Option basics · Lesson 08 of 9 · Case
The 29-point miss
At expiry a strike either holds intrinsic value or it holds nothing, so outcomes do not grade across strikes — they cliff. On 22 September 2026 NIFTY fell 131 points; the 23,300 put went from ₹7.65 to ₹0.05 while the 23,450 put went from ₹34.85 to ₹121.15. Same direction, same session.
NIFTY weekly expiry, 22 September 2026 · 7,896 per-strike snapshots, one a minute
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A chain that actually traded, priced at the open. Click once to buy, twice to sell, a third time to clear.
Prices captured at the open on Tuesday, 22 September 2026. NIFTY spot at the open: 23,460. The highlighted row is nearest the money.
NIFTY closed at 23,329, down 131 points from the open. Bought 23,300 PE at ₹7.65 → settled ₹0.05. Net loss of ₹7.60 per unit, or −99% of what was put up. This was the expiry, so those closing prices are settlement values.
Two traders, one view
Both read the session the same way and both read it correctly: NIFTY was going to close lower. Both bought puts at the open and neither traded again. The index obliged, falling 131 points from 23,460 to 23,329.
The trader holding the 23,450 put finished with ₹121.15 against ₹34.85 paid, a return of 248%. The trader holding the 23,300 put finished with ₹0.05 against ₹7.65, a loss of 99%.
It was in the money at two o’clock
The 23,300 put was not merely close. At 14:01 the index printed 23,288.35 — its low for the session, and 11.65 points below the strike — and the contract traded at ₹52.30, nearly seven times what it cost at the open.
Within ten minutes the index had recovered more than 70 points. It closed at 23,329, and the contract settled at ₹0.05. Only the closing level decides settlement, and a position that is correct at 14:01 receives nothing for it.
Why there is no gradient
Across the put side of that chain the returns run −98%, −99%, −99%, then +66%, +241%, +248%, +201%, +147%, +109%. The turn happens between 23,300 and 23,350, fifty points of strike for 165 percentage points of outcome.
That discontinuity is what expiry does. On any other day of the week the 23,300 put would still have carried time value at a close of 23,329 and would have been worth something; on the last afternoon there is no time value left to carry, and the contract is worth the distance to the close or nothing at all.
The second thing in that row is quieter. The best return was not the strike nearest the close, and not the deepest either — 23,450 beat both 23,350 and 23,600. The near strike finished barely in the money, and the deep strike cost so much at the open that a 131-point move could not multiply it.
This is a demonstration of how settlement works at expiry, not evidence about which strikes perform. A single session cannot support a claim of that kind and this page does not make one.
Common questions
Can you be right about direction and still lose on options?
Yes. On 22 September 2026 NIFTY fell 131 points and the 23,300 put still settled at ₹0.05, because the close at 23,329 finished above that strike. Direction is not sufficient — the close has to clear the strike.
Why do option returns jump so sharply between nearby strikes at expiry?
Because at expiry a contract is worth its intrinsic value or nothing, with no time value to smooth the boundary. On this chain, adjacent strikes fifty points apart returned −99% and +66%.
All 9 lessons in Option basics →
Written and maintained by MarketCue research
How these figures are produced
Every price on these pages was traded on the exchange and is read from our own option-chain capture, which records the NIFTY and SENSEX chains once a minute through the session. Each page names the session its figures come from.
Figures that a model produced rather than the market — the Greeks, implied volatility — are labelled as model outputs wherever they appear, and never presented beside traded prices without saying which is which. The pricing is checked against published reference values on every change.
Where our own data cannot support a claim, the page says so instead of generalising. MarketCue is not a registered investment adviser, research analyst or broker under SEBI regulations.