NIFTY Midcap Select Expiry today: Options market anticipates a strong resistance at 13,200

Equity markets opened higher on Monday and continued to trade in the green by noon. The Nifty 50 and the Sensex were trading over 0.20% higher at 25,288.05 and 82,587.02 by 12:00 p.m.

The Nifty Midcap Select index, which has its expiry on Monday, traded 0.04% higher at 13,167.35 by noon. The options market is currently factoring in a strong resistance at the 13,200 level with the open interest at this call strike amounting to 2.58 crore at 12:00 p.m. The change in open interest for the strike stood at 2.39 crore at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, on the downside, the market is factoring in support at the 13,175 level with the Put options at this strike reflecting an open interest of 92.20 lakh at the time of writing. The change in open interest stood at 84.7 lakh. The relatively weak open interest accumulation on the Put options indicates a weak conviction about the index’s strength on Monday.

The max pain of Nifty Midcap Select stood at 13,175 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.

The index reflects a put-call ratio (PCR) of 0.78 which indicates a neutral sentiment. PCR is the ratio of the number of puts to the number of calls of an asset. It is noteworthy that in extreme upward and downward market movements, the PCR can go as high as 1.8 or as low as 0.45, respectively.

India VIX, an index that reflects the anticipated volatility in the market over the next 30 days, rose 3.21% on Monday to 13.82 by noon.

On a 15-minute chart, the index was trading below its 21-exponential moving average (EMA) and above its 50-EMA.