: How to know when to buy a call versus a put through options statistics Is there a good method or set of methods that traders can use to know whether to buy either a short term call versus a short term put using only numbers

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Option statistics provide ZERO information about the future direction of the underlying.

Open interest only indicates liquidity. But suppose there's a very large purchase of calls just OTM, far and above the open interest of any other existing call. You might conclude that someone knows something that you don't and that you should also buy calls. But what if the trader bought those calls to hedge a very large short position in the underlying? He's really bearish and the call money that he spent is really throwaway money. And even if he had no short position in the underlying, why would you assume that he has any idea what he is doing?

Focus on figuring out what the underlying will do. If you can somehow do that, your option buying will succeed. Unfortunately, that's not likely since no one can consistently predict direction in the short term. Because theta (time decay) is high as expiration ners, that then implies that if you're going to buy options, buy more time, paying less premium per day and giving yourself a better chance for the trade to work out.