NIFTY50 Expiry today, 23,400 level holds highest OI on call & put side

Equity markets opened higher on Thursday but pared some of the gains by noon. The benchmark Nifty 50 and the Sensex were trading over 0.3% higher at 12:00 p.m. with the Nifty 50 index, which has its expiry on Thursday, trading at 23,399.

OI analysis shows 23,400 crucial level for bulls & bears

The options market is currently factoring in a resistance at the 23,400 level with the highest open interest on the call side amounting to 2.51 crore at this strike. The change in open interest for the strike stood at 1.83 crore at 12:00 p.m. Interestingly, the market is reflecting immediate support at the same level with the Put options at the 23,400 strike having an open interest of 1.94 crore at the time of writing. The change in open interest stood at 1.66 crore.

The max pain of Nifty 50 stood at 23,400 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.

Chart check

On a 15-minute chart, the index continues to trade above its 21-period and 50-period exponential moving averages (EMAs).

PCR indicates neutral sentiment

The index also reflected 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 downward and upward market movements, the PCR may hit as low as 0.5 or as high as 1.8, respectively.

India VIX, an index that reflects the anticipated volatility in the market over the next 30 days, fell 4.45% on Thursday to 13.75.

Index Constituents

HDFC Bank, which constitutes 11.6% of the index, was trading 0.63% higher on Thursday while Reliance Industries, which has a weight of 9.75%, was trading 0.12% higher. ICICI Bank was trading 0.05% lower while Infosys was trading up by 0.59%. Larsen & Toubro was trading 1.78% higher.