Freak trade in Nifty options? Contracts with strike price 14,500 allowed

Market players said this could be due to punching error where the trader sold 14,500 call options instead of 16,500 call options

The NSE derivative segment witnessed a fat-finger trade on Thursday as a large quantity of Nifty 50 options contracts with strike price 14,500 (June 2, 2022 expiry) got executed at Rs 0.15 per unit.

A fat finger trade is the one which is triggered due to a human error or press of a wrong key when using a computer to input data. 

Often such trades result in huge losses for one party and windfall gains for the other. In this instance, market players said the trader who sold the Nifty contracts at Rs 0.15 could have incurred losses of Rs 200 crore. 

The Nifty 50 index on Thursday closed at 16,628. As a result, the Nifty 14,500 strike option contract was in-the-money by over Rs 2,100. The contract was last traded at Rs 2,130.5, up 5 per cent over previous day’s close. It hit a high of Rs 2,139.85 and a low of Rs 0.15, exchange data showed.

Market players said the 1.25 million units got traded at Rs 0.15. They said this could be due to punching error where the trader sold 14,500 call options instead of 16,500 call options.

It remains to be seen how the exchange system or its circuit filters allowed such a trade to get executed and whether NSE would annul the trades. Sources said the exchange was in the process of ascertaining the parties involved in the trade. 

NSE didn't respond to a query immediately.