Bank Nifty Expiry today: Options market factoring in 53,000 as a strong resistance

Equity markets opened slightly lower on Wednesday before trending upwards to trade higher by noon. The benchmark Nifty 50 was trading 0.19% higher at 25,467.50 while the Sensex was trading 0.21% higher at 83,255 by noon.

The Bank Nifty index, which has its expiry on Wednesday, was trading 1.11% higher at 52,776.95 at 12:00 p.m. The options market is currently factoring in a strong resistance at the 53,000 level with the Call strike having an open interest of 93.87 lakh at noon. The change in open interest for the strike stood at 71.03 lakh.

On the downside, the market is reflecting a support at the 52,500 level with the Put options at this strike having an open interest of 70.72 lakh at the time of writing. The change in open interest stood at 69.07 lakh.

The max pain of Bank Nifty stood at 52,500 at the time of writing. The max pain theory shows the level at which option sellers are likely to have the least loss on expiry. However, this level is dynamic and keeps shifting when the market moves significantly in either direction.

On a 15-minute chart, the index traded above its 21-period and 50-period exponential moving averages (EMAs) and reflected a put-call ratio (PCR) of 1.4 which indicates a bullish sentiment. PCR is the ratio of the number of puts to the number of calls of an asset. In extreme market movements, the PCR may shoot up to as high as 1.85 during an up move or to as low as 0.45 during a down move.

India VIX, an index that reflects the anticipated volatility in the market over the next 30 days, rose nearly 3% on Wednesday to 17.61.