Two things are usually behind it, and they often arrive together. First, the price you see is the last traded price (LTP) — a record of the last time that exact contract changed hands. Many strikes barely trade, so the number sits still for minutes at a time even while the underlying stock and its future move tick by tick. Second, a far out-of-the-money option has a low delta: its fair value changes only a little for each point the stock moves, sometimes by less than the smallest price step, so even when it does trade the premium hardly budges.
Neither is a fault in the app or the data feed. Both are how an options market normally behaves away from the busy, near-the-money strikes.
Why does the displayed price stay frozen?
The big number on a contract is its last traded price — the price at which the option last actually changed hands, between two other people. It updates only when a fresh trade happens in that contract. It is not a live valuation that recalculates every time the underlying ticks.
Near-the-money strikes on a popular index or stock trade almost continuously, so their LTP keeps pace. But an options chain has dozens of strikes, and most of them are thinly traded — a far strike, a far expiry, or an option on a less active stock may not print a single trade for several minutes. Through that gap the LTP is stuck on the last print, no matter how much the stock and future are moving. When someone finally does trade it, the price can jump in one step to catch up with everything that happened in between.
You can see this on the option chain itself: a strike showing very low volume and thin open interest is one where the last trade may be stale. The wide gap between its buy and sell quotes tells the same story — see What is liquidity in the stock market? and What are bid, ask and the bid-ask spread?.
This is the same effect that makes an order fill away from the price on screen — the stale LTP is just its most extreme form. See Why doesn't my order execute at the price I see on screen?
Why does the premium barely change even when it does trade?
Even a liquid, frequently traded option won't move rupee-for-rupee with the stock. How much its premium changes for each one-point move in the underlying is measured by delta.
- A deep in-the-money option behaves almost like the stock itself — a high delta, close to 1 — so it moves nearly point-for-point.
- An at-the-money option has a delta around 0.5 — it moves about half a point for every point the stock moves.
- A far out-of-the-money option has a very low delta — perhaps 0.05. A ₹10 move in the stock then changes its fair value by only about ₹0.50.
That last case is where "it isn't moving" comes from. If the fair-value change is smaller than the market's minimum price step — the tick — the quoted premium may not tick over at all until the stock moves much more. See What is tick size? and, for how delta and the other option sensitivities are worked out, How are option Greeks calculated?
Which bucket a strike falls into depends on its distance from the current price — see What are strike price, ITM, ATM and OTM?. The further out-of-the-money you go, the less a given move in the stock does to the premium.
How do I tell which one is happening?
Open the option chain and look at the strike you're watching:
- Very low volume / thin open interest, and a wide bid-ask gap → the number is likely a stale LTP. It isn't moving because it hasn't traded; the fair value has changed, the last print just hasn't caught up.
- It trades regularly but the premium still crawls → you're looking at a low-delta strike, usually far out-of-the-money. It's moving — just by a fraction of the stock's move, which can be less than a tick.
- A near-the-money strike on a liquid underlying should track the move closely. If even that looks frozen for a long stretch during market hours, that's worth checking rather than assuming — note the time and the contract.
Things to keep in mind
- The LTP is the last trade, not a live price. On a thinly traded strike it can lag the underlying by minutes and then jump in a single step.
- Distance from the money decides sensitivity. The further out-of-the-money an option is, the lower its delta and the less its premium reacts to any given move.
- Liquidity and delta stack up. A far OTM strike is often both illiquid and low-delta, so it looks doubly frozen — this is normal for those strikes, not a data error.
- A near-the-money option on a liquid index or stock is where you'll see it move. If you want a contract that tracks the underlying closely, that — not a cheap far strike — is where to look.
- All figures here are illustrative, chosen to explain the mechanics, not live quotes.
Read next
What makes up an option's premium? — Why the price you pay is part built-in worth and part the price of possibility, and why it can fall even when the stock doesn't move.