Market watch: What does the F&O market suggest about trade on December 29?

Max pain at the end of today's trade stands at 17200.

Getting a positive handover from the US market, the Indian equity market gained for the second day in the row. Nifty crossed the 17,200 mark and closed with gains of 147 points up by 0.9 per cent. The best part is that all sectoral indices ended in the green. What has helped the market is strong US holiday season sales that allayed some of the fear about economic damage from the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Nifty VIX also cooled off by 3.75 per cent in today’s trade.  

Activity on the F&O front for weekly expiry on December 30 shows 18000 to act as a strong resistance now. Highest open interest contract of 139427 stood at this strike price. The second-highest call option open interest 137972.0 for Nifty 50 stood at a strike price of 17500. In terms of the highest addition of open interest in the call options front, it was at 17300 in the last trading session. A total of 22105.0 open interest was added at this strike price.  

In terms of put activity, the highest put writing was seen at a strike price of 17200 (73590.0 open interest added on 28-Dec-2021), followed by 16400 (60082.0 open interest added on 28-Dec-2021). Highest total put open interest (199432.5) stood at a strike price of 17000. This is followed by a strike price of 16500, which saw a total put option open interest of 140191.0 contracts. 

The Nifty 50 put call ratio (PCR) closed at 1.26 for the day. A PCR above 1 is considered bullish while a PCR below 1 is considered bearish.

 Max pain at the end of today's trade stands at 17200.