Max-Pain Options Expiration Pin

Today is Quad Witching so there's a lot of options contracts expiring. Typically on Friday the maximum pain, or level where the largest dollar amount of options will expire worthless (as smart money usually writes them and retail usually buys them) is near Thursday's close as I said in last night's futures update and earlier in the day.

This was the case today.

You may recall from earlier the very thin breadth of the day because we remained in a very narrow range for the day.

Usually on an op-ex Friday, most contracts are settled by 2 p.m. and the max-pain pin is removed, the market is free to move as it wishes, but just like last Friday when we saw things that led to the forecast for this week's move, despite price action, the last 2 hours give us some of the best 3C information of the week which I'll be looking for.

 The SPY remains well within yesterday's closing range as is often the case for op-ex Friday's max-pain pin.

As I wrote last night in the first paragraph of Futures Update...

"The long and short of it so far as I can see, the IWM needs a bit more upside, the Crazy Ivan head fake has to be clear, it needs to be a clear breakout, that's the entire point of a head fake move around such a visible range such as the one we have in place."

I also added this chart in the same post just below those comments...

An representation of the move expected in the IWM, but not yet cleanly made.

 This is the IWM within its own range until about 2 p.m, the average that most needs to move.

And this was the daily chart as of a few minutes ago.

I expect to see the IWM make the head fake breakout move forecasted a week ago today and the TICK looks like it will try to in to the close.

The TICK's narrow range on an op-ex pin is giving way to a trend.

It's still the 3C charts in to the close that offer the most valuable information.

I'll be looking at some stock specific assets as well.