AJ -- I know and respect the eyeball max pain method. However, what I'm pointing out is that as with all things, there's more there than meets the eye. There was a month or two without a real satisfying max pain hit. There is no guarantee it works... particularly when there are potential reasons to ignore some 200K puts.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Perhaps call buyers were hitting the QQQ today, and put owners selling. Or maybe bulls will be buying calls during the down, much like put buyers kept buying all the way up.
Anyway, all things being equal, max pain probably will work out in a fashion. But I wouldn't be buying/selling front month calls based on it right now <g>
the freep