Nifty Midcap Select Expiry today: Options market considers 13,050 to act as a crucial level

Equity markets opened higher on Monday but faced selling pressure and were trading in the red at 12:00 p.m., both the Nifty 50 and the Sensex were trading lower by 0.44% and 0.29% at 25,745 and 80,998, respectively.

The Nifty Midcap Select index, which has its expiry on Monday, traded 0.25% lower at 13,065 by noon. The options market is currently factoring in an immediate resistance at the 13,100 level with the open interest at this call strike amounting to 46.47 lakh at 12:00 p.m. The change in open interest for the strike stood at 35.36 lakh at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, on the downside, the market is factoring in a strong support at the 13,000 level with the Put options at this strike reflecting an open interest of 47.60 lakh at the time of writing. The change in open interest stood at 28.35 lakh.

The max pain of Nifty Midcap Select stood at 13,050 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 0.93 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, fell 5.6% on Monday to 18.03 by noon.

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