Put-Call Ratio Indicator: Volume vs Open Interest

Volume PCR = total put volume / total call volume over the same session or reporting window. Open-interest PCR = total put open interest / total call open interest at the same dated snapshot. Keep the underlying, included expirations, strikes and contract filters identical on both sides. Premium dollars and delta exposure are different measures and should not be mixed with contract counts.

Suppose one stock has 7,000 puts and 10,000 calls traded today, while its published OI snapshot contains 24,000 puts and 20,000 calls. Volume PCR is 0.70; OI PCR is 1.20. These hypothetical readings can coexist because trading activity is a flow and OI is an outstanding-contract count. Neither tells you which participant initiated a position or whether it is hedged.

TradingView lists USI:PCCE for equities, USI:PCCI for indexes, and USI:PCC for the combined Cboe ratio. Search the exact identifier in symbol search and check its description before adding it to a chart. These are aggregate series, not the PCR of whichever stock chart is open.

For a community indicator, inspect its description and available source to identify the requested symbol, timeframe and smoothing. A moving average of daily PCR is not the ratio of rolling put volume to rolling call volume. In a hypothetical two-day example, 100 puts / 100 calls and 900 puts / 300 calls produce daily ratios of 1 and 3. Their average is 2, but the two-day volume PCR is 1,000 / 400 = 2.5.

Start with daily bars and compare a dated observation with the original provider. A daily value repeated across intraday bars does not become an intraday options feed. The public symbol listings checked on October 17, 2026 did not establish live availability or a guaranteed update schedule; confirm the latest available observation in your chart.

There is no universal PCR threshold that identifies a market top or bottom. OIC describes both sentiment and contrarian interpretations and labels its threshold examples as illustrative. A value of 1.0 means equal put and call counts, not a guaranteed neutral market.

One explicit research definition is "today's completed daily equity-volume PCR exceeds the 95th percentile of the preceding 252 valid daily observations." Fix the universe, lookback, percentile method and smoothing in advance, and exclude today from the reference sample. Using the nearest-rank method, sort 252 prior readings and take observation ceil(0.95 × 252) = 240. If that hypothetical cutoff is 1.18, today's 1.25 qualifies; 1.18 does not qualify under a strict greater-than rule. These are illustrative inputs, not market measurements or recommended trade thresholds.

An extreme describes rarity in that sample. It does not supply a direction or an entry time. Test any subsequent price rule on separate data and retain the publication lag. On a thin stock, 10 puts / 20 calls = 0.5 becomes 40 / 20 = 2.0 after just 30 additional put contracts, without establishing a market-wide change in sentiment.

Open Options Flow from Pineify Market Insights to inspect available alerts by ticker, option type, expiration, premium, volume and open interest. The current flow view also provides ask/bid premium context. Check the selected filters and record timestamps before comparing an alert with an aggregate PCR observation.

The flow view is a filtered alert dataset, not a verified full-market PCR feed. Counting its put alerts and dividing by its call alerts would measure alert counts, not total traded contracts. Summing repeated contract-level volume or OI fields can double-count the same contract. Use a provider's defined aggregate PCR series, or a complete, deduplicated dataset with matching timestamps, for the ratio itself. This guide does not establish a live equity/index/total PCR series inside Pineify.

Use these comparisons for research. They are not investment advice or a promise of profitable signals.