Option Chain — IV Term Structure & Skew

This page is a cross-section of one ticker's entire option chain at one moment (the nightly close snapshot, or a live pull). The Options Flow page shows how a single 30-day IV number evolved over months; this page shows the whole structure today — across every expiration and every strike. That structure is where most of the actionable information in options lives.

IV term structure (IV across expirations)

Each expiration has its own implied volatility. The shape of that curve tells you when the market expects movement:

  • Upward slope (contango) — the normal state. Near-term is calm, uncertainty accumulates with time. Calendar spreads (sell near, buy far) pay for themselves slowly here.
  • Inverted (backwardation) — near-term IV above far-term: fear is now. Historically buying into inversions has been profitable on average (panic overshoots).
  • Event bump — a single expiry sticking up above its neighbors marks a known catalyst (earnings, FDA, CPI). The overnight collapse of that bump after the event is "IV crush" — it is why buying a straddle into earnings usually loses even when the stock moves.

Skew / smile (IV across strikes)

If Black-Scholes were literally true the smile would be flat. It never is — the deviation is the market pricing real distributions:

  • Put skew (downside IV higher) is the default in equities: crash protection carries a permanent premium. Steepening put skew = hedgers paying up = fear building (often contrarian-bullish at extremes).
  • Call skew (upside IV higher) is unusual and information-rich: upside chase into earnings, takeover speculation, squeeze names. When you see it, someone is paying up for the right tail.
  • The 25-delta skew number summarizes it: put IV minus call IV at the ±0.25-delta strikes. Positive = puts rich, negative = calls rich.

Expected move

ATM IV converts directly into a priced move: spot × IV × √(days/365). The cone chart draws it. The straddle price (in the term-structure hover) is the market's literal price for "the stock moves" — a directional thesis is only worth trading with options when your target sits beyond what's already paid for.

Open-interest walls, max pain & dealer gamma

  • OI walls — strikes with massive open interest act as magnets/pins into expiration and as support/resistance (dealer hedging concentrates there).
  • Max pain — the strike where option holders lose the most; price tends to drift toward it in quiet weeks.
  • Gamma profile — where dealer gamma is long (green) moves get dampened; below the flip point dealers amplify moves. Spot sitting near the flip = unstable regime.

How this feeds a trade

The IV rank tile answers "rich or cheap vs its own history" → buy premium when cheap, sell/spread when rich. The term structure answers "which expiry" → avoid holding long premium over an event bump you didn't mean to bet on. The smile answers "which strike" → skew makes some strikes structurally over/under-priced (e.g. steep put skew makes put ratio spreads and risk reversals attractive). The walls/gamma answer "where are the magnets and the regime line".