call open interest within 25 % of the price — the ceiling.
put wall	The strike below price with the most put open interest within 25 % of the price — the floor.
far hedge	Listed under the other levels only when a strike further than 25 % away holds more open interest than the wall (SPY's puts at 500 with the price near 770): a long-dated position or a crash hedge, too far for the price to meet.
γ flip	The price where dealer gamma changes sign. Close above it = the calm side; below = the jumpier side.
max pain	The price at which the nearest expiry costs its holders least.
wall 2, γ walls, δ flip…	Further walls, the strike with the biggest dealer gamma, where net delta changes sign. Under more levels.
0–14 / 15–45 / 46–180 days	The walls of each expiry horizon, drawn thin.

Walls are drawn as steps because a wall holds a strike until another strike overtakes it.

🎓 Pro tipTick the horizon walls. When the 0–14 day wall and the 15–45 day wall sit on the same strike, several groups of traders have positions at one price — a much stronger level. A whole-book wall that only the far expiries share can vanish when those expire.

Today's walls

Column	How to read it
strike	Where the wall is.
room	How far it is from the close, in %. +1.5 % on the call wall = the ceiling is 1.5 % above.
open interest	Contracts standing at that exact strike. Bigger = stronger.
5 sessions ago · 20 ago	The same wall's open interest back then.
Δ20	The change over 20 sessions. +40 % = positions are being added behind it · −30 % = it is being taken apart.
stood for	How many sessions in a row the wall has been this exact strike.

Room	Meaning
under 1 %	Price is at the wall — a test is happening now.
1 – 3 %	Close; likely to matter within days.
3 – 8 %	In range for the monthly expiry.
over 8 %	Far; it says little about the next few days.

Rough guide for a typical large stock. A very volatile name covers 3 % in a day — compare room with the expected move on the Volatility page.

Combination	What it suggests
Δ20 clearly + and stood for 20+ sessions	A strong, actively defended level.
Δ20 near 0 while price approaches	An old level nobody is adding to — it gives way more easily.
Δ20 clearly −	The wall is being taken apart; do not lean on it.
stood for 1–2 sessions	A brand-new wall — maybe only the open-interest peak switching strikes.

Other levels underneath lists the γ flip, δ flip, max pain and the γ walls with their distance from the close and one line on what each is.

The open interest at the wall, session by session

Two lines: call open interest at each session's own call wall, and put open interest at its put wall. A rising line is positioning being added behind the level. Open interest is published the next morning, so it always lags one session.

The walls of each expiry horizon

One row for the whole book and one for each time bucket (0–14, 15–45, 46–180 days). Each is a real sub-book: its walls are the peaks of its own expiries.

Column	How to read it
call wall · room ↑ · OI at it	The ceiling of that book, its distance and the contracts standing there.
put wall · room ↓ · OI at it	The floor, its distance and its contracts.
max pain · vs close	+ means max pain is above the close, − below.
dealer γ	+ that book calms the price · − it amplifies moves.

🎓 Pro tipWhen the short bucket (0–14 days) is negative but the whole book is positive, short-term moves can be jumpy even though the overall picture looks calm. This is common in the days before a big weekly expiry.

⚠ The wall that matters this week is often not the whole-book wallA far strike held by options that expire next year can top the whole-book list. Look at the row of the horizon you trade.

Distance from the close (%)

The same levels as a distance instead of a price, so a squeeze the price chart hides becomes visible.

Line	How to read it
close vs γ flip	Above 0 = the close is above the flip (calmer). A line falling toward 0 = the calm side is at risk.
room to call wall	Always ≥ 0. Shrinking toward 0 = price is pressing the ceiling.
room to put wall	Drawn below zero. Moving toward 0 = price is pressing the floor.
max pain vs close	Above 0 = the max-pain price is above the close.

🎓 Pro tipWhen the call-wall line and the put-wall line both move toward zero at the same time, the range is narrowing. That often comes before a bigger move — but it does not say which way.

The sessions the close ran through a level

A break is a session whose close finished through yesterday's level. Four kinds:

Event	Meaning
call wall break	Closed above yesterday's ceiling.
put wall break	Closed below yesterday's floor.
crossed above the γ flip	Dealers turned long gamma.
crossed below the γ flip	Dealers turned short gamma.

The table lists the latest 14 with the date, the level, and the close before → after. The wall re-anchors to the other side the same day, so this list is the only trace a break leaves.

⚠ A break is a fact about the dayThe page does not score whether it follows through or reverses. Across the whole library these readings did not predict direction.

Last sessions

The last 60 sessions as a table: close, walls, flip, distance to the flip, δ flip, max pain, days to the front expiry, dealer gamma, and any break that day. Select it and paste it into a spreadsheet if you want to keep it.

A routine that works

Today line: did anything break?
Today's walls: how far is the nearest ceiling and floor, and how many contracts back them?
By expiry horizon: do the books agree on the same strike?
Is the wall growing (Δ20 +) or fading (Δ20 −)? How long has it stood?
Distance chart: is the range narrowing? Is price near the flip?
Take the levels to Trade by Expiry or Expected-Move Spreads to see what they cost to use.

💡 RememberWalls re-anchor to the price every day. A wall that "moved" usually means the biggest open interest on that side changed hands — not that traders moved their positions. Open interest at it and stood for tell you which.