Separate survey, put-call, and premium ledgers before a regime call

Three ledgers, not one print

The historical workflow did not fold every crowded options reading into a single market-regime call. It kept three ledgers: advisor and public opinion surveys, multi-day equity put-call volume streaks, and the dollar-weighted option premium ratio.

The option premium ratio is aggregate listed-equity put premiums divided by aggregate listed-equity call premiums, read as a market-wide sentiment and regime measure. The put-call ratio is equity put volume divided by equity call volume, treated as a sample of public directional demand rather than professional hedging.

Opinion surveys and contrarian positioning

Advisor and public sentiment surveys were applied as a contrarian input. Very high bullishness was read as already-committed capital. Very low bullishness was read as unused cash that can later enter the market.

That reading is contrarian positioning: a crowded bullish or bearish opinion is treated as evidence that incremental buying or selling power has already been spent. Survey readings were not treated as purely contrarian. A one- to two-week surge in bullishness was associated with advances rather than declines.

Filtered put-call volume streaks

Equity put-call volume was treated as a public-demand sample because option sellers were described as hedgers rather than directional speculators. Heavy call activity relative to puts was read as spent buying power. Heavy put activity was read as withheld cash.

Buyout-related and ex-dividend equity options were removed from the put-call tally because those trades were not taken as market-outlook expressions. The remaining series is filtered equity options: a put-call tally that drops those names so the remaining volume better reflects an overall market view.

Four straight sessions of very low equity put-call ratios were described as preceding industrial-average declines. Six or seven straight very high ratios were described as preceding advances. Eight-session runs at or above 0.63 were described as clustering around the 1982, 1990, and 1991 regime turns.

After an advance lasting at least one week, a one-day put-call surge on a flat or down session was treated as a cue that the advance may speed up. During a decline lasting at least one week, a sharp put-call drop on a flat or up session was treated as a cue that the decline may steepen.

Option premium ratio bands

Recorded option premium ratio values spanned 0.03 to 1.74, with a median in the low-to-mid 0.60s. Prints below 0.29 were associated only with the arrival or departure of bear markets. Prints above 1.18 were associated only with explosive bull advances. Each extreme was noted on the first such reading after more than three months.

When the prior month had no readings in the 0.20s, the first two daily prints in the 0.30s occurring within one week were treated as a significant-advance setup.

A one-day drop of more than 0.10 into the 0.49 to 0.51 band was treated as an advance setup. That pattern is the premium plunge band. The 1.02 to 1.04 zone was treated as a decline or pullback area. A one-day rise of more than 0.19 into 0.96 to 1.12 was treated as an exhaustion-style decline setup. That pattern is the premium exhaustion jump.

Editorial habit for regime calls

Editorial interpretation: use the survey ledger for committed versus unused cash, the filtered put-call ledger for multi-day public-demand streaks and continuation cues, and the option premium ratio for dollar-weighted regime extremes and one-session bands. The archive described those rules as a historical workflow. It did not treat one crowded print as a substitute for the other two.