STRASMORE/EXPLORE 2,173 QUERIES

Top-decile put/call readings per month, grouped by how the S&P 500 tracker moved

Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-08-03, from Is a High Put/Call Ratio Bullish?.

as of ranking 4×4read in context →
Top-decile put/call readings per month, grouped by how the S&P 500 tracker moved — 4 rows by 4 columns, computed from US exchange, SIP and OPRA data.
index_move_bucketobservationstop_decile_reads_avgtypical_pcr_ratio
index down 3% or more124.20.75
index down under 3%91.90.64
index up under 3%120.60.58
index up 3% or more221.90.62
Rows × columns
4 × 4
Computed
Completeness
No missing values
Source
US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
Licence
Strasmore terms · free, no signup
Formats
JSON · CSV · the SQL below

What each column holds

Column definitions for Top-decile put/call readings per month, grouped by how the S&P 500 tracker moved, derived from the stored result.
ColumnTypeRangeNotes
index_move_bucket text 4 distinct values
observations number 9 to 22
top_decile_reads_avg number 0.6 to 4.2
typical_pcr_ratio number 0.58 to 0.75 ratio or rate

Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.

the exact SQL behind every number
WITH raw AS (
    SELECT date AS day,
           sumIf(volume, upper(substring(ticker, length(ticker) - 8, 1)) = 'P') AS put_volume,
           sumIf(volume, upper(substring(ticker, length(ticker) - 8, 1)) = 'C') AS call_volume
    FROM global_markets.options_greeks
    WHERE date >= toDate('2022-01-01')
      AND date <= toDate('2026-07-31')
      AND volume > 0
      AND underlying_symbol IN ('AAPL', 'MSFT', 'NVDA', 'AMZN', 'META',
                                'TSLA', 'GOOGL', 'JPM', 'KO', 'XOM')
    GROUP BY day
    HAVING call_volume > 0
),
equity_pcr AS (
    SELECT day, toFloat64(put_volume) / toFloat64(call_volume) AS pcr
    FROM raw
),
cut AS (
    SELECT quantileDeterministic(0.90)(pcr, cityHash64(day)) AS p90
    FROM equity_pcr
),
by_month AS (
    SELECT toStartOfMonth(day) AS month_start,
           countIf(pcr >= cut.p90) AS extreme_reads,
           quantileDeterministic(0.5)(pcr, cityHash64(day)) AS median_pcr
    FROM equity_pcr CROSS JOIN cut
    GROUP BY month_start
),
spy_daily AS (
    SELECT toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS day,
           toFloat64(argMax(close, window_start)) AS close
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'SPY'
      AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) >= toDate('2022-01-01')
      AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) <= toDate('2026-07-31')
      AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
           + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
    GROUP BY day
),
spy_month AS (
    SELECT toStartOfMonth(day) AS month_start,
           100 * (argMax(close, day) / argMin(close, day) - 1) AS move_pct
    FROM spy_daily
    GROUP BY month_start
)
SELECT multiIf(s.move_pct <= -3, 'index down 3% or more',
               s.move_pct < 0, 'index down under 3%',
               s.move_pct < 3, 'index up under 3%',
               'index up 3% or more') AS index_move_bucket,
       count() AS observations,
       round(avg(m.extreme_reads), 1) AS top_decile_reads_avg,
       round(quantileDeterministic(0.5)(m.median_pcr, cityHash64(m.month_start)), 2) AS typical_pcr_ratio
FROM by_month AS m
INNER JOIN spy_month AS s ON m.month_start = s.month_start
GROUP BY index_move_bucket
ORDER BY min(s.move_pct) ASC

Run your own version of this

The same 22 years of US equities and 12 years of options data are queryable in SQL or plain English. A free account runs 100 queries a day and takes no card.

More from this analysisIs a High Put/Call Ratio Bullish?
Put/call volume ratio by underlying: January 1 to July 31, 2026 ranking 13×4 Put/call volume ratio percentiles: single-stock basket vs index ETFs, 2022 to July 2026 ranking 8×3 S&P 500 tracker moves after each fifth of the equity put/call ratio, 2022 to July 2026 table 5×7 The total is a call-volume-weighted blend of the two buckets ranking 11×4 Single-stock bucket vs ETF bucket, session by session series 33×6 The same equity ratio, computed with and without ETF options series 23×4 See all 2,173 queries →