Put/call ratio
The put/call ratio divides put activity by call activity on an option chain, computed either on open interest or on the day's traded volume. A ratio above one means more puts than calls in the chosen measure; it describes the composition of the chain, not who holds each side or which way price will move.
Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026
Two ratios that are often confused
The two versions answer different questions and can point in different directions on the same day. A chain can carry heavy put open interest from older hedges while today's volume leans to calls. Always state which ratio is being quoted.
| Version | Numerator and denominator | What it describes | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open-interest ratio | Put open interest ÷ call open interest | Outstanding contracts, accumulated over time | Open interest is published once a day, after the close |
| Volume ratio | Put volume ÷ call volume | Contracts traded during the session | Intraday, as trades print |
What the number does not establish
- Open interest counts contracts, each with a long and a short side. A put open interest of a thousand contracts does not say whether dealers or clients hold the long side.
- A high ratio is often read as fear, but puts are also sold for income and bought as part of spreads. The ratio cannot separate those uses.
- It carries no strike information. Two chains with the same ratio can have their puts concentrated at very different distances from spot, which is exactly what the gamma profile shows and the ratio hides.
- It is not a directional forecast. Extreme readings are sometimes treated as contrarian, but that is a hypothesis to test on recorded data, not a property of the ratio.
Reading it beside gamma exposure
Gamma exposure aggregates gamma by strike under a positioning assumption; the put/call ratio is a raw count that needs no model. When the ratio rises while put walls below spot strengthen, the two readings are consistent. When they diverge, the ratio is usually reacting to volume at strikes with little gamma, or to expiries outside the GEX scope. The divergence is information about scope, not a contradiction.
In Senzoukria
The GEX workspace shows Put/Call OI in its quick statistics beside Total GEX, and the same figure appears on the Welcome screen's GEX module. It is the open-interest version, computed from the chain snapshot returned by the configured options source. When the chain does not carry the fields needed, the panel shows that the put/call open interest ratio is missing rather than displaying a zero.
The Strikes page, under Net GEX by strike, shows each strike's open interest as calls and puts, so the composition behind the single ratio can be inspected strike by strike. All of this is conditional on an options source being configured; the futures connection alone cannot produce it.
Common mistakes
- Comparing an open-interest ratio from one dashboard with a volume ratio from another.
- Reading intraday moves into an open-interest ratio that is refreshed once a day.
- Treating a ratio computed on all expiries as if it described the same-day chain.
Related
This page in other languages
Frequently asked questions
- Is a put/call ratio above one bearish?
- Not by itself. A ratio above one says the chain carries more puts than calls in the measure used, which can come from protective hedging, income selling, spread legs or index-fund overlay programmes. Whether that composition has any bearing on the next move is a research question that needs recorded data and a rule written in advance.
- Why does the put/call ratio differ between sites?
- The most frequent cause is the measure: one site divides open interest, another divides the session's volume. After that come the underlying (SPX, SPY and the ES options are different chains), the expiries included and the snapshot time. Two ratios are comparable only when all four match.
- How often does the open-interest put/call ratio update?
- Open interest is published once a day after the close, so an open-interest ratio describes yesterday's positioning throughout the session. Intraday changes in the ratio you see come from a fresh snapshot of a figure that has not itself changed, or from a switch to the volume version.