Option basics · Lesson 03 of 9 · Lab
Writing a call
Writing a call means selling the right to buy, collecting the premium and taking the obligation to deliver against it. The payoff is the buyer's, inverted: capped at the premium received, and open-ended above the strike. On 22 September 2026 the NIFTY 23,350 call writer kept the full ₹140.00 the buyer paid.
NIFTY weekly expiry, 22 September 2026 · MarketCue one-minute option-chain capture
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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. Sold 23,450 CE at ₹64.50 → settled ₹0.05. Net gain of ₹64.45 per unit, or +100% of what was put up. This was the expiry, so those closing prices are settlement values.
A right on one side, an obligation on the other
Every option bought was written by somebody. The writer receives the premium at the outset and accepts the obligation to deliver if the buyer exercises — which, for a cash-settled index option, means paying the settlement difference.
The arithmetic is the buyer's with the sign reversed. The most the writer can gain is the premium collected; the loss above the strike grows point for point with the index and has no upper bound in the structure itself.
What that looked like on this session
Nine call strikes were logged that morning between 23,200 and 23,600. NIFTY closed at 23,329, so every strike from 23,350 upward settled at ₹0.05 and each of those writers retained essentially the entire premium: ₹140.00 at 23,350, ₹100.50 at 23,400, ₹64.50 at 23,450.
Below the close the picture reverses. The 23,200 call settled at ₹128.80 against ₹282.80 collected, leaving the writer ahead by ₹154.00; the 23,300 call settled at ₹29.00 against ₹189.40, ahead by ₹160.40.
Switch the lab to the buy side of the same strike to see the two payoffs as reflections of one another. The premium that is the writer's maximum gain is the buyer's maximum loss, and it is the same number.
A buyer's outlay is the premium and nothing more. A writer posts margin that the exchange sets from volatility and position risk, can be called on intraday, and is unrelated in size to the premium received. Margin mechanics are covered in the Mechanics topic.
Common questions
What does writing a call option mean?
Writing a call means selling it. The writer receives the premium and takes on the obligation to settle if the option finishes in the money. Maximum gain is the premium; the loss above the strike is open-ended.
How much can a call writer lose?
There is no limit in the structure. Above the strike the writer's loss grows one for one with the index, offset only by the premium collected. This is why writing requires margin while buying does not.
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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.