What is Option Pain (Max Pain)?
In the option market, wealth transfer between option buyers and sellers is a zero-sum game. On option expiration days, the underlying stock price often moves toward a point that brings maximum loss to option buyers. This specific price, calculated based on all outstanding options in the market, is called Option Pain. Option Pain is a proxy for the stock price manipulation target by the option selling group.

What is Actual Pain (Current Pain)?
Actual Pain, also known as Current Pain, is a refined calculation method and deemed more accurate than Option Pain. Due to the nature of the Actual Pain calculation no intraday data is used instead the previous trading day is the newest data on which the calculation is based; also the Actual Pain calculation will be inaccurate within the first days of a new expiration month.

How to use OptionCalc?
Simply enter the desired stock symbol and select an expiration month (e.g. 2012-02) and press the "Search" button. Detailed information will be displayed in the grid (Option Pain higlighted blue, Actual Pain purple and ITM options yellow) and in the diagram if you hover over each bar. In addition the current max pain is highlighted green in the grid and displayed as header information over the Diagram.
Please keep in mind that for certain stocks weekly options are not available; in this case uncheck the "Weeklies only" checkbox and try again!

The layout is completely flexible, feel free to change the size of each panel or hide them via the '<<' buttons to further expand the diagram.

It is also possible to directly load items with passing the symbol and expiration month in the url:

http://www.option-calc.com/optioncalc/?symb=ibm&exp=201202


DISCLAIMER:
By using this application you agree that BluSoft Inc. can in no way be held responsible for any calculation inaccuracies or financial losses that might occur when using OptionCalc. Furthermore the data utilized is provided by public sources and BluSoft Inc. will and cannot be held responsible for its accuracy.

Data Sources: Yahoo! Finance, Google Finance and other public sources