HOOD Options Are Pricing a ±$7 Move Into August 21 — Our Positioning Read Is Neutral, the Charts Are Not

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The options market implies an $88.41–$102.67 range into the August 21 expiration; here's what's driving it, the level map, and three defined-risk ways to trade it.

Published Saturday, August 15, 2026 · Data as of the 2026-08-14 close

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

Quick answer

Item	Answer
Market bias	Neutral
Options-implied range (into Aug 21)	$88.41 – $102.67 (±7.5%)
Major support	$90 — the heaviest live put open interest at the Aug 21 expiration (9,371 contracts); $93 shelf just above
Major resistance	$100 — Aug 21 call wall (18,422 contracts)
Max pain (Aug 21)	$93
Dealer gamma regime (estimate)	Positive — one rough estimate suggests hedging tends to dampen moves; flip level ≈ $100
Volatility condition	Falling — IV rank 16/100 · premium roughly fair: options priced ~2 vol points above delivered movement (the July 29 earnings gap still sits inside the realized-vol window)
Technical check	Diverges (bearish, 3-day and 6-day)
Best-fitting strategy	Iron condor — Aug 21 $90/$85 puts and $100/$105 calls
Analysis invalidated if	HOOD closes above $100

1 · What matters today

Our five-input read of HOOD's options flow lands at neutral — the signals genuinely disagree, and the arithmetic says so rather than hedging. Options are pricing a move of roughly $7.13 either way into Friday, August 21 (that's the move the options market is pricing in, derived from what straddles cost), which frames a $88.41–$102.67 box around Friday's $95.54 chain price. Inside that box, the gravity points slightly lower: max pain for August 21 — the price where the most option value would expire worthless — sits at $93, and traders added 38,946 puts versus just 1,176 calls in a single session. Overhead, $100 is a wall of 18,422 open call contracts. Both technical models we checked also lean lower, targeting $94.20. A close above $100 breaks this whole read.

2 · What the options market is pricing

What changed this week

Friday was the reversal. HOOD closed at $95.56 after finishing Thursday at $99.40 — roughly a 4% give-back in one session — yet the stock is still up 2.31% over the trailing five sessions and down 4.37% over 20. Implied volatility (the market's estimate of how much HOOD will move, baked into option prices) collapsed with it: at-the-money IV is 55.9%, down 5.9% on the day, 11.4% over five sessions and 22.0% over 30. IV rank is now 16/100 against a 7-day average of 25 and a 14-day average of 37 — option prices have been draining steadily.

The positioning shift is cleaner than the price action. Friday's chain added 38,946 put contracts against 1,176 calls, pushing the put/call open-interest ratio (how many puts are held open per call) from 0.74 to 0.84 over five days — right at its 14-day average of 0.85, but the direction of travel is one-sided. Put volume also ran a little hot: 0.54 puts per call traded versus a 14-day norm of 0.48. Meanwhile the biggest single build was on the call side and out of the money — the Aug 21 $104 calls gained 6,068 contracts to 6,409, and the $100 calls added 4,551 to 18,422. Into Friday's now-settled expiration, the $100 calls shed 2,697 contracts and the $95 calls 3,785 as they expired — settled history, not a live level.

The multi-horizon trend read is genuinely split: the past week is up 2.3%, the past month is down 4.4%, and the past two-and-a-half months are still up 16.1%. Near-term flow and the intermediate trend are pointing different ways, which argues for short-dated structures and taking profits early rather than pressing a directional view.

Expected move

Into the August 21 expiration, the chain prices a 1-sigma move of ±7.46%, or about $7.13 on a $95.54 spot — $88.41 to $102.67. Here's the ladder:

Expiration	Implied move	Range around $95.54
Friday, August 21	±7.5%	$88.41 – $102.67
Friday, August 28	±10.9%	$85.15 – $105.93
Friday, September 4	±13.5%	$82.60 – $108.48
Friday, September 18 (~1 month)	±17.6%	$78.76 – $112.32

The rungs step up almost exactly as the square root of time would predict — 55.9% at-the-money IV at the front, 56.7% out at a month. There is no kink in the curve, which means the chain is not pricing any dated event inside this window; it is simply pricing a fast-moving stock.

Volatility

At-the-money IV of 55.9% sounds enormous until you rank it: IV rank 16/100 means today's IV is cheaper than roughly 84% of the past year's readings, and the percentile is lower still. Current IV sits far under both its 30-day average (72.7%) and its 90-day average (68.6%). The front-month read is unavailable today — Friday was an expiry day, so the nearest expiration was zero days out and the short-end tenor can't be interpolated.

Two "vs its own norm" observations stand out — meaning unusual for HOOD specifically, not versus the broader market. First, 20-day realized volatility of 54.0% is unusually low for this stock's recent history; HOOD has been moving less than it typically does. Second, that IV compression is itself running at a pace well above this name's norm — option prices have been deflating faster than they usually do after a volatility spike.

Which brings us to whether premium is rich or cheap. The volatility risk premium — the gap between how much movement options are priced for and how much HOOD has actually delivered — is about 2 vol points positive, and sits richer than roughly 61% of this stock's own recent readings. That's the middle of the road: option sellers have been collecting a little more than realized movement cost them, but nothing like an edge. One caveat matters here: the July 29 earnings gap is still inside the 20-day realized-vol window, so the realized leg of that comparison is mechanically inflated and today's slim premium is partly a measurement artifact. The gap actually went negative between August 10 and 12 and flipped back positive on Thursday as realized vol rolled over — that flip is arithmetic, not a trader signal. Net verdict: with IV rank at 16 and the premium only middling versus its own history, neither aggressive premium selling nor aggressive premium buying is clearly favored this week.

Skew and sentiment

Skew — the fact that puts and calls the same distance from the stock price don't cost the same — is doing something unusual here. The 25-delta put trades at 54.3% IV while the 25-delta call trades at 58.5%: calls are running about 4.1 vol points over puts, against a 60-day median of puts being 0.4 points richer. That's a 4.5-point swing toward call richness versus this name's own norm, and it is one of the most stretched readings in the file. Translation: traders are paying up for upside participation, not crash protection — the classic footprint of complacency rather than fear, even as they simultaneously stack put open interest.

Put/call volume of 0.54 (still nearly two calls traded per put) is nonetheless more put-tilted than this stock's own recent baseline. And the short-dated sentiment split is stark: our read of the 0–7 day bucket sits at −51 — aggressive front-end put demand, driven by 7,749 calls leaving open interest against 1,611 puts added — while the 7–30 day bucket reads +49, with calls building and the 25-delta risk reversal 3.4 vol points more call-favored than usual. The front end went defensive in one session (its 7-day average is +22), while the next month out stayed constructive. Separately, our leading positioning read flipped to a bearish-divergence state on Friday: price rose 6.4% across the trailing ten sessions while the positioning score slipped about 19 points. Those are conditions that have historically preceded a turn — an early, unconfirmed read by construction, not a confirmed one.

The key levels map

Level	Price	Why it matters
Swing resistance	$108.81	Prior pivot cluster; well outside this window's implied range
Second call pile (Aug 21)	$105.00	8,259 open calls and a top-five gamma strike — the next magnet if $100 breaks
Top of implied range	$102.67	Upper 1-sigma rail into August 21
Call wall (Aug 21) + gamma flip estimate	$100.00	18,422 open calls at this expiration and the whole chain's heaviest call strike (48,780) — the two agree; one rough estimate also places the dealer gamma flip here
50-day moving average	$99.09	Price is 3.6% below it — the rally stalled underneath
200-day moving average	$97.26	Price is 1.8% below; the technical models treat a reclaim here as their bearish invalidation
Swing resistance / VWAP cluster	$96.59 – $96.85	Immediate overhead; Friday's failure point
Spot	$95.54 / $95.56	Chain-snapshot price and official close
20-day moving average	$94.87	Price is 0.7% above — the last thin cushion
Nearest swing support	$94.40	Recent consolidation low
Max pain (Aug 21) / swing shelf	$93.00 – $93.06	Where the most option value expires worthless; expirations sometimes gravitate here
Heaviest live put strike (Aug 21)	$90.00	9,371 open puts and a top-five gamma strike — the real downside shelf
Bottom of implied range	$88.41	Lower 1-sigma rail into August 21
Fresh put strike	$85.00	6,717 puts opened Friday at a brand-new strike — a tail hedge, not support
Nominal put wall	$50 (Aug 21) / $70 (whole chain)	The largest single put piles are deep, legacy out-of-the-money strikes — the two disagree, and neither is a live support shelf. Use $90 instead

Positioning and unusual flow

Market makers hedge the options they've sold, and in this regime the estimate says that hedging tends to dampen moves rather than amplify them: the August 21 expiration's own dealer-gamma estimate is positive, and so is the all-expiration aggregate. Read that as pin-friendly into Friday, with the caveat that these are estimates built on an assumed dealer sign convention, not observed inventory. Spot sits about 5% under the estimated flip near $100 — close enough that a push through the call wall would change the character of the tape, not just the level.

Three live prints stood out on Friday, and they cut both ways. The August 21 $94 puts traded 5,140 contracts against 685 open — 7.5 times turnover and $1.06 million of premium, the largest near-dated dollar print in the chain. The $91 puts traded 5,613 against 588 open (9.5×, $581,000). Against that, the $102 calls traded 6,935 contracts on 1,397 open ($607,000), and the $104 calls added 6,068 contracts of open interest. That is protection being bought just under spot while lottery-ticket calls get sold or bought above the wall — a chain positioning for chop with fat tails, not a one-way conviction bet.

3 · Technical check

Both technical reports we pulled read bearish, and both land inside the options-implied box. The 3-day model targets $94.70 with a $93.20–$97.70 range; the 6-day model, dated to the same August 21 expiration we're trading, targets $94.20 with a $92.30–$97.60 range. Their reference price of $95.53 matches the options chain's $95.54, so the two datasets are describing the same tape.

The reasoning is momentum-based: a fresh bearish MACD crossover, RSI falling from 69 to 46 in two sessions, and price now under both short-term EMAs and the VWAP cluster at $96.85. ADX has slipped from 34 to 26 with the directional lines converging — the up-leg's trend strength is fading rather than reversing outright. The one honest counterweight the reports flag is money flow: CMF remains firmly positive near 0.26 while price pulled back, hinting that larger participants absorbed the dip rather than distributing into it. That is why we classify this as a divergence against a neutral options read rather than a confirmation of anything — the direction contradicts the flat positioning score, while the target sits comfortably inside the implied range.

Model vs. Market: The options market implies $88.41–$102.67 into August 21; the 6-day technical model targets $94.20 within a $92.30–$97.60 box. The chart is drawing a far tighter picture than the option chain is charging for — and it draws it slightly below Friday's close, right on top of the $93 max-pain strike.

Practically, the technical read did one thing to the structures below: it kept us from shading the put side of the range trade any tighter than $90, and it made the bearish debit spread the second-listed structure rather than an afterthought.

Full technical write-ups: 3-day report → · 6-day report →

4 · Three ways the next six days can go

If HOOD pushes above the call wall ($100): that strike carries 18,422 open calls at this expiration and is the heaviest call strike in the entire chain — the heaviest overhead open interest tends to slow rallies as it is approached, because dealers hedging it sell into strength. A clean break through leaves the next real cluster at $105 (8,259 calls), with the 50-day average at $99.09 flipping from resistance to a floor. This is also the level our estimated gamma flip sits at, so a decisive move above it changes how hedging flows behave, not just where price is.

If HOOD drifts between the walls: this is the base case the positioning supports. Max pain for August 21 sits at $93, the estimated dealer-gamma regime for that expiration is on the dampening side, and the biggest live piles sit at $90 below and $100 above. Expirations sometimes gravitate toward max pain as hedges unwind, and the $93–$97 band is exactly where the technical models expect chop. A close-to-close finish anywhere in $93–$97 makes the range structure the winner and the directional ones a scratch.

If HOOD breaks below the put wall zone ($90): the $90 strike carries 9,371 open puts and is a top-five gamma strike; a break under it removes the last dense shelf before the $88.41 lower rail. Note that Friday's newest put position opened at $85 — 6,717 contracts at a strike that did not exist the day before. That is tail-hedge behavior, and it tells you where the chain thinks the air gets thin.

5 · Three defined-risk structures

Prices are end-of-day midpoints as of 2026-08-14. All structures are hypothetical. Verify live prices before trading — these will be stale by the open.

If you expect the range to hold: Iron condor

• Trade: Sell the Aug 21 $90/$85 put spread and the Aug 21 $100/$105 call spread (four legs, one contract each). You collect a credit today and keep it if HOOD finishes between $90 and $100.
• Credit: $1.40 · Max profit: $140 · Max loss: $360 · Break-evens: $88.60 and $101.40
• Why it fits: the short strikes are the two levels the chain actually built — the $100 call wall (18,422 contracts, matching the whole chain's heaviest call strike) and the $90 put cluster (9,371). The August 21 dealer-gamma estimate is on the dampening side, and max pain at $93 sits comfortably inside the tent.
• Makes sense only if: you accept selling premium at an IV rank of 16 — option prices are cheaper than 84% of the past year, so this is a positioning trade on the walls, not a volatility trade.
• Invalidated if: HOOD closes above $100 or below $90.
• Managing it: close at ~50% of max credit; with only six days of life there is no time to be patient — exit the whole structure by Thursday's close rather than carrying expiration-day gamma. If either short strike is breached on a closing basis, close that side rather than hope.
• Liquidity note: the $85 puts and $105 calls quote a penny wide, the $100 calls 3¢ and the $90 puts 4¢ — all four legs fill cleanly.
• Analyze this position →

If you lean bearish: $95/$91 put debit spread

• Trade: Buy the Aug 21 $95 put, sell the Aug 21 $91 put. You pay a debit up front and profit as HOOD falls toward $91.
• Debit: $1.49 · Max profit: $251 · Max loss: $149 · Break-even: $93.51
• Why it fits: it is the cleanest expression of the one thing options and charts agree on — the $93 max-pain strike and the technical target of $94.20 both sit below spot, and with IV rank at 16 you are buying decay-exposed premium at the cheap end of its yearly range rather than the expensive end. The short-term trend fighting the two-month uptrend is exactly why this is a six-day structure and not a six-week one.
• Makes sense only if: HOOD fails to reclaim the $96.85 VWAP/moving-average cluster early in the week.
• Invalidated if: HOOD closes above $97.30 (the 200-day average, and the technical models' own kill switch).
• Managing it: take profits into $93 rather than pressing for $91 — the max-pain strike is where hedging flows fight you. Cut at 50% of the debit if the stock is above $96.50 by Tuesday's close; a directional debit spread with three days left and no move is dead money.
• Liquidity note: the $95 puts traded 6¢ wide on 2,087 contracts and the $91 puts 3¢ wide on 5,613 — this was the most actively traded corner of the chain on Friday.
• Analyze this position →

If you lean bullish: $93/$90 put credit spread

• Trade: Sell the Aug 21 $93 put, buy the Aug 21 $90 put. You collect a credit today and keep all of it if HOOD holds above $93 into Friday.
• Credit: $0.86 · Max profit: $86 · Max loss: $214 · Break-even: $92.14
• Why it fits: the short strike sits exactly on max pain and the $93.06 swing shelf, with the long leg parked at the $90 put cluster. It pays if the expiration simply pins where the open interest says it should, and skew is on your side — puts are currently 4.1 vol points cheaper than equidistant calls versus a norm of being richer, so downside insurance is unusually inexpensive to sell here.
• Makes sense only if: you read the 7–30 day sentiment (+49, calls building) as the truer signal than Friday's one-session put surge.
• Invalidated if: HOOD closes below $93.
• Managing it: close at ~50% of max credit, and exit no later than Thursday. This is the structure most exposed to the technical read being right, so size it smaller than you otherwise would.
• Liquidity note: the $93 puts trade 8¢ wide (about 4.8% of mark) and the $90 puts 4¢ — acceptable, but work the mid rather than crossing the spread.
• Analyze this position →

If none of these: no trade

There is a real case for standing aside. Selling premium at an IV rank of 16 — with the premium over delivered movement only middling versus this stock's own history, and that comparison distorted by the July 29 earnings gap still sitting inside the realized-vol window — means collecting thin compensation in a stock that dropped 4% in a single session on Friday. The condor risks $360 to make $140 in a name whose 20-day realized volatility is 54%. Buying premium is cheap by yearly standards but fights six days of decay. And the headline signal itself is neutral: our positioning inputs disagree with each other, and the only directional conviction in this article comes from technical models that a flat options read does not corroborate. Waiting for HOOD to resolve either through $100 or under $93 — and trading the level that breaks — is a defensible plan.

6 · Quick FAQ

What is HOOD's expected move this week? About ±$7.13, or ±7.5%, into the August 21 expiration — a $88.41 to $102.67 range around the $95.54 chain price, per straddle pricing as of the 2026-08-14 close.

Is HOOD expected to go up or down over the next six days? Options positioning as of August 14 reads neutral — a flat composite with calls unusually rich versus puts on one side and 38,946 new put contracts on the other — but that's a read of what traders have done, not a forecast. The actionable map is the $88.41–$102.67 range, the $90 and $100 walls, and the $93 max-pain strike that both the chain and the technical models point toward.

Are HOOD options expensive right now? Two lenses. IV rank 16/100 says option prices are lower than 84% of the past year's readings. On top of that, they're running about 2 vol points above the movement HOOD has actually delivered — richer than roughly 61% of this stock's own recent readings, which is squarely mid-range. Verdict: neither cheap enough to load up on long premium nor rich enough to justify aggressive selling, and the realized-vol leg of that comparison is still carrying the July 29 earnings gap.

Where is HOOD's biggest options support and resistance? For the August 21 expiration, the call wall is $100 (18,422 contracts) and the heaviest live put strike is $90 (9,371). The nominal put walls in the data sit at $50 for this expiration and $70 for the chain overall — deep out-of-the-money legacy positions, not live support.

What invalidates this week's read? A close above $100. Through the call wall, the neutral corridor and the mild downside lean both fail, and $105 becomes the next magnet.

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Methodology & disclosures. Data: end-of-day options-chain snapshot for HOOD, 2026-08-14, generated 2026-08-15T14:46:43.127Z. 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 2026-08-15T14:46:43.127Z; 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.