USFD Put/Call Ratio
Two different numbers travel under this name, and they answer different questions — what traded today, and what is still open. Both are below, kept apart on purpose.
Open interest and pricing as of the close on 2026-09-03. Recomputed every morning before the open.
945 puts against 3,590 calls still open across 36 strikes.
Notably more call than put contracts. Often read as optimism, though calls are also sold for income against stock.
Contracts changing hands in the last session, calls and puts alike.
Every one of those trades has a buyer and a seller. The ratio counts contracts, not conviction.
Open-interest ratio by time to expiry
One headline ratio hides where the puts actually sit. Short-dated and long-dated positioning routinely disagree, and the split is usually the more informative read — index products in particular carry their puts far out, where portfolio hedges live.
Open-interest ratio by moneyness
Where in the strike ladder the open contracts sit. Out-of-the-money puts are the classic hedge; out-of-the-money calls are the classic speculation. A name can look balanced overall and be lopsided at both ends.
| Moneyness | Put/call OI | Call OI | Put OI |
|---|---|---|---|
| In the money | 0.01 | 1,503 | 18 |
| At the money | 0.19 | 201 | 39 |
| Out of the money | 0.47 | 1,886 | 888 |
USFD put/call ratio, explained
Volume or open interest — which one is “the” put/call ratio?
Neither, and that is the point. The volume ratio counts contracts traded in a single session, so it is noisy and current. The open-interest ratio counts contracts still outstanding, so it is slow and cumulative. Most sites publish one and do not say which, which is why two sources will quote you different numbers for the same ticker on the same day. We publish both, labelled.
Does a high ratio mean the stock is going down?
No, and this is the most common misreading. A put can be bought as a bearish bet or as insurance on shares someone intends to keep; a short put is a bullish position that adds to put open interest all the same. The ratio tells you how much put exposure exists, not who wanted it or why. Read it as a measure of hedging demand and crowding, not as a direction.
Why is the ratio on index ETFs always higher?
Because institutions hedge portfolios with index puts as a matter of routine, so names like SPY carry a structurally put-heavy book that says nothing about anyone’s forecast. Compare a ticker against its own history rather than against another ticker — a reading of 1.2 is unremarkable for an index product and notable for a single stock.
Why no breakdown of traded volume by expiry?
Because we do not measure it. Our pipeline records total call and put volume for the session and per-bucket totals, but not the call/put split within each expiry bucket — so any per-expiry volume ratio we showed would be the overall ratio restated, which would look like several independent readings while being one. The term structure above is built from open interest, where the per-bucket counts are genuinely measured.
How current is this?
Open interest is published once a day by OCC after settlement, so every open-interest ratio anywhere — ours included — describes the previous session’s positioning. Volume is the last completed session. We recompute both each morning before the open.
More on USFD
Weekly options-market digest
Sundays. What moved this week, what catalysts and earnings drive next week, and which 5-pillar setups stand out.
Free. One email per week. Unsubscribe with one click.
Educational, not investment advice. Options involve risk. Open interest is reported with a one-session lag by OCC, so these levels describe positioning as of the last settled session, not live intraday flow.