Strategies · Lesson 09 of 14 · Lab
Covered call
A covered call writes a call against an existing holding, converting some of the upside into premium received now. Written against the NIFTY 23,500 strike on 22 September 2026 the call brought ₹36.00 and expired at ₹0.05, so the option leg retained ₹35.95 while the holding itself fell with the index.
NIFTY weekly expiry, 22 September 2026 · MarketCue one-minute option-chain capture
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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 23,500 CE at ₹36.00 → settled ₹0.05. Net gain of ₹35.95 per unit, or +100% of what was put up. This was the expiry, so those closing prices are settlement values.
Two positions, one of which the lab can draw
A covered call is a holding plus a written call. The lab prices the option leg from the recorded chain; the holding is whatever the reader owns, and its profit and loss is simply the move in the underlying.
Combined, the position keeps everything below the strike and nothing above it. The written premium is received either way, which is what makes the structure attractive on flat sessions and expensive on sharply rising ones.
What the strike choice decides
The three presets are the whole decision. Written at 23,500, the call brought ₹36.00 and capped the holding 40 points above the open. Written at the money it brought ₹64.50 and capped it almost immediately. Written at 23,600 it brought ₹7.60 and barely constrained anything.
On this session none of that mattered, because the index fell. All three written calls expired at ₹0.05, so each retained its premium in full — and each holding lost with the index regardless. A falling session is where a covered call looks best and does least.
Common questions
What is a covered call?
Writing a call option against an underlying you already hold. The premium is received immediately; in exchange, any gain in the holding above the strike goes to the option buyer.
What is the risk of a covered call?
The holding itself. The written call caps the upside but offsets only its own premium against a fall — on 22 September 2026 the 23,500 call retained ₹35.95 while the index dropped 131 points.
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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.