Expiry Ladder

It shows the option contracts that are still open on one stock, sorted by the date they run out. See Reading The Options Suite for how to read it.

At a glance

• What this screen is. A head count of option contracts that are still open on one stock.
• How they are sorted. Every open contract goes into a bucket by its expiry date. Next week, next month, six months out.
• A row. One horizontal bar for one bucket. Nearest date at the top.
• Calls and puts. A call is worth more to whoever bought it if the stock rises. A put is worth more to whoever bought it if the stock falls. Every contract has a buyer and a seller on opposite sides.
• Thickness. How many contracts are open at that date in total. Thicker means more of them.
• Width. Calls stretch right of the centre line, puts stretch left. Each side is measured in share equivalents, not in contracts.
• Share equivalents. The two sides restated in share terms. Each contract counts as the number of shares it behaves like. The tables under the rows shorten the term to sh eq. A Calls, sh eq column header means the same thing as share equivalents on the calls side.
• The chip at the top. Two percentages. They say what share of all the open contracts on this stock run out within 7 days, and within 30 days.
• Hovering a row. It prints four numbers for that date. They are listed under "What it shows" below.
• How old the numbers are. They were taken after the market closed last night. They do not change during the day.
• What it cannot tell you. Nothing here says what the stock does next.
• Key difference: width = share equivalents on each side. Thickness = how many contracts are open.

What it shows

By expiry

The view the pane opens on. One row per listed expiry date, out to roughly seven months. The nearest date sits at the top and the furthest at the bottom. Width and thickness are two separate measurements. One can be large while the other is small. A row can be wide and thin, or narrow and thick.

• Open interest. The plain name for contracts that are still open. It is a stockpile of standing positions, not a record of today's trading.
• How much runs out soon. A chip at the top reads X% of open interest inside 7 days and Y% inside 30 days. The first number is the share of all open contracts on this stock that run out within 7 days. The second is the share that run out within 30 days.
• The prior trading day. A toggle marked Show prior day. Each row then splits in two. Today's bar sits on top in full colour. The prior trading day's bar sits under it, in a lighter shade with a solid outline.
• The change. Where a row has room, the figure at the outer end of each side is today less the prior day, in share equivalents. The table under the bars gains two columns, Calls change and Puts change.
• The legend. A line under the rows names both bars and both dates. The toggle is off by default, and it appears once two nights of numbers exist.

The table under the bars

Added 2026-09-16, so the same figures the drawing shows also sit in a plain list. One row per bar, and hovering a row lights the matching bar above it.

• Expiry. The date that row's contracts run out.
• Days. How many days remain until that date.
• Calls, sh eq. The open calls at that date, restated in share equivalents, which is delta times open interest times 100, the shares the calls stand for.
• Puts, sh eq. The same restatement for the open puts. A put's delta is negative, so the column runs the other way.
• Open interest. How many contracts are open at that date, before either side is restated in shares.
• Share of total. That date's open interest as a share of every listed date's, with a bar behind the figure.

By strike

A second tab turns the ladder ninety degrees. One row per strike, the thirty nearest the share price, with every captured expiry added together.

• Right bar. The open calls at that strike, in share equivalents.
• Left bar. The open puts at that strike, in share equivalents. A put has a negative delta, so its bar points the other way.
• The line. Calls minus puts at each strike, a display convention (puts already carry a negative sign, so the line nets the two sides). It does not say who holds the contracts.
• The dashed line. Where the share price stood at the capture.
• Not on this tab. The prior trading day's bars. They belong to the dates.
• The table under the ladder. One row per strike: Strike, Calls, sh eq, Puts, sh eq, and Net, sh eq. Net is calls minus puts at that strike, a display convention. Sh eq, share equivalents: the open contracts times their delta times 100, the shares they stand for. Key difference: By expiry asks when the open contracts run out. By strike asks at which price they are written.

Point at a row for its exact numbers. There are four of them.

• Expiry date. The date the contracts in that row run out.
• Days left. How many days there are until that date.
• Open contracts. How many contracts are still open at that date.
• Share equivalents. The call side and the put side, each restated in share terms.

Play forward

A strip under the tabs moves the pane to a later date. Every options pane that shows the chain moves with it.

• What rolls off. Every expiry on or before the date. Its rows leave the drawing and the table, because those contracts have expired by then.
• Strikes at the date. Only the expiries still open are added up at each strike on the second tab.
• The line under the strip. It states how much of today's open interest is left, and the call and put share equivalents still open.
• What stays still. Last night's open contracts on the dates still open. New contracts open every day, so a later capture will differ.
• At today. The pane shows exactly what it shows without the strip.

Using it for a decision:

• How much disappears this Friday. Step to Friday's expiry and read the share of open interest left. The drop is the share that expires that day.
• Choosing an expiry. Step past each date in turn. The dates that take the most open interest with them are the ones where the most contracts end.
• Pin risk around a big expiry. Compare the step before and after a large date. A big drop marks the day a lot of positioning comes off.

Reading it well

• What thickness does not mean. A thick near row means many open contracts sit close to their date. It says nothing about direction.
• How the width is worked out. Delta is roughly how many shares one contract behaves like. Delta multiplied by open interest restates the open contracts in share terms. That puts the call side and the put side in the same unit, so they can be compared directly. It is not a count of shares that changed hands.
• What the dashed outlines show. They show what changed since last night. A row that shrank has fewer contracts open than it did. Three things do that:
  • Closed. Somebody ended the position early.
  • Ran out. The contracts reached their date.
  • Moved. The position was shifted to a later date. Traders call that rolling.

Common misreadings. - A thick row is not a price barrier. A pile of open contracts does not hold the price up or push it down. It is only a count of positions people still have open. The Gamma Map's call wall and put wall name the largest strikes the same way, and neither promises a price stops there either. - Why a near row thins out. A row thinning as its date approaches is ordinary rolling. It is not news about the stock. - How old these numbers are. They were taken after the market closed last night. They do not change during the day, so nothing here reflects today's trading.

Frequently asked questions

Does a thick row mean the stock will struggle to get past a price? No. Thickness is a count of open contracts at that date, nothing more. The Gamma Map's Hedging pressure tab names a call wall and a put wall from a count like this one. Even there the word names a count. It is not a promise that a price stops or turns. What are share equivalents? Delta multiplied by open interest, restated in share terms. Delta is roughly how many shares one contract behaves like. It lets the call side and the put side be compared directly. It counts contracts already open, not shares traded. What does the show prior trading day toggle do? It draws last night's numbers as dashed outlines behind tonight's rows. You can see which dates grew, shrank or moved on. It appears only once we have two nights of stored numbers for that stock. Is this telling me what the stock will do, or what to trade? No. Everything here restates contracts that are already open, and it is market data, not the desk's own view. The desk's view on HD or any name is on the Read-out and in the Ask, labelled. See Reading The Options Suite for the rules every options pane follows. Why did a row near its date get thinner overnight? Usually one of the three ordinary reasons above. Contracts were closed, they ran out, or they were moved to a later date. That is the calendar at work, not news about the stock. How often is this updated? Once per trading day. The numbers are read from the options chain after the market closes, so nothing here reflects today's trading.

Related panes

• Reading The Options Suite explains the words used across all the options screens, and what those screens will and will not tell you.
• The Panes is the full map of all panes, grouped by workspace.
• Positioning Replay shows the same open positioning replayed trading day by trading day instead of laid out by date.
• Strike Table breaks the same head count out strike by strike instead of summing it by date.