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Adapting to SEBI's New Rules: A Guide for Retail Options TradersIntroduction The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has recently announced new regulations aimed at strengthening the equity index derivatives framework. These changes, set to be implemented in stages from November 2024 to April 2025, will significantly impact retail options traders. This article explores the new rules, their implications, and how traders can adapt their strategies to thrive in this evolving landscape. www.sebi.gov.in New SEBI Rules and Their Impact: Navigating the world of options trading in India just got a little more interesting with the introduction of new regulations by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). For retail traders who are trying to figure out how to adapt to these new rules, understanding the key details is a good first step. Let’s dive into the specifics of these regulations and their effects on trading practices. 1. Upfront Collection of Option Premium: Starting February 1, 2025, traders will be required to pay the full options premium upfront. This measure aims to reduce excessive leverage and discourage positions beyond available collateral. Impact: This will limit the number of contracts traders can buy, potentially reducing overall market participation but also encouraging more responsible trading practices. 2. Removal of Calendar Spread Treatment on Expiry Day: From February 1, 2025, the benefit of offsetting positions across different expiries (calendar spread) will not be available on the expiry day for contracts expiring that day. Impact: This could lead to increased margin requirements on expiry days, affecting traders who rely on calendar spread strategies. 3. Intraday Monitoring of Position Limits: Beginning April 1, 2025, exchanges will monitor position limits intraday, with a minimum of 4 random snapshots daily. Impact: Traders will need to be more vigilant about their position sizes throughout the trading day to avoid penalties. 4. Increased Contract Size: After November 20, 2024, new index derivatives contracts will have a minimum value of Rs. 15 lakhs, up from the current Rs. 5-10 lakhs range. Impact: This change may price out some smaller retail traders from the market, but it also encourages more serious participation and potentially reduces market volatility. 5. Rationalization of Weekly Index Derivatives: From November 20, 2024, each exchange will offer weekly expiry contracts for only one benchmark index. Impact: This could concentrate liquidity in fewer products, potentially leading to better price discovery but also limiting trading options. The exchanges Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange(NSE) will have to select 1 index from the existing for weekly expiry and the rest will be monthly expiry. For example, there is a possibility that NSE may opt to go for Bank Nifty for weekly expiry and Nifty, Fin Nifty and Midcap Nifty for monthly expiry whereas BSE may opt to go for Bankex for weekly expiry and Sensex for monthly expiry. 6. Increased Tail Risk Coverage: Starting November 20, 2024, an additional 2% Extreme Loss Margin (ELM) will be levied on short options contracts on expiry day. Impact: This will increase the cost of writing options on expiry days, potentially reducing speculative activity. Overview of the New Regulations SEBI’s new rules are designed to ensure a more transparent and fair-trading environment. They cover a range of changes in how options trading is conducted, all aiming to protect traders and enhance market integrity. - Increased Transparency: SEBI is pushing for more transparent trading activities. This means traders will have access to more information and insights about market movements which can help in making informed decisions. - Higher Compliance Standards: With a stronger emphasis on compliance, SEBI is keen on maintaining robust regulatory practices. This is to prevent issues like fraud or market manipulation from affecting retail traders. - Leverage Control: New rules have introduced strict controls on leverage, which impacts the amount of capital a trader can use relative to the actual cash they have. While this might seem restrictive, it’s intended to lower risk and safeguard trader investments. Key Changes Affecting Retail Options Traders Retail options traders have specific adjustments to make under these new rules. Here are some of the key changes directly impacting you: 1. Portfolio Diversification: With increased costs and limitations in options trading, diversifying across different asset classes and strategies becomes crucial. Consider including a mix of stocks, ETFs, and other derivatives in your portfolio to spread risk. 2. Shift to Swing/Positional Trading Style: The new rules may make intraday trading less attractive due to increased monitoring and costs. Traders should consider shifting focus to swing or positional trading strategies that align with longer-term market trends. 3. Focus on Risk-Defined Strategies: With higher margin requirements and upfront premium payments, traders should prioritize risk-defined strategies like spreads (bull call spreads, iron condors) over naked options positions. These strategies offer better risk management and capital efficiency. 4. Continuous Education: Stay updated with market developments and enhance your trading skills through trading reputable education providers. Focus on advanced options strategies, risk management techniques, strategy optimization and market analysis to adapt to the changing landscape. Best Practices: 1. Proper Position Sizing: With stricter position limits, ensure your trades are appropriately sized relative to your account. 2. Regular Portfolio Review: Frequently assess your positions to ensure compliance with new regulations and to optimize your strategy. 3. Use of Technology: Leverage trading platforms and tools that can help monitor positions and calculate margins in real-time. 4. Risk Management: Implement strict stop-loss orders and consider using options to hedge your portfolio. Conclusion: The new SEBI regulations present both challenges and opportunities for retail options traders. While they may initially seem restrictive, these rules aim to create a more stable and fair market environment. By adapting strategies, focusing on education, and implementing best practices, traders can navigate these changes successfully. The key lies in embracing a more disciplined, risk-aware approach to trading, which ultimately contributes to long-term success in the markets. As the derivatives landscape evolves, those who adapt quickly and intelligently will be best positioned to capitalize on new opportunities while managing risks effectively. Disclaimer Investment in securities market is subject to market risks, read all the related documents carefully before investing.
NSE:NIFTYEducation
by VishalSubandh
7
28 Mar ’24 — Nifty up 5415pts 32% this FY Investors beat tradersNifty Analysis - Stance Bullish ⬆️ Recap from yesterday: “We are still hanging on to the inverse head and shoulders pattern and strongly hope we should have some movement to the 22295 levels by tomorrow.” 4mts chart Unbelievable intraday price action by Nifty50 today. A rise of 369 points ~ 1.67% and then a sharp fall of 250 points ~ 1.11%. This highly volatile price movement is largely attributed to the year-end rebalancing by the mutual funds both DIIs and FIIs. What a fantastic financial year it has been for the investors. Nifty is up 32% ie 5415 points in the current financial year. If you look back and assess objectively, it is way above the average returns made by intraday traders. I can vouch for that as my personal returns are not more than 14 to 16% in this period. Just imagine that, a normal investor who either did the SIP or lumpsum beat an active intraday trader. The former would have gone for a regular job or business and got an additional income whereas the latter would have spent every day (blood, sweat, and tears) in front of the trading terminal and end up underperforming. These numbers are more than enough to drive away the traders - why take the pain if investing is giving above-average returns? One thing is 100% sure, things will not remain like this forever. Benchmarks cannot give 30%+ returns every year if you are counting on that - it is a recipe for disaster. Nifty almost took out the All-time highs today and ended up falling 10pts short. The inverse head and shoulders pattern played out and gave good results. My personal trades today were a total disaster. I was short 22400 CE, rolled up to 22450 CE, and then rolled over to the next weekly as the market was aggressively moving against me. Had to book back-to-back losses. After exiting the 22400 CE by stop loss, it went up another 2244% - totally crazy. And just check what happened in the last 45 minutes - we gave away 250 points. Meanwhile, I decided not to run the Algo’s today and stick with manual trades. If I had gone with the Algos, my entire March month earnings would have been washed out. In the end, made peace with whatever happened during the day. When we start trading on 1st April, we will start with a bullish stance. 1D chart
NSE:NIFTYLong
by viswaram
15 Feb ’24 — Nifty within kissing distance of a Bullish breakoutNifty Analysis - Stance Neutral ➡️ Recap from yesterday: “In the 63mts chart, see the encircled region — the strength of the green candles stands out prominently. This has given Nifty a total makeover, till yesterday we were neutral with a moderate bearish bias. Today we are still neutral but with a bullish bias — as the resistance of 21913 is much closer than the support of 21491.” 4mts chart Nifty has lived up to the expectation today, the momentum it gained yesterday post 14.07 was legitimate. Not only did Nifty hold its ground today but showed intent to take out the 21913 resistance. The open was right at that zone but we quickly lost a few points. The candle at 09.47 carried the hidden message that a breakout was in the cards. That single candle had a swing range of 73 points. Even though we did not do anything unusual till 13.31 - the options premium was going crazy. One mistake I made was to switch to the next-weekly instead of the current one as I felt a breakout would happen post 3 PM. The break came early at 13.35 and what it did was shoot up the CE premiums, nothing unusual in that. But the PEs were not dropping in value. So on one side, my short CEs were trading in deep RED whereas the short PEs were not going into green. Meanwhile, the breakout did not prove successful - but it definitely woke up the bulls. Almost all the top 8 components were reacting positively to this break. The final close was right near the 21913 SR zone. Over the last week, Nifty rose 166 points ~ 0.76% and if you notice the 63-minute time frame - it has formed a triple bottom-like formation on a descending trendline. Since Nifty already retraced back to the resistance level - we assume it is ready for the next leg of outperformance. The first thing it has to make sure tomorrow is to defend the 21913 levels - if it falls below that, the bullish breakout will not pick up pace. A gap-up is ideal as it will quickly tip the balance to the Bulls as short sellers will have to run for cover. We wish to change the status from neutral to bullish only if we get a 63mts candle above the 21913 resistance line. 63mts chart
NSE:NIFTY
by viswaram
Bank Nifty Analysis post expiry!If you look at 30 min chart of Bank nifty for today session it was clear from start of the day that buyers are going take the session look at first 30 min candle a pure "bullish wick reversal pattern" it confirmed that options buyers will take over the day!! Already discussed on 31st Jan analysis keep eye on opening for confirmation of trade. "Check" 45400 ce was trading at 200 at 10 am at 10.15 am it closed at 556 a net 323 points candle it makes your day! lets look for tomorrow might be same action as today as bank nifty was trading in range in later sessions. But also failed to break resistance twice May take jump from last support at 45600. Still bullish side are bit stronger. Gap down opening can change the view from bullish to bearish. Resis - 46200,46550 Supp - 45670,45400
NSE:BANKNIFTY
by Price_actiontaker14
12 Jan ’24 — Traders are cold-blooded, Bias changed to Bullish🐂Nifty Analysis - Stance Bullish ⬆️ Recap from yesterday “Nifty looks perfectly neutral from here, the moment the support of 21491 gives away — we can start looking for bearish opportunities. To go bullish the ATH has to be taken out. With the IT majors TCS and INFY declaring the results — we should have a strong swing direction tomorrow.” 4mts chart link Major highlights today Gap-up of 120pts ~ 0..56% NiftyIT gains 5.14% Nifty50 takes out the ATH, new value = 21928 Nifty goes from neutral to bullish Today’s stop came right at the ascending channel top-line Never seen NiftyIT so stubborn to go up, a gain of 5.14% far exceeds expectations, and that too when the IT majors are at their all-time highs. What we still do not understand is the reason for outperformance when the results were average. Anyway, this was the major reason Nifty50 broke out from the neutral zone to the bullish zone. 63mts chart link Today’s price action was along the top trend line of the ascending channel, and careful enough not to break it. There is no shame in saying traders are cold-blooded. We cannot stick with our bias, direction, or opinions and expect the market to behave as per our analysis. If the markets have turned, we need to adapt. Till yesterday, we were looking for neutral trades with a possibility of going down. See how the tables have turned today. For Monday - we need to look out for bullish opportunities now.
NSE:NIFTYLong
by viswaram
The Jan to Dec of Technical Analysis - 1 strategy per month1. January - The Value at Play Before we start discussing the different technical chart patterns, we need to have some clarity on how buying and selling happens on stocks and options. Every trade has a buyer or seller. That means at a specific point in time, for a specific price there are 2 conflicting thoughts Someone who thinks the price is too cheap Someone who thinks the price is damn expensive The guy who thinks the stock/option is cheap is ready to buy and the guy who thinks it is expensive and it is a good time to sell. Just think, how is it that two people can have conflicting mindsets about the same instrument at the same time? I am 100% sure that both of them cannot be right, one of them is making a wrong decision. Over time - 5 minutes, 50 minutes, 5 hours, 50 hours, 5 days, 50 days, or 500 days - whatever the period be, that particular instrument will tick away from the quoted price - either move up or move down. This leads to the important question - what is the fair value? If you have an internal price gauging mechanism - you can quickly calculate if the price quoted is below or above the fair value. Wow, that looks exciting - can you give me the shortcut to calculate the fair price? Unfortunately, there is no holy grail that does it for you, over time you need to develop that tool or spreadsheet. Have you heard the saying, “Veterans are good stock pickers” - It is mainly because of their experience in the markets. They have developed the intuition to guess the fair value when they see the ticker tape without relying on a spreadsheet or calculator. The first rule is “Never buy anything at a premium and never sell anything at a discount”. This rule does not guarantee that you will not lose money - but it is a filter that weeds out poor decision-making. The question arises - how do I calculate the fair price of a stock or options strike? A good place to start would be to start reading “The Little Book of Valuation: How to Value a Company, Pick a Stock and Profit (Little Books. Big Profits) by Aswath Damodaran” - you can even finish the book in 2 straight hours. It gives some insights into valuation techniques. Most valuation methods available in the markets are part of “Fundamental Analysis”, you might ask me - “What does that have to do with Technical Analysis?”. My answer is everything. Technical Analysis is the process of guessing the future price by looking at the historical data. But what the stock/option has to do with the price today is mostly due to fundamental reasons. A mix of fundamental + technical study is much better than pure fundamental or pure technical analysis. These days lot of people have turned to options trading as a side gig to make some extra money. Someone would have told them, that it is easy to make money in options trading. The biggest mistake they make would be to short-sell a strike too cheap and buy a strike too pricey. Option premiums do not move in a linear pattern and are totally different from the valuation techniques used to gauge the underlying. If you are able to calculate the fair value of a particular strike with some level of accuracy - then you can avoid selling it cheap and buying it pricey. More often than not, not taking a trade would be the best trade there is. If something is way above your price level, choose not to buy. If way below, choose not to sell. Have faith that a better opportunity will come and gather the courage to skip the trade. There are 2 option types - CALLS and PUTS. The option strikes above the current trading price are called CALLS and the strikes below the price are called PUTS. The premiums of these far-away strikes are not that easy to calculate or guess, mainly because the prices are derived by a few factors like price movements, time, level of uncertainty & the interest rates in the markets. This makes options trading like a double-edged sword. You get it right - it will reward you more than you can imagine. You get it wrong - it will take away what you have and more. I think hard guessing the fair value of a particular strike of a stock or index is 10 times more complicated than assessing the intrinsic value of that index/stock. This means if you took 15mts to find out the fair value of say “PQR” stock, you might take 150+ minutes to assess the price of a strike say 2600 CE when PQR is trading at 2500. The challenge here is that, once you calculate the fair price - the goal post would have shifted. A change in time will affect the strike prices as “time” is a variable that contributes to its value - so it is a moving target. Now tell me, what would you call someone when they say “Options trading is easy”, “You can make 100000 in 1 month with just Rs1000 capital”, “100% guaranteed success in options trading…” etc. The next thing to know is the difference between trading and investing. Both are tools intended to make money but the main difference is the “time” component. Investing is usually done with no particular “time” value in mind whereas trading is done for a specific “time period”. That is why you hear people say, I have bought “XYZ” stock for the long term - Even if it appreciates in price say 10% in 10 days, the investor may not sell it. Partly because they do not want to miss out on further gains after selling. On the other hand, trading is done with a specific time frame in mind. The trader is only worried about the prices during that window. What happens after that is none of this botheration. The fear of missing out seldom affects the trader because they know their next opportunity will come if they keep looking. Time has more relevance & weightage than you can possibly imagine. In fact, price is relative to time and it is not the other way around. You can physically measure this concept in options trading wherein strikes go to zero value on the expiry date. The major index options have weekly expiry and the stock options have monthly expiry. So a particular strike will go from “X” value to “0” value in a week. Also important to note that during this lifecycle the strike could swing between X to 4X to 100X to 0.5X to 0.2X and end at 0 after the expiry. The prices of a strike are much more volatile than their underlying - this is the main reason options trading is a double-edged sword. Generally, people do not respect time. Most of them respect money more than time. The decisions they make are usually to save money even if it means to waste time. If you are into stock markets - that should change. Even though your purpose is to make money - you should give the due credit to the “time factor”. Let me explain with an example. A trader buys 100 qty of ABC at 1500 intending to sell it at 1600 once the results are out. If on the results day the prices drop to 1400 - that trader will say “Let me not book the loss, I will hold it for some more time for the prices to recover”. In this particular instance, the trader is not ready to book the loss but hoping that his money will recover. Most long-term investors are traders who forget to close their trades. A trader has to have a 180-degree opposite mindset of an investor because we are playing with limited resources. If your money is blocked on a particular trade for a period longer than your calculation - then it is 100% true that you will not be able to take another trade when there is an opportunity. No trader in the world has unlimited resources and unlimited leverage but all of them have got the exact same amount of time per day. If you know how to manage the time - the money will find a way. This comes to the final segment of this chapter - “Value at Play”. It means the amount of money adjusted for the time factor to the reward it brings in. You might be familiar with the word “Value at Risk” (VaR). Value at Play is something similar but not measured in the same way. .... to be continued...
TVC:SPXEducation
by viswaram
13th Dec ’23 - BankNifty does a W pattern on the ascending trendBankNifty Today’s Analysis The opening candle in Banknifty had a swing range of 189pts ~ 0.4%. That candle looked dangerous and I really thought we would have a deep RED day today. Quite interestingly, BN made a W pattern right at the top band of the ascending channel (see the 63mts chart link also). 4mts chart link - click here Once BN got caught in that channel envelope, it was blindly following that path. The final close is at -0.01% - it cannot get more flat than this. The W pattern may change the dynamics for tomorrow - usually, it favors the bulls. So we need to wait and watch for the first hour or so tomorrow and then decide. From an expiry trading perspective, the OTM options really did not have any premium to start with. The opening moves gave some rush and then the reversal by 12.31 also gave some boost to the strikes. 63mts chart link - click here BankNifty has entered the ascending channel and from a medium-term perspective, it all looks bullish to me. For tomorrow, I wish to start with the neutral stance and then change course as the price action develops. Falling below 46565 is bearish to me.
NSE:BANKNIFTY
by viswaram
25th Oct ’23 - When will the 18880 level get broken? Nifty50Nifty Analysis Recap from yesterday: “Since we are back at the 19310 levels, my point is — the next fall may be as deep as 18880 i.e 430pts ~ 2%. Nifty has no experience trading between these 2 zones earlier, so the supports should be equally powerless. I can mark the top of the candles as support zones, but they would be predictably weak (19190 & 18969).” Nifty did not disappoint the Bears today. The start was right at the 19310 level and we managed to stay around that zone till 10.40. Honestly, I was also fearful that my bearish call may not work out today. For the last 1 to 2 years, Nifty has shown unbelievable resilience that will suck the soul out of any bear. Luckily, the fall started to accelerate once we broke from the 19310 laxman rekha i.e after 10.45. We fell to a new swing low of 19074 intraday, levels last seen as of 30th June 2023. The bounce of 104pts was healthy and gave the bears quite a good premium to enter the 2nd level of shorts. On the daily timeframe, the next possible candle that should appear should have its low touching the 18880 level (best case). If Nifty manages to pull this out, it will be an awesome November and December month getting lined up for the Bears. Since Nifty went up from 18880 to 19310 as 3 white soldiers, the return should be nothing less than 3 black crows. If we get that tomorrow - we are in for a treat, because the entire price action above 19310 right up to 20222 will lose its relevance. I wish to maintain my bearish stance for tomorrow’s expiry and hope to collect some good premiums. A noticeable change we saw today was the spike of India VIX to 12 levels. Although we cooled off and closed at 11.3125, the future holds promise.
NSE:NIFTYShort
by viswaram
13 Jul '23 Post Mortem on Nifty + Weekly expiry analysisNifty Weekly Analysis Between the last expiry & today, Nifty50 is actually down 40pts ~ 0.21%. That seems quite hard to believe especially when we had an ATH break today right? The fact is N50 broke out from the 19500 levels today & that would have created the perception that nifty had a gaining week. Also on 7th July we had a red day and almost touched the 19300 levels. So credit goes to N50 since it recovered all its losses & hit a new ATH of 19567 today! --- Nifty Daily Analysis We had 2 strong moves today A gap up open and then a race to take out the ATH, a total swing of 182pts ~ 0.94% A similar fall of 180pts ~ 0.92% to touch the prev. close value Both the directional move would have given ample opportunity for options traders to mint money today. Final close was 0.15% higher mainly supported by the NiftyIT index. The dramatic inverted U shape price action was due to RELIANCE which fell from 2799 to 2743. HDFCBK, KOTAKBK & SBIN also dragged the index. Trades Taken Other than the regular expiry trades, I reopened a bullish PE credit spread between 10 to 10.30 AM. 19500/19400 PE for 67.45/40.65. This was taken when Nifty was at the ATH and due to the reversal this position is currently in loss. Will take a decision tomorrow to hold on to bullish bias or exit at a loss.
NSE:NIFTYLong
by viswaram
PostMortem on BankNifty Today & Analysis of 27 JUN 2023BN opened at 43804 and then had a flattish price move till 13.00 after which it propelled forward like a rocket. Interestingly Finnifty's chart (which we will discuss shortly) had more thrust compared to BN & N50. The 470 pts rally we had from 13.05 to close was nothing short of remarkable. Initially the momentum was slow, but as soon as the short covering started we had a broad based rally. None of component stock closed in red today. SBIN up 1.62%, HDFCBK up 1.41%, AXIS up 1.32%, KOTAKBANK up 1.19%. 1hr TF If you remember from yesterday's research report, BN was almost completing a double bottom pattern at the 43404 level. The last leg of W was fading, until we had the break through today. What really happened today was the 44068 resistance was taken out, preceding that we had 2 strong green candles - most likely due to CE short covering. Final close is some 100pts above the SR zone of 44068 which means there is every possibility BN could defend it for the expiry tomorrow.
NSE:BANKNIFTY
by viswaram
PostMortem on Nifty50 Today & Analysis of 26 JUN 2023N50 also had very little movement today to fire up the options premium. We even have a 10000 PE for the current week expiry. i.e a strike which is 47% below the spot price. Even a nuclear war will not take us there by Thursday. N50 also maintained the ground today, not falling below the 18650 level ensuring the swing low of 23rd is not broken. When we ended the last session - the sentiment was looking weak. I almost thought we will break the support level today - such was the CE shorting intensity on last Friday. Since we had no continuation of carried forward momentum - I am assuming that most of the positional traders would have booked profits & exited the short CE trades. 1hr TF N50 has formed a rounded double top M like pattern near the ATH zone. The fall from 22nd got some follow through on 23rd but today's move was not supporting. For the M pattern to work perfectly we would require a break down from the support level of 18597.
NSE:NIFTY
by viswaram