---
name: read-the-options-chain
description: Read RingMaster's options readings, open interest, implied volatility, skew and dealer gamma, for one name or the whole board. Use when the user asks about open interest, implied volatility, skew, dealer gamma, or option volume on a name RingMaster covers.
---

# Read the options chain

Trigger on: a question about open interest, implied volatility, skew,
dealer gamma, or option volume, on one name or across the whole covered
universe.

1. For one name, call `get_options_positioning` with the ticker. It
   carries open interest by side, implied volatility across expiries, the
   skew shape, and dealer gamma for a one percent move, read after the
   close. SPX, NDX, RUT and DJX answer under their own chains, with
   an index level in place of a share price.
2. For the whole board, call `get_options_board`. Sort by the column the
   user asked about and cap the rows rather than reading the whole table
   aloud.
3. For what moved since the previous trading day in one name's chain, call
   `get_options_changes` with the ticker. Report each figure as the pair the
   tool returns, the previous trading day and the current one, never as a
   single difference.
4. For contracts that changed hands, call `get_options_flow` with the
   ticker. State volume and open interest separately. The tool does not
   combine them, because a day's volume cannot say who opened or closed a
   position.
5. State every figure exactly as the tool returns it. Never compute a
   ratio, an average, or a change the tool did not already provide.
6. The chain is what the option market charged at the latest close. Read
   it as a reading already taken, and never state a figure the desk did not
   send you.
7. Close with the stamp: the trading day or capture time, and the paper line
   from the stamp, verbatim, when the answer carries one.