Deploy Short Strangle in Nifty for gains from volatility, theta decay
ADVERTISEMENT Despite the index's range-bound behavior, sectoral trends remain constructive, with Information Technology, Pharma & Healthcare, Energy, and Chemicals showing notable relative strength.
'On the higher side, the 25,350 zone—as suggested by options positioning—acts as a significant resistance, forming the upper boundary for the current week,' said Sahaj Agrawal, Senior Vice President: Head of Derivatives Research, Kotak Securities.
While Nifty50 remains confined within a tight band, even the broader markets have begun to cool off following a sharp uptrend over the past month.Agrawal noted that without broad-based participation, a decisive breakout from the current range appears unlikely in the immediate term.
Given this backdrop, he expects Nifty to oscillate between 24,500 and 25,400 in the week ahead. With consolidation likely to persist, Sahaj Agrawal suggests deploying a Short Strangle strategy, which may be well-suited to capitalize on Volatility contraction, and Time decay (Theta).
ADVERTISEMENT He also noted that the strategy remains profitable as long as Nifty stays within the defined range of strike prices, aligning well with the current market setup.
The strong strangle strategy is an options trading approach where an investor buys both an out-of-the-money (OTM) call option and an OTM put option on the same asset, with the same expiration date. This strategy is designed to profit from substantial price movement in either direction.
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(Based on prices as of June 12) (Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

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Mumbai's finance community often comes together in ballrooms of five-star hotels and valorises the Indian investor. The financially influential community often speaks in words tinged with nationalistic pride about the continuous increase in registered investors. In 2024-2025, up to 2.09 crore Indians were registered as investors. This number was just 38.5 lakh in 2019-20, before the pandemic. That's a five-fold increase. The suit-clad mutual-fund managers and stock analysts say that this is a reflection of the average Indian's trust in the potential of the nation. Terms like 'financial inclusion' and 'economic democratisation' are often used. In July 2025, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), which regulates the capital markets, alleged that Jane Street, an American trading firm, had manipulated the derivatives market, a segment of the financial market. 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While there are many reasons for this, analysts say that people look at F&Os for quick returns, since the contracts expire on a weekly or monthly basis, unlike stocks, which are long-term investments. Pump and dump Jane Street, which began operations in 2000 in New York, had a net trading revenue of $10.4 billion as of June 2025, as per Bloomberg, the business news network. Its website claims to have five offices and over 3,000 employees, trading in 45 countries (India is not listed). Nuvama Wealth Management was a company executing Jane Street's trade in India. It is now under the scanner of the Income Tax Department. In April 2024, SEBI carried out an analysis of 'the alleged unauthorised use of their (Jane Street) trading strategies in Indian options markets' and asked the National Stock Exchange to monitor it. Later that year, SEBI issued a circular announcing a series of policy steps to address problems in the derivatives market. These included overtrading in index options on expiry days (Thursdays). Options are financial contracts, a type of derivative. The buyer is simply purchasing the 'option' to buy an underlying asset at a fixed date at a certain price. 'Call options' expect prices to rise, and 'put options' expect prices to fall. SEBI alleged that Jane Street pumped up the price of Bank Nifty — which consists of stocks of 12 large banks — by buying them in the morning. Seeing this, other traders would also buy in, further pushing up the price. The company would simultaneously buy put options on the same stocks/index, which other traders were unaware of. Towards the end of the day, Jane Street would dump the stocks, profiting from the resultant fall. Complexity and drive The complexity of the derivatives market makes it difficult to navigate even for professional traders like Preeti K. Chhabra, founder of Surat-based Trade Delta, a trading firm. 'After having studied the entire subject thoroughly, and trading for nearly one and a half years, I realised that this is a game where nobody knows 100%,' says Chhabra, who started her derivatives trading firm in 2018-19 after almost two decades of working in stock brokerages. Ms. Chhabra began with a capital of ₹90 lakh and lost about half of it in the first few months, she says. Following the loss, she took a year's break to understand the instrument better before she got back to it. She is among the many traders in India who execute futures and options trades for their clients. Social media platforms and even messaging apps like Telegram are rife with futures and options courses for children. In fact, on the days when the Bank Nifty dipped, analysts online gave different reasons for this, not citing possible market manipulation, SEBI said, in its order. Financial influencers are major contributors to financial market education and investment. 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He feels that there is too much information out there, which makes it difficult to separate the knowledge from the noise. 'It makes us ponder whether the sheer volume of analysis directly leads to consistent, profitable F&O trading for everyone,' he says. The Association of National Exchanges Members of India said in early August that it's studying ways of helping people move away from derivative trading. One of the suggestions they made was to increase the barriers to entry, so that uninformed or undercapitalised traders don't lose on a gamble. Markets like South Korea and Singapore have such barriers, the association said at a media briefing. SEBI has taken certain measures to control the enthusiasm, like doing away with weekly expiries of derivative contracts for all indices except the main Nifty 50 and the 30-stock Sensex, expecting that this would reduce speculatory trading. This means that contracts need to be held for longer periods in all other indices. 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