Gold: Bottom or Bounce? Does the Options Market Confirm GLD's Latest Move?
Every 5% swing in GLD since April 22, 2025, up from a low or down from a high, followed for 10 sessions on eight options measures and sorted by what came next: the swings that extended to 10% and the ones that failed. The bullish view grades the latest rise against the earlier rises; the bearish view grades the latest fall against the earlier falls, with its own confirming signs. The live view leads.
Latest reading · bullish view
The latest rise began from the low of $355.78 on October 30, 2026; GLD is +6.6% from it 6 sessions later. Of the 3 measures on which the 5 extended and 2 failed rises moved apart by day 6, 2 confirm the rise (put/call premium and tail premium) and 1 refutes it (put/call volume): confirming the move.
Sources, methodology & freshnessOur pricing of GLD option closes (weekly expiries within 200 days, strikes within 25% of the close); OCC cleared put and call volume; GLD closes · Daily after market closeData as of 2026-11-09 · Open ↓Close ↑
Options measures confirming the rise from Oct 30, 2026, day 6 of 10. Only measures on which the extended and failed rises moved apart by this day are counted.
The bullish view: the latest rise against the earlier rises
The latest rise began from the low of $355.78 on October 30, 2026; GLD is +6.6% from it 6 sessions later. Of the 3 measures on which the 5 extended and 2 failed rises moved apart by day 6, 2 confirm the rise (put/call premium and tail premium) and 1 refutes it (put/call volume): confirming the move.
The bars above start on the session the turn became visible and run through day 10; a rise the options market confirmed shows a run of green bars above zero from its first visible session. Each measure's percentile at the turn and 6 sessions later, beside the median change of the 5 extended and 2 failed rises over the same sessions. A measure votes only when the two groups moved in opposite directions; it confirms the rise when its own move has the extended group's sign. After the arrow, each group's median level on this day.
| Measure | Level | At the turn | Day 6 | Change | Extended rises | Failed rises | Vote |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Put/call volume · OCC put/call volume, 5 sessions | 0.67 | 41 | 71 | +29 | −45 → 30 | +33 → 85 | refutes |
| Put/call premium · Put premium over call premium, 5 sessions | 2.72x | 93 | 82 | −10 | −21 → 67 | +8 → 81 | confirms |
| Tail premium · Tail premium (10-delta put minus ATM IV) | 4.2 pts | 86 | 74 | −12 | −14 → 74 | +8 → 62 | confirms |
| Put skew · Put minus call skew (25-delta) | 0.8 pts | 88 | 63 | −25 | −6 → 64 | −2 → 55 | no separation |
| Call skew · Call skew (25-delta call minus ATM IV) | 1.2 pts | 7 | 78 | +71 | +9 → 70 | +5 → 46 | no separation |
| 30-day IV · 30-day implied volatility | 21.6% | 51 | 23 | −28 | −6 → 92 | −10 → 75 | no separation |
| Term structure · Term structure (30-day minus 90-day IV) | -1.1 pts | 63 | 8 | −55 | −13 → 57 | −21 → 63 | no separation |
| Variance premium · Variance premium (IV minus realized) | -3.7 pts | 84 | 30 | −54 | −1 → 15 | −27 → 13 | no separation |
Solid green: the median path of the extended rises, each one faint behind it. Dashed grey: the failed rises. Black: the latest rise, growing by one point a session while it is live. A percentile of 100 is the highest reading of the trailing year.
The bearish view: the latest fall against the earlier falls
The latest fall began from the high of $428.07 on August 25, 2026; it ran −16.9% to October 30, 2026 and extended (10%+). Of the 4 measures on which the 5 extended and 2 failed falls moved apart by day 10, 3 confirm the fall (put skew, 30-day IV and the variance premium) and 1 refutes it (the term structure): confirming the move.
The bars above start on the session the turn became visible and run through day 10; a fall the options market confirmed shows a run of red bars below zero from its first visible session. Each measure's percentile at the turn and 10 sessions later, beside the median change of the 5 extended and 2 failed falls over the same sessions. A measure votes only when the two groups moved in opposite directions; it confirms the fall when its own move has the extended group's sign. After the arrow, each group's median level on this day.
| Measure | Level | At the turn | Day 10 | Change | Extended falls | Failed falls | Vote |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Put/call volume · OCC put/call volume, 5 sessions | 0.72 | 0 | 82 | +82 | +28 → 46 | +19 → 79 | no separation |
| Put/call premium · Put premium over call premium, 5 sessions | 0.27x | 2 | 37 | +35 | +49 → 71 | +8 → 95 | no separation |
| Tail premium · Tail premium (10-delta put minus ATM IV) | 1.1 pts | 25 | 34 | +10 | −2 → 83 | −11 → 37 | no separation |
| Put skew · Put minus call skew (25-delta) | -2.2 pts | 23 | 6 | −18 | −18 → 60 | +7 → 47 | confirms |
| Call skew · Call skew (25-delta call minus ATM IV) | 1.7 pts | 60 | 94 | +34 | −31 → 61 | −33 → 37 | no separation |
| 30-day IV · 30-day implied volatility | 25.5% | 75 | 70 | −5 | −9 → 83 | +10 → 79 | confirms |
| Term structure · Term structure (30-day minus 90-day IV) | 1.0 pts | 29 | 67 | +37 | −3 → 64 | +29 → 85 | refutes |
| Variance premium · Variance premium (IV minus realized) | -1.7 pts | 61 | 43 | −18 | −18 → 35 | +6 → 18 | confirms |
Solid red: the median path of the extended falls, each one faint behind it. Dashed grey: the failed falls. Black: the latest fall, growing by one point a session while it is live. A percentile of 100 is the highest reading of the trailing year.
Every 5% swing in GLD since 2025
A turn is a close followed by a reversal of at least 5%. A swing that reached 10% in its direction extended; one that stalled between 5% and 10% and was followed by a break of its starting level (a lower low after a rise, a higher high after a fall) failed. The latest swing stays open until it resolves. The record begins on April 22, 2025, the first session on which every measure had 126 sessions of history to rank against.
| Turn | Direction | GLD close | Swing | To | Class | GLD +5 sessions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 30, 2026 | rise from a low | $355.78 | +6.6% | Nov 9, 2026 (latest) | open | +4.7% |
| August 25, 2026 | fall from a high | $428.07 | −16.9% | Oct 30, 2026 | extended (10%+) | −7.3% |
| July 16, 2026 | rise from a low | $364.96 | +17.3% | Aug 25, 2026 | extended (10%+) | +1.8% |
| June 16, 2026 | fall from a high | $397.64 | −8.2% | Jul 16, 2026 | failed | −8.0% |
| June 10, 2026 | rise from a low | $374.58 | +6.2% | Jun 16, 2026 | failed | +3.7% |
| April 17, 2026 | fall from a high | $445.93 | −16.0% | Jun 10, 2026 | extended (10%+) | −2.8% |
| March 26, 2026 | rise from a low | $400.64 | +11.3% | Apr 17, 2026 | extended (10%+) | +7.2% |
| March 2, 2026 | fall from a high | $490.00 | −18.2% | Mar 26, 2026 | extended (10%+) | −3.6% |
| February 2, 2026 | rise from a low | $427.13 | +14.7% | Mar 2, 2026 | extended (10%+) | +9.3% |
| January 29, 2026 | fall from a high | $495.90 | −13.9% | Feb 2, 2026 | extended (10%+) | −10.9% |
| November 4, 2025 | rise from a low | $362.32 | +36.9% | Jan 29, 2026 | extended (10%+) | +4.8% |
| October 20, 2025 | fall from a high | $403.15 | −10.1% | Nov 4, 2025 | extended (10%+) | −9.0% |
| May 14, 2025 | rise from a low | $293.16 | +37.5% | Oct 20, 2025 | extended (10%+) | +4.3% |
| May 6, 2025 | fall from a high | $315.48 | −7.1% | May 14, 2025 | failed | −5.1% |
| May 1, 2025 | rise from a low | $297.46 | +6.1% | May 6, 2025 | failed | +2.4% |
Swing size. At 3%: 16 completed rises (5 extended, 8 failed) and 16 falls (5 extended, 7 failed). At 5%: 7 completed rises (5 extended, 2 failed) and 7 falls (5 extended, 2 failed). At 8%: 4 completed rises (4 extended, 0 failed) and 4 falls (4 extended, 0 failed). The 5% rule is used because at 3% the options market's first week no longer separated the swings that extended from the ones that failed. Extension rule. Under a 15% rule instead of 10% the live rises split 3 extended and 4 failed, and the count reads 2 of 4 against the card’s reading above, so the class threshold moves the answer and both are shown.
Put skew through the whole record
The 25-delta put IV minus the 25-delta call IV, 30 days: how much more the market pays for downside than upside, in volatility points, with GLD above and every swing marked at its turn. It last read 0.8 points.
Put premium over call premium through the whole record
Dollars traded in puts over dollars in calls, five-session sums, in the weekly expiries within 200 days and strikes within 25% of the close. Above 1 the money is in puts. It last read 2.72x.
Method and limits
The rules were fixed before any result was read. The swings come from a 5% zigzag on GLD's closes; the classes come from the swing itself and the turn that followed; the measures are our own pricing of GLD's option closes (Black-Scholes against the fund's close, with the fed funds rate and the trailing dividend yield), on weekly expiries within 200 days and strikes within 25% of the close, plus the OCC's cleared volume. Nothing is typed in; every figure on this page is recomputed from the daily payload when the page renders.
The two views have different signs because the record gave them different signs. The rises that extended began with heavy put buying that drained away while call skew lifted; the falls that extended showed put premium surging while the dips that were bought did not, and put skew rose more in the bought dips than in the real declines. Reading one view with the other's signs would give the wrong answer, so each view learns its own from its own completed swings and prints them.
The record is short. Our option-bar archive begins in late 2024 and the percentiles need 126 sessions of history, so the swings available sit inside one gold bull market and its corrections. 5 extended and 2 failed rises describe what this record held; they cannot establish an edge, and with two failed swings a median path is two lines. At day five the groups still overlapped on several measures; by day 10 they had separated on more of them. The class threshold also matters, which is why the card shows the count under both the 10% and the 15% extension rules.
Two readings of put/call appear because they measure different populations. OCC counts every GLD contract cleared, so many cheap calls weigh the same as a few expensive puts; the premium ratio counts dollars in the engine's weekly-expiry sample. OCC publishes a day late, so the latest session carries the prior day's count. The archive carries no open interest, so nothing here reads positioning, only what was traded.
Three longer tests sit behind this page. Over 55 years of monthly data, gold miners holding above their lows while gold broke to a new one carried no information for the miners and a little for gold; what decided the outcome was whether gold's long trend was up. Over two years of GDX options, a surge of call buying in a drawdown was followed by weaker returns than a surge of put buying. And over the same two years for GLD, the options market described every turn and anticipated none: calls peaked at the tops, puts at the bottoms, and both reversed within two weeks. This page follows that two-week reversal while it happens. The GLD options dashboard carries the full surface, and Gold ETF Flows the holders' side of the same move.
Options measures confirming the rise from Oct 30, 2026, day 6 of 10. Only measures on which the extended and failed rises moved apart by this day are counted.
How Gold: Bottom or Bounce? Works
- 1Find the swingsA zigzag on GLD’s daily closes with a 5% reversal marks every turning point. Each swing runs from a turn to the next: up from a trough, down from a peak. The record starts on the first session on which every options measure has a year of history behind it.
- 2Sort the swings by what followedA swing that reached 10% in its direction extended. A swing that stalled between 5% and 10% and was followed by a break of its starting level (a lower low after a rise, a higher high after a fall) failed. The latest swing stays open until it resolves.
- 3Follow each options measure for ten sessionsEight measures from our own pricing of GLD’s options and from OCC’s cleared volume become percentiles of their trailing 252 sessions. For every swing the page records each measure on the turn day and on each of the ten sessions after it, then takes the median path of the extended swings and of the failed ones, separately for rises and for falls.
- 4Count, never scoreOn the current swing’s day, a measure votes only when the extended and failed groups of the same direction moved in opposite directions since their turns. It confirms the move when its own change has the extended group’s sign. The card prints how many separating measures confirm, with the day number and the size of each group.