NIFTY · live

Spread map

Spot — · Expiry —
As of —
Bid-ask spread as a percentage of mid price, out-of-the-money leg, for the nearest captured expiry. NIFTY and SENSEX are weekly; BANKNIFTY, FINNIFTY, MIDCPNIFTY and BANKEX are monthly-only, so their strikes sit further apart in time to expiry — spreads there tend to run wider.
Tight (≤5%) Workable (5-20%) Avoid (>20%)
Spread by strike, out-of-the-money leg

Why the bid-ask spread matters

The bid-ask spread is the gap between the best price a buyer will pay and the best price a seller will accept for an option. A wide spread means the strike is thin — you'd give up a meaningful chunk of the position's value just entering and exiting, even before the market moves. A tight spread means the strike is liquid enough to trade near fair value.

This matters most for strikes further from the money and for monthly-only indices, where fewer active contracts mean less depth at any given strike.

How to read this page

  • Tight (≤5%) — liquid enough to enter and exit without a meaningful spread cost.
  • Workable (5–20%) — tradeable, but the spread is a real cost worth factoring into sizing.
  • Avoid (>20%) — thin enough that a market order can cost significantly more than mid price.

Spread is measured on the out-of-the-money leg (puts below spot, calls above) — the side of the chain conventionally quoted. Percentage spread naturally widens for cheap or far-from-money strikes even in a normally functioning market, so read the tier, not the raw percentage, for deep OTM strikes.

Methodology & data

Spread is pulled directly from the live order book on every strike for the nearest captured expiry. NIFTY and SENSEX are weekly expiry; BANKNIFTY, FINNIFTY, MIDCPNIFTY and BANKEX are monthly-only, so their strikes sit further apart in time to expiry — spreads there tend to run structurally wider than a weekly-expiry index at the same distance from spot.

What is a good bid-ask spread for index options?

Under 5% of mid price is tight and liquid. 5-20% is workable but costs more to trade. Above 20% usually means the strike is thin — common on deep out-of-the-money or monthly-only-index strikes.

Why do monthly-only indices show wider spreads than NIFTY?

BANKNIFTY, FINNIFTY, MIDCPNIFTY and BANKEX only have monthly expiry, so at any given time their nearest strikes are further from expiry than NIFTY or SENSEX's weekly strikes — less time-decay urgency generally means less active quoting and wider spreads.

Which leg does this track — call or put?

The out-of-the-money leg at each strike: puts below spot, calls above. That's the side of the chain that's conventionally quoted and actually worth trading.

Where does this spread data come from?

The live order book streamed from AngelOne/NSE — the actual best bid and best ask, not a modeled estimate.