On Friday the Nifty did exactly what this podcast mapped: it broke 24,600, drifted, and stopped at the 24,500 shelf, low 24,522, close 24,570.65, down 0.27%. The Sensex fell 455 points to 78,499. The VIX sat at 12. But while the price did the boring thing, the options board did something violent, and that is today's episode.

The strike that was the market's strongest support on Thursday became its strongest resistance by Friday evening. At 24,600, put writers covered nearly 9 lakh contracts and call writers sold 64.5 lakh fresh calls, taking the strike to almost 1.2 crore contracts, the biggest wall on the entire board. The put defense retreated one floor down to 24,500, exactly where Friday's fall stopped. The put call ratio for Tuesday's expiry collapsed from 0.96 to 0.73. Max pain is still 24,600 and the spot closed 30 points below it. T ...