"Max pain" for tomorrow's opex indicates where these markets may move as early as this afternoon

The closer one gets to opex the more the "max pain" values can be significant. They're less reliable in strongly trending markets, but I think we can safely say that the levels indicated by the "max pain" numbers for QQQQ, SPY, gold, oil, TLT, and the euro and yen (below) would not be contrary to strong trends right now. For the June expiration tomorrow, according to the Option Pain CBOE (Max-Pain) Calculator (always included in "other sites of interest" at right side of the page here), these values are:

QQQQ 34
SPY 90
GLD 90
USO 34
FXE 140
FXY 106
TLT 93

When you look at the graphics that this Option Pain CBOE (Max-Pain) Calculator website generates along with these values, many are showing shallow "U" shaped curves this time, rather than "V" curves. Therefore the max pain number doesn't look as entrenched into that one number in all cases. I interpret this to imply that the actual prices we see going into tomorrow may fluctuate about the max pain point somewhat more, than if the curves were more "V" shaped.

The calculator at that website allows you to input any ticker symbol you're interested in, and also to specify which month's expiration. But, as I indicated, given that it's a snapshot in time of where sentiment lies for "maximum pain," it tends to be a more useful indicator fairly close to opex.