Positioning · Lesson 02 of 4 · Concept
Put-call ratio
The put-call ratio divides total put open interest by total call open interest. On 22 September 2026 NIFTY’s pre-market reading was 1.152; by the last snapshot of the same session the chain read 0.832. One figure, two ends of one day, a swing of about a third.
NIFTY, 22 September 2026 · pre-market value from premarket_dashboard, end-of-session value computed from the chain capture
How the figure is built
Total put open interest divided by total call open interest across the chain. Above 1 there are more puts outstanding than calls; below 1 the reverse. It can be computed on volume instead of open interest, which produces a different and more volatile series — MarketCue uses open interest.
The conventional reading is contrarian: a high ratio is taken as bullish, on the reasoning that heavy put open interest reflects writers who have sold puts because they do not expect the index to reach those strikes. That reasoning depends on assuming who is on which side, which the figure itself does not record.
It is not a daily number
On 22 September the pre-market reading was 1.152 and the end-of-session chain read 0.832. Both are correct; they describe different moments. A ratio quoted without a timestamp is close to meaningless, and a threshold applied to a stale one is worse.
The end-of-session figure on an expiry day is a special case: a large part of the open interest that produced the morning number has expired, so the two ends of an expiry session are not comparable in the way two ends of an ordinary session would be.
MarketCue weights the pre-market put-call ratio as a fixed part of its own Market Bias score and publishes that weighting on the rules page. The figure is an input among several, not a signal on its own.
A rule of the form "above 1.3 is bullish" needs the threshold, the timestamp and the basis to all be stated. The same chain gave 1.152 and 0.832 on one day depending on when it was read.
Common questions
What is a good PCR value?
There is no single value. The figure is conventionally read as contrarian — higher readings as bullish — but it moves substantially within a session. NIFTY read 1.152 pre-market on 22 September 2026 and 0.832 from the same day’s closing chain.
How is the put-call ratio calculated?
Total put open interest divided by total call open interest across the option chain. It can also be computed from volume, which gives a different and more volatile series.
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Written and maintained by MarketCue research · Updated 9:30 AM IST · 23 October 2026
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.