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An option chain is a table listing every available call and put contract for one underlying and expiry, side by side across strikes. It's the single screen where nearly every concept on this Glossary — Delta, IV, Open Interest, moneyness — actually shows up together in practice.

Picture two mirrored tables sharing one column of strike prices down the middle — calls on one side, puts on the other. Each row is one strike; each side shows that strike's price, activity, and Greeks for that option type. Selecting a different expiry date typically reloads the whole chain with that expiry's own set of contracts.

• LTP (Last Traded Price) — the option's most recent traded price, effectively its current premium.
• OI (Open Interest) — how many contracts are currently outstanding at that strike, covered in full on the Open Interest page.
• Volume — how many contracts traded today, reset each session — different from OI, as explained on that same page.
• IV (Implied Volatility) — the volatility level currently priced into that specific contract, covered on the Implied Volatility page. Different strikes can (and usually do) show slightly different IV.
• Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega — the Greeks for that specific contract, each with its own dedicated page on this Glossary.
• Bid / Ask — the best current price a buyer is offering and a seller is asking; the gap between them (the "spread") is a quick read on how liquid that strike is.

Using the exact same figures already verified on the Delta, Theta, Vega, and Moneyness pages — Nifty at 24,000, 7 days to expiry, 13% IV — here's what three rows of a real chain would show:

Reading this chain, several things jump out immediately, each covered on its own Glossary page:

• The 24,000 row is the at-the-money strike — both Deltas sit closest to 0.5/−0.5, and both sides show the richest OI, typical of the strike where the most activity concentrates.
• The 23,700 call is in-the-money (Delta 0.781, well above 0.5), while the 23,700 put is out-of-the-money (Delta only −0.219) — the opposite-moneyness relationship covered on the Moneyness page.
• Every IV column reads 13% here for simplicity, but on a real chain these commonly differ slightly strike to strike — a pattern called volatility skew.

1. Find the at-the-money strike first. It's usually the row where call and put LTPs are closest to each other, and Delta is nearest 0.50/−0.50 — a natural anchor point before picking strikes further out.
2. Check OI for liquidity before committing to a strike, particularly for a multi-leg strategy where you'll need to exit cleanly later — thin OI on any one leg can mean a wide spread when it's time to close.
3. Scan OI concentration across strikes for a rough read on where the market's positioning is heaviest, as covered on the Open Interest page.
4. Compare IV across strikes and expiries before choosing between a buying strategy and a selling one — elevated IV favors selling premium, depressed IV favors buying it.

• A chain is a snapshot, not a forecast. LTP, OI, and IV all update continuously during market hours — the row you're reading may already be stale by the time you act on it.
• Wide bid-ask spreads on illiquid strikes can make the displayed LTP misleading — the price you'd actually get filled at can differ meaningfully from the last traded price shown.
• Every strategy on this site is built from rows in exactly this kind of table — a multi-leg strategy is just several chain rows combined, which is why the worked examples throughout this site's strategy pages reference specific strikes, premiums, and Greeks the way a real chain would show them.