Price & Market BehaviorExtended setExperimentalNew

cross-sectional options stress contrarian

Updated dailyData needs: highlong onlyshort onlylong short

In plain terms

Compare a stock's option fear gauge to every other optionable stock today, and buy the most fearful after a dip or fade the most complacent after a rally.

How it works

Ranks each name's risk-reversal, IV rank, and term slope cross-sectionally against the whole optionable universe that day (percent_rank in SQL) instead of against its own history, then gates the contrarian trade on recent price stress. Answers whether a name is unusually stressed or complacent versus its peers today.

Live results

52 times picked on its own · 199 times inside a blend (199 beat the stock) · updated 2026-07-06

This strategy is a frequent ingredient in blends that combine a few strategies on one stock. It has contributed to 199 such blended picks (199 of which beat simply holding the stock). Picking it on its own is only one of the ways it shows up.

How its picks scored vs. buy & hold

Each pick is graded on a recent year it was never tuned on, against simply owning the same stock

Where its edge concentrates

Share of picks in each company-size group that beat buy & hold

How often it trades

Active vs. patient. Bars on the left mean it waits for rare setups; bars on the right mean it trades often

Return vs. buy & hold

How much each pick beat or trailed simply owning the stock over the test year (extreme microcap moves trimmed)

Loading substrate evidence…

Data dependencies

Options surface daily
End-of-day OPRA option chains used by IV-skew family.
Options surface xs ranks
End-of-day OPRA option chains used by IV-skew family.
Daily prices
Adjusted-close OHLCV for every US-listed ticker; primary price feed.

Expected edge

A cross-sectional lens captures names that are extreme relative to today's universe, a different and additive signal to own-history option z-scores.

Related families

skew-panic reversalPrice & Market Behavior

When put options spike in price and fear is high right after a drop, buy the bounce; when calls are euphoric after a run-up, fade it.

Explore cross-sectional options stress contrarian on alphactor.ai

See which tickers this family is currently firing on, with live signals and rankings.

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