How often does Nifty break its options range?

What the options range means

Before each expiry, the at-the-money straddle tells you how big a move the options market is pricing in. ClearStrike calls this the expected move: spot plus or minus that percentage gives a band. After the expiry we check whether Nifty closed inside the band.

The band describes what options were pricing. It is not a forecast, and it says nothing about direction.

The scoreboard (data as of 13 October 2026)

Over the last 145 weekly expiries, Nifty closed inside the option-implied band 98 times, or 68%. Over the last 33 monthly expiries, it closed inside 25 times, or 76%.

The two most recent weekly expiries were quiet ones. For 6 October 2026, options implied about ±1.7% and Nifty moved +0.26%. For 13 October 2026, options again implied about ±1.7% and Nifty moved −0.24%. Weeks like these are why an index can feel stuck.

When the range broke

March 2026: for the 30 March monthly expiry, options priced about ±3.7% from 25,425, a band of roughly 24,492 to 26,358. Nifty fell 12.97% to about 22,126. Monthly ATM IV went from 6.53% on 24 December 2025 to 37.16% on 27 March 2026.

April 2026: for the next monthly expiry (28 April), with IV still high, options priced a much wider ±8.3%. Nifty rose 7.19% to about 23,937, inside that wider band.

September 2026: for the 29 September monthly expiry, options priced about ±2.9% from 24,335. Nifty fell 6.88% to about 22,660, below the band.

How to read this

About two weekly expiries in three stayed inside the band, which also means about one in three did not, and the misses can be large. A much wider band after a shock is the market repricing risk, not a sign that calm is coming back.

The hit rate describes the past. It is not a probability you can rely on for the next expiry. If you trade options, plan for moves bigger than the band.

Our Nifty price and IV history on this site starts in September 2025, so the breakouts above all come from the last 13 months. For the current band, IV rank, max pain and open-interest walls, see the Index options board, updated every evening.