The market mood turns nine readings of the Indian market into one number from 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed).
The nine readings
- Volatility (India VIX): how much movement option prices expect. Low VIX = calm = greed; high VIX = nervous = fear.
- NIFTY trend: how far NIFTY is above or below its average of the last 125 trading days (about six months).
- Advances vs declines: the share of NSE stocks that rose, over the last five sessions.
- Stocks above their 200-day average: how many stocks are in a long-term uptrend.
- New 52-week highs vs lows: how many stocks made a new one-year high minus a new one-year low, over five sessions.
- Stocks vs gold: NIFTY's return over 20 sessions minus gold's. Money moving to gold is a sign of fear.
- Put-call ratio: open interest in NIFTY puts divided by calls. In India a high ratio usually means traders are selling puts, which they do when confident.
- Demand for protection (option skew): how much dearer, in implied volatility, a NIFTY put 5% below the market is than a call 5% above it. Paying up for protection is fear.
- FII flows: foreign institutions' net buying or selling in the cash market over the last five sessions.
The option readings have history from 2015 and the FII figures from December 2025; a reading joins the score once it has enough history to compare against.
How each is scored
Every reading is compared with its own last 250 trading days (about a year). A score of 80 means today's reading is greedier than 80% of the days in the past year; 20 means more fearful than 80% of them. The mood is the average of the scores. Extreme greed and Extreme fear are called only after two sessions in a row in that zone, and kept until two sessions out of it, so one wild day does not flip the label.
- 0–25 Extreme fear · 25–45 Fear · 45–55 Neutral · 55–75 Greed · 75–100 Extreme greed
How traders use it
Many traders read the extremes the other way round: buy extreme fear, sell extreme greed. The page checks that against history back to 2007. In India, greedy readings have more often been followed by a rising NIFTY than fearful ones (strength tends to carry on); a high India VIX is the exception. The links are weak: the mood describes the market; it does not predict the next move, and the market can stay fearful or greedy for weeks. Use it as context next to your own analysis.