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Informist, Friday, May 15, 2026

 

By Gopika Balasubramanium

 

MUMBAI – The Nifty 50 is expected to face selling pressure in the near-term as traders sold call options across the board and bought in-the-money put contracts, alongside selling put contracts below spot. Traders added short bets in the call options chain throughout the session, ruling out the possibility of an upside. In the near term, technical analysts expect the index to be rangebound. Experts view market sentiment as cautious amid elevated crude oil prices, persistent rupee weakness, and outflow of foreign investments from Indian asset classes.

 

Friday, the Nifty 50 closed at 23643.50 points, down 46.10 points or 0.2%, after moving in a range of over 200 points. The index fell 2.2% this week. All three futures contracts of the Nifty 50 also ended marginally lower. Analysts expect the index to move between 23200 and 23800 points. The short-term trend in the market is weak and the "pullback" is expected to continue if Nifty 50 manages to trade above 23500 points, said Amol Athawale, vice president – technical research at Kotak Securities. A fresh sell-off is possible if the index breaks below 23500 points, he said in a note.

 

On Friday, traders sold contracts at strike prices well above the spot price, indicating no expectation of such upside in the near term. At call contracts with strike prices 24000, 24500, and 25000, traders added 3-4 million short bets on Friday. The premiums on these strike prices fell 12-32%. The upside for the index is likely capped at the 23800 call, which saw substantial contract writing, with premiums declining by over 25%. The highest addition of open interest was at 24000 call and the maximum concentration was at 24500 call. Bucking the charts, traders bought 25100 call, with total open interest of 2.84 million. 

 

On the put side, traders sold contracts expiring next week at out-of-the-money strike prices. They wrote put contracts at strike prices such as 23000 and 22900 with their premiums falling 24-28%. Traders bought the 23800 put and the 23700 put, but premiums rose only a meagre 1-3%. The highest addition of open interest and the maximum concentration were at the 23000 put.

 

--Nifty 50 May closed at 23673.40, down 26.70 points; 29.90-point premium to the spot index

--Nifty 50 June closed at 23750.00, down 43.80 points; 106.50-point premium to the spot index

--Nifty 50 July closed at 23865.00, down 43.40 points; 221.50-point premium to the spot index

 

Adani Enterprises, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Muthoot Finance, Reliance Industries, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, Vodafone Idea, State Bank of India, and Multi Commodity Exchange of India were the most actively traded underlying stocks Friday.

 

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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