CRWV Options Are Pricing a ±$7.40 Move — Max Pain Says $91, the Charts Say $82.75

The options market implies a $76.78–$91.64 range into the September 4 expiration; here's what's driving it, where the levels sit, and three defined-risk ways to trade it.

Published Saturday, August 29, 2026 · Data as of the Friday, August 28 close

Explore the live CRWV options data in the Detailed Options Analyzer →

Quick answer

Item	Answer
Market bias	Neutral
Options-implied range (into Sept 4)	$76.78 – $91.64 (±8.8%)
Major support	$80
Major resistance	$90 (the Sept 4 expiration's call wall)
Max pain (Sept 4)	$91
Dealer gamma regime (estimate)	Negative for the Sept 4 expiration — hedging tends to amplify moves; no flip level could be estimated from today's chain
Volatility condition	Falling — IV rank 2/100 · premium thin: options priced about 42 vol points below delivered movement (earnings-gap distorted)
Technical check	Diverges (bearish, 4-day and 6-day models)
Best-fitting strategy	Put debit spread — conditional on $83 giving way
Analysis invalidated if	CRWV closes below $80

1 · What matters today

CRWV closed Friday at $84.23 after sliding 4.1% over five sessions, and the options market is pricing a ±8.8% move — roughly $7.40 either way — into the September 4 expiration. That's a $76.78–$91.64 band, derived from what straddles cost at that expiry. Our read of the options flow lands squarely neutral: the leading positioning read and short-term momentum lean bearish, while sentiment in short-dated contracts and the shape of skew lean bullish, and they cancel out almost exactly. The single strike that matters is $90 — it carries both the heaviest call open interest and the heaviest put open interest for that expiration, with max pain at $91. Implied volatility sits at the 2nd percentile of its own past year, so this is a cheap-options tape, not a rich one. Both technical models disagree with the chain and target roughly $82.75. A close below $80 breaks the picture.

2 · What the options market is pricing

What changed this week

The dominant move was in volatility, not price. At-the-money implied volatility — the market's estimate of how much CRWV will move, baked into option prices — fell to 69.7%, down 5.8% on the day, 7.9% over five sessions and 36.9% over thirty. That leaves it 27% below its own 30-day average of 95.6% and near the bottom of its 52-week range at an IV rank of 2/100, meaning options are cheaper than 98% of the past year's readings.

Underneath that, downside positioning kept building. Put open interest — contracts currently held open — now outnumbers call open interest for the first time in weeks: 423,126 puts against 400,722 calls, a ratio of 1.06 versus a 14-day average of 0.79. For every call contract held open there are now 1.06 puts; two weeks ago there were 0.79. Thursday-to-Friday alone, calls added 6,378 contracts of open interest while puts added 45,743. The biggest forward-looking builds were both at the target expiration: the September 4 $92 puts added 2,646 contracts (to 2,950) and the $90 puts added 2,199 (to 3,065). Total option volume ran at 0.96× its 20-day average — an ordinary session, not a panic.

The three horizons of this stock's trend disagree openly, and that tension is the story. Price is down 4.1% over the past week, up 17.9% over the past month, and down 27.1% over the past two-and-a-half months. Near-term flow and the bigger trend are pointing different ways, and the 20-day bounce that produced the middle number was itself built on a single 20% gap. That is a poor foundation for a confident directional call in either direction.

Expected move

Into September 4, the options market is pricing a ±8.8% move — about $7.43 around Friday's chain-snapshot price of $84.21, or $76.78 to $91.64.

Expiration	Implied move	Range around $84.21
Fri, Sept 4 (7 DTE)	±8.8%	$76.78 – $91.64
Fri, Sept 11 (14 DTE)	±12.7%	$73.51 – $94.91
Fri, Sept 18 (21 DTE)	±16.1%	$70.67 – $97.75
Fri, Sept 25 (28 DTE)	±19.3%	$67.98 – $100.44

The rungs scale smoothly — each extra week adds three to four points of implied range, roughly what pure time alone implies. No single expiration carries an extra bump, so nothing dated is being singled out and priced into one particular week.

Volatility

At 69.7%, at-the-money implied volatility is low by this stock's own standards but still enormous in absolute terms: the market is paying for a 9% swing over five trading days. IV rank of 2/100 and an IV percentile of 0.4 both say the same thing — today's option prices are at the floor of their 52-week distribution, and they are still contracting, with the 30-day and 90-day averages (95.6% and 93.5%) sitting far above spot IV. Front-month term structure — comparing option prices across different expiration dates — is unavailable today because Friday was itself an expiry date, so that reading returns next session.

Two "versus its own norm" readings sharpen the picture. The pace of IV compression is well above what is typical for this name — options have been getting cheaper unusually fast. And the stock's realized movement over the past week has collapsed relative to its own past month: the 5-day-to-20-day realized-vol ratio is unusually depressed, one of the quietest readings this symbol has produced recently.

Premium rich or cheap. The volatility risk premium — the gap between how much movement options are priced for and how much CRWV has actually delivered — is running at about minus 42 vol points: ATM IV of 69.7% against 20-day realized volatility of 112%. That sits at the 13th percentile of this stock's own recent readings, meaning premium is thinner than roughly 87% of them. Normally that combination — IV rank 2 and a bottom-decile premium over delivered movement — argues loudly for owning premium rather than selling it. Here it needs a caveat: the company reported on August 11, and the 20% gap the following session still sits inside the 20-day realized-vol window. That single day is doing most of the work in the 112% realized figure, so the negative gap is partly mechanical, not free edge. Strip it out and the honest read is narrower: the 10-day realized figure of 64.4% sits just below today's 69.7% IV. Options are historically cheap versus their own past year; they are not obviously cheap versus what the stock has been doing this past week.

Skew and sentiment

Skew — the fact that puts and calls the same distance from the stock price don't cost the same — is running the unusual way. The 25-delta put trades at 68.6% implied volatility against 70.4% for the 25-delta call, so calls are about 1.8 vol points richer than equidistant puts, against a 60-day median of puts being 0.4 points richer. That's roughly 2.2 vol points flatter than this stock's own norm, and it has held for two weeks (the 14-day average is 2.1 points call-tilted). Traders are not paying up for crash protection at that distance — if anything they're paying up for upside.

That sits oddly next to the open-interest build, and the contradiction is the whole reason this read is neutral. Put/call volume came in at 0.71, about 9% above its 60-day median of 0.65 and in line with its 14-day average of 0.74 — mildly put-tilted. Sentiment in the shortest-dated options (0–7 days) reads clearly bullish, driven by call-side open interest building in that bucket, while the 7–30 day bucket is barely positive at all. Meanwhile, one reading stands out against its own history: put-side sweeps dominated the unusually-heavy-volume set unusually strongly for this name — nine put contracts cleared the peer-relative volume bar against six calls. Read together, this looks less like conviction and more like hedging and spread-building layered onto a chain where directional demand has quietly tilted toward calls.

The key levels map

Level	Price	Why it matters
Whole-chain call wall	$110	87,835 calls open across all expirations, mostly September 18 — far overhead, irrelevant to this window
Swing resistance	$99.60 / $101.12	Price-structure pivots from the early-August spike
Heavy call strike	$95	1,734 Sept 4 calls open; 3,205 traded Friday
Swing resistance	$91.02	Nearest structural ceiling above the implied range
Top of implied range (Sept 4)	$91.64	Upper 1σ rail from the options market's own pricing
Max pain (Sept 4)	$91	The price where the most option value would expire worthless — expirations sometimes gravitate toward it
Call wall AND put wall (Sept 4)	$90	1,744 calls and 3,065 puts open at the same strike — also the largest total gamma strike in the whole chain
50-day average	$87.88	Price sits 4.2% below it
Swing resistance / heavy strike	$85.37 / $85	Nearest overhead pivot; $85 carries the busiest contracts in the chain on both sides
Spot / close	$84.21 / $84.23	Chain-snapshot price and official close
Swing support	$83.23	The last shelf before the implied range's lower half
Heaviest Sept 4 put strike below spot	$80	1,698 puts open; also the second-largest gamma strike chain-wide — the invalidation level for this read
Swing support	$79.46	Structural backup to $80
Bottom of implied range (Sept 4)	$76.78	Lower 1σ rail
Dense put strike	$75	1,793 Sept 4 puts and 19,072 September 18 puts — the thickest put shelf in the near chain
52-week low / chain put wall	$60.55 / $60	49,922 puts open at $60 across all expirations — a far-dated floor, not a weekly one

One point of housekeeping: the whole chain's heaviest call strike is $110 and its heaviest put strike is $60, but neither belongs to this week. The September 4 expiration's own walls both land at $90 — that is the number to trade against over the next five sessions, and it disagrees sharply with the all-expiration aggregate because that aggregate is dominated by the huge September 18 and October positions.

Positioning and unusual flow

One rough estimate of dealer positioning — market makers hedge the options they've sold — puts the September 4 expiration in a negative-gamma regime, where that hedging tends to amplify moves rather than cushion them. The whole-chain estimate agrees. The gamma flip level, below which hedging tends to accelerate selling rather than dampen it, could not be estimated from today's chain, so that particular guardrail simply isn't available this week. Treat all of this as an estimate built on an assumed dealer sign convention, not as observed inventory.

Three flow items stood out, all at the target expiration. The September 4 $85 puts traded 4,769 contracts against 1,203 open — about $1.63 million of premium, the largest single-contract print anywhere in the chain. The $85 calls traded 2,681 against 789 open ($712,000). And on the upside, the $95 calls traded 3,205 contracts and added 578 of open interest while the $90 calls traded 3,322 and added 402. That is heavy two-sided activity clustered at the money and at the wall — consistent with straddle and spread activity into a compressed-volatility expiration rather than a one-way directional bet. For context on what just settled: into Friday's expiration the $93 calls added 2,845 contracts of open interest on 3,462 of volume, which is now history.

3 · Technical check

Both technical models are bearish, and both are more confident than the options data is. The 4-day model targets $82.30 with a $81.20–$86.60 band into Tuesday, September 2. The 6-day model, which lands exactly on our September 4 expiration, targets $82.75 with a $80.70–$86.30 band. Both flag the same structure: price below every major moving average (13- and 34-period exponential, 50-day at $87.88, 200-day at $91.39), a rising ADX at 21.1 with the negative directional indicator at 24.7 versus 14.5 positive — trend strength building on the sell side — and price pinned against the lower Bollinger Band at $83.06.

Both also flag deceleration: RSI has ticked up from 29.2 to 34.9 while price made marginal new lows, and the MACD histogram has compressed for three consecutive bars. That is seller exhaustion, not a reversal — and it's why the dominant scenario in the 6-day report (45% weight) still requires a close below $83.00 to trigger, with a target of $80.50–$81.00 and invalidation on reclaiming $85.40.

Classification: Diverges. The models pick a side the chain refuses to pick, and they point away from where max pain sits. It did not change the bias — technical work never does here — but it did change strike selection: the bearish structure below is built to pay off inside the models' target zone rather than requiring a break of the lower implied rail, and the neutral structure's short call sits above max pain rather than below it.

Model vs. Market: The options market implies $76.78–$91.64 into September 4; the 6-day technical model targets $82.75 inside an $80.70–$86.30 band. The model is using less than 40% of the room the options market is paying for — if it's right about direction and the chain is right about magnitude, the trade is a tight, defined-risk short-side structure, not a lottery ticket.

Full technical write-ups: 4-day report → · 6-day report →

4 · Three ways the next five days can go

If CRWV pushes above the $90 wall: that strike carries the expiration's heaviest call open interest (1,744 contracts), and dense call positioning overhead has historically slowed rallies into expiry. But it also carries the heaviest put open interest (3,065), which cuts the other way — those puts decay toward worthlessness on the way up. Clear it and max pain at $91 and the upper implied rail at $91.64 sit immediately above, with the next dense call strike at $95.

If CRWV drifts between the levels: this is the base case for a neutral read, but it comes with an asterisk. Max pain at $91 sits nearly $7 above spot, so the usual "expirations gravitate toward max pain" story implies upward drift, not sideways chop. Against that, the dealer-gamma estimate for this expiration is negative, meaning hedging flows tend to extend moves rather than pin them. The two effects argue with each other, which is another way of saying the chain isn't offering a pin here — just a corridor from roughly $80 to $91.

If CRWV breaks below $80: that is the heaviest put strike below spot for this expiration and the second-largest gamma concentration in the chain, and it's where the technical models' downside targets live. Below it, positioning thins out until $76.78 (the implied-move floor) and $75, where 1,793 September 4 puts and another 19,072 September 18 puts are stacked. With no flip level estimable today, the honest framing is that the negative-gamma estimate applies across this expiration generally — a break lower is more likely to be extended by hedging than cushioned by it.

5 · Three defined-risk structures

Prices are end-of-day midpoints as of 2026-08-28. All structures are hypothetical. Verify live prices before trading — these will be stale by the open.

If you lean bearish: September 4 $85/$80 put debit spread

• Trade: Buy the Sept 4 $85 put, sell the Sept 4 $80 put
• Debit: $2.16 · Max profit: $2.84 · Max loss: $2.16 · Break-even: $82.84
• Why it fits: With IV rank at 2/100, this is the cheapest option premium CRWV has offered in a year, which favors paying for defined risk rather than collecting it. The break-even at $82.84 sits above both technical targets ($82.30 and $82.75), so the structure pays if the models are merely right, not spectacularly right. The short $80 strike parks itself on the expiration's heaviest below-spot put shelf.
• Makes sense only if: you believe the short-term trend read over the max-pain pull — this trade fights a $91 magnet.
• Invalidated if: CRWV closes above $85.40, the level both technical reports name as their own invalidation.
• Managing it: take profit at roughly 60–70% of maximum value or on any touch of the $82.00–$82.75 target zone; because the short-term direction is fighting a 20-day uptrend, take profits early rather than holding for the last dollar. Exit regardless by Wednesday, September 2 if nothing has happened — a 7-day debit spread bleeds fast once the move doesn't come.
• Liquidity note: the $85 puts traded 25¢ wide (about 7% of mark) and were the busiest contract in the entire chain at $1.63M of premium; the $80 puts traded 8¢ wide. Both fillable, but work the mid — you will not get the quoted midpoint on a market order.
• Analyze this position →

If you lean bullish: September 4 $85/$90 call debit spread

• Trade: Buy the Sept 4 $85 call, sell the Sept 4 $90 call
• Debit: $1.58 · Max profit: $3.42 · Max loss: $1.58 · Break-even: $86.58
• Why it fits: Max pain at $91 sits above spot, sentiment in the shortest-dated contracts leans bullish, and 25-delta calls are running 1.8 vol points richer than equidistant puts — which means selling the $90 call is selling the relatively expensive side. The short strike lands exactly on the expiration's call wall, where a rally would meet the densest overhead positioning anyway.
• Makes sense only if: $83.23 holds and the two technical models' 35%-weighted "oversold bounce" scenario plays out instead of their base case.
• Invalidated if: CRWV closes below $83.
• Managing it: close at 60% of maximum value or on any tag of $90; don't hold through Thursday hoping for the last increment — the same short-versus-long trend conflict argues for taking money early.
• Liquidity note: the $85 calls traded 15¢ wide and the $90 calls 5¢ wide (about 4.7% of mark) on 3,322 contracts — the tightest pairing available at this expiration.
• Analyze this position →

If you expect the range to hold: September 4 $75/$78/$92/$95 iron condor

• Trade: Sell the $78 put / buy the $75 put, sell the $92 call / buy the $95 call, all Sept 4
• Credit: $0.75 · Max profit: $0.75 · Max loss: $2.25 · Break-evens: $77.25 and $92.75
• Why it fits: You collect $75 per condor for betting CRWV finishes between $77.25 and $92.75 — a band that fully contains the options-implied $76.78–$91.64 range and both technical models' bands. The short call sits above max pain at $91, so an expiry drift toward $91 still pays.
• Health warning: you're selling premium that hasn't been rich lately. IV rank of 2/100 means option prices are at the floor of their 52-week range, and the volatility premium over delivered movement is at the 13th percentile of its own recent history. This is the structure the current volatility backdrop argues against, and it is priced accordingly — $0.75 of credit against $2.25 of risk.
• Makes sense only if: you specifically expect the past week's unusually quiet realized movement to persist, and you accept that the dealer-gamma estimate for this expiration points the wrong way for pinning.
• Invalidated if: CRWV closes below $80 or above $91 — either is a warning shot well before the break-evens.
• Managing it: close at 50% of maximum credit; exit regardless by Thursday, September 3 rather than carrying four short-dated legs into expiry Friday; if CRWV closes through either short strike, close rather than hope.
• Liquidity note: the $78 puts traded 6¢ wide and the $75 puts 3¢ wide; the $92 calls 8¢ and the $95 calls 5¢ — small in dollars, but 8–12% of mark on the wings. Enter as a single four-leg order and expect to give up several cents of the theoretical credit.
• Analyze this position →

If none of these: no trade

Standing aside is genuinely defensible this week. The directional composite is exactly neutral — the leading positioning read and momentum lean one way, short-dated sentiment and skew lean the other, and they cancel — so any directional structure here is buying the technical model's opinion, not the chain's. On the volatility side, the two obvious edges cancel too: IV rank of 2/100 says premium is cheap, but the headline "cheap versus realized" figure is inflated by a single 20% gap sitting inside the realized-volatility window, and the most recent week of actual movement has been below what options are charging. Cheap options that don't move are still a losing purchase. If you have no view on whether the past week's unusual quiet persists, the honest position is none.

6 · Quick FAQ

What is CRWV's expected move this week? ±$7.43 (±8.8%) into the September 4 expiration, or roughly $76.78 to $91.64 around Friday's $84.21, per the options market's straddle pricing as of August 28.

Is CRWV expected to go up or down over the next five days? Options positioning as of August 28 is genuinely neutral — bearish positioning and momentum readings are offset by bullish short-dated sentiment and unusually call-tilted skew — but that's a read of what traders have done, not a forecast. The actionable map is the $76.78–$91.64 range and the $80 / $90 levels, with max pain at $91 pulling upward and both technical models pointing to about $82.75.

Are CRWV options expensive right now? IV rank 2/100 says option prices are lower than 98% of the past year's readings. On top of that they're running about 42 vol points below the movement CRWV has actually delivered over 20 days — thinner than roughly 87% of this stock's own recent readings. The verdict is "cheap, with an asterisk": that gap is distorted by the August 11 report and the 20% gap the next session still sitting inside the realized-volatility window.

Where is CRWV's biggest options support and resistance? For September 4, both walls collapse onto $90 — 1,744 calls and 3,065 puts at the same strike. Below spot, the heaviest put shelf is $80 (1,698 contracts), then $75. The whole chain's aggregate walls sit far away at $110 and $60 and belong to later expirations, not this one.

What invalidates this read? A close below $80.

---

Methodology & disclosures. Data: end-of-day options-chain snapshot for CRWV, 2026-08-28, generated 2026-08-30T01:18:54.091Z. Prices shown are midpoints and will differ from live markets. Momentum/positioning scores and volatility-premium comparisons are descriptive measurements of past option flow and past price movement — not investment advice, signals, forecasts, or guarantees. Earnings dates and reported results are from the data provider's earnings feed as of 2026-08-30T01:18:54.091Z; report dates can change. All trade structures are hypothetical. Every structure shown has a defined maximum loss; you can lose the entire max-loss amount. Options involve substantial risk and are not suitable for all investors.