Rollover is what happens when a trader holding a futures position closes it in the expiring contract and reopens the same position in the next one. The rollover percentage measures how much of the open interest has already moved: the next month's open interest as a share of the near and next month combined.
If the near contract holds 60 lakh units of open interest and the next holds 40 lakh, rollover is 40%. We track it for NIFTY, BANKNIFTY, FINNIFTY, MIDCPNIFTY and NIFTY Next 50 on Options Today, as a line over the last dozen or so sessions rather than a single number.
Why it climbs into expiry
Early in a contract's life almost all the open interest sits in the near month, so rollover reads low. As expiry approaches, traders who want to keep their positions have to move them, and the next month's share rises. By expiry day most positions that are going to survive have moved, and the figure is usually at its highest.
So a rising rollover in expiry week is normal. The information is in the comparison, not the level. A rollover running well ahead of where the same index usually sits at the same point in the cycle says traders are carrying more exposure forward than usual. One running well behind says more positions are being closed than carried.
What it cannot tell you by itself
It does not say which direction is being carried. Every futures contract has a long and a short. High rollover means more positions of both kinds moved forward. Whether that is a bullish or bearish statement depends on who is carrying them, and the open interest figure alone cannot show that.
Read it with the price and with the cost of carry. Traders often pair rollover with what the market did while it happened: high rollover on a rising index is usually read as longs being carried, on a falling one as shorts. It is a common interpretation, not a law. The futures premium or discount to the index, which is also on Options Today, shows what traders paid to carry the position forward, and an unusually rich or thin premium adds to the picture.
It is an index measure on our pages. We publish rollover for the five indices because their futures open interest is current in our data every evening. We do not publish it for single stocks.
What is a high rollover percentage?
There is no fixed line. Rollover rises through every contract's life and is highest near expiry, so a high figure in expiry week is ordinary. Compare it with the same index at the same point in earlier cycles; a figure well above its own usual pattern is the one worth noticing.
Is rollover the same as open interest?
No. Open interest is the number of contracts open in one expiry. Rollover compares open interest across two expiries, the expiring one and the next, to show how much of the exposure has already moved.
How often does EdgeTest update it?
Once a day, from the exchange's end-of-day futures data, after it is published in the evening. The line on Options Today shows the last dozen sessions so the trend is visible rather than a single reading.
The part that can be tested
Rollover itself is not one of the conditions our backtester can test today. What it can test is the position a rollover reading might tempt you into: an options structure entered a fixed number of trading days before every expiry we hold, gated if you like on IV rank, India VIX or a chart signal on the index itself, with every charge deducted. Options backtesting is on the paid plan. The depth behind it: Index options from 2016 for NIFTY and BANKNIFTY, 2021 for FINNIFTY, 2022 for MIDCPNIFTY and 2024 for NIFTY Next 50These are the dates each contract was LISTED, not gaps in our data. Ten years of options history cannot exist for an index whose options have existed for five.
Options rules are checked once a day on the settle price, except for minute testing on one index EdgeTest is analysis only. It does not give investment advice, does not place orders, and is not registered with SEBI