How the sample put/call ratio is calculated
The volume ratio is the sum of accepted put-contract volume divided by accepted call-contract volume. The open-interest ratio uses outstanding contract counts instead. Contracts are counted, not premium dollars, delta exposure or trades initiated by buyers.
Coverage comes before interpretation
This tool requests one Massive snapshot page with a 250-contract limit, ordered by ascending strike. It does not follow the continuation URL. A strike-ordered sample can overrepresent part of a chain, and changes in expirations or strikes can change its ratio without a comparable change in market activity.
- Check accepted put and call counts and the continuation warning.
- Check missing fields and daily-bar dates. A missing value is not a zero-volume observation.
- Volume ratio requires all accepted rows to have valid nonnegative volume and one common New York bar date. A positive call denominator and both contract types are required.
- Open interest is checked separately and can refer to a different reporting schedule. Browser receipt time does not establish recency.
A calculation you can reproduce
Hypothetically, 120 put contracts and 80 call contracts traded on the same reported day give 120 / 80 = 1.5. That means 1.5 put contracts per call contract in that sample. It does not mean a 60% chance of a price decline. If call volume is zero, the ratio is undefined, not zero. If a required volume is absent, the tool displays Unavailable.
What the gauge and session log can show
The gauge displays ratios on a zero-to-two scale and caps only the needle above two. It has no bullish or bearish recommendation. The log keeps the last 20 successful lookups for the current symbol; it is not a downloaded time series, and repeated responses may be identical. Check sample composition and dates before comparing rows.
Why volume does not identify intent
Every traded contract has a buyer and seller. Opening versus closing trades, spreads, hedges and option sales can have different exposures. A universal threshold cannot convert these totals into a reliable forecast. This tool does not identify institutional positions or validate a contrarian trading strategy.
Sources and data checks
Massive option-chain snapshot documentation specifies the page limit, continuation, daily-bar fields and access-dependent recency. Verify current entitlement and returned timestamps; the endpoint is a snapshot rather than historical PCR data.