Nifty Midcap Select Expiry today: Options market considers 13,000 to act as a strong resistance

Equity markets opened higher on Monday and trended upwards to trade in the green at 12:00 p.m., both the Nifty 50 and the Sensex were trading higher by 0.73% and 0.79% at 25,148 and 82,025, respectively.

The Nifty Midcap Select index, which has its expiry on Monday, traded 0.14% lower at 12,965 by noon. The options market is currently factoring in a strong resistance at the 13,000 level with the open interest at this call strike amounting to 78.29 lakh at 12:00 p.m. The change in open interest for the strike stood at 58.54 lakh at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, on the downside, the market is factoring in an immediate support at the 12,950 level with the Put options at this strike reflecting an open interest of 42.89 lakh at the time of writing. The change in open interest stood at 36.77 lakh.

The max pain of Nifty Midcap Select stood at 12,975 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 moderately bullish 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, fell 2.25% on Monday to 20.46 by noon.

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