by TrueDataFutures Term
Futures Term reads one underlying's futures for the roll. It shows what moving a lot from the near month into the next costs, how the next month's premium over spot compares with its usual range, how much open interest and volume have already moved, and what the near expiry settles on. A phase label and one sentence at the top say where the cycle is and what stands out.
Choosing the underlying
Type three or more characters in the search box and pick an index, stock or commodity. The ladder lists every futures expiry the exchange lists for it, nearest first. A contract that settled today stays on the ladder, marked Settled, until the next session opens.
The four cards
| Card | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Roll cost | Next month minus near month, in rupees a lot, points and basis points of the near price. Longs pay it and shorts collect it when the next month is dearer. The STT figure is 0.05% of the leg you sell. |
| Premium over spot | The pinned contract (the next month unless you pin another) minus spot, in points and rupees a lot, with its gross annualised carry and the points it gives up a day if spot stays where it is. |
| Moved to | The next month's share of near-plus-next open interest and of volume. |
| Expiry | The near expiry date, sessions left (or time to the settlement print on expiry day), what it settles on, and the next expiry, with any holiday that moved it. |
Each card has a meter: the grey band is the usual range, the thin tick its average, and the blue mark is now.
What “usual” means
- Roll cost and moved share: the same session before expiry (T-2, T-1, expiry day) in the last three expiries. The exchange's expiry list goes back about three months, so three is what the data holds. A live reading is compared with those sessions' last readings at the close; an end-of-day reading with the exchange's end-of-day open interest.
- Premium over spot: gross carry at 15:14 of contracts with 15 to 45 days left, over the last one or three months of sessions (choose in settings), turned into points for the days each contract has left.
T-n counts trading sessions on NSE's F&O holiday calendar, so the Friday before a Tuesday expiry is T-2. Roll week is T-5 to T-1.
The ladder
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Contract | Month, expiry date and calendar days left. Chips: Pinned, Settles today, Settled, and Thin for a contract under 10% of the ladder's volume. |
| Last / Close | The latest price (or the session's close) and its change on the previous close. |
| Premium over spot | Future minus spot in points, with a bar scaled to the ladder, and rupees a lot. |
| Carry | Gross annualised carry, ln(F / S) × 365 / days, and the points a day the premium gives up if spot is flat. Not shown under seven days left, where a few days of carry is noise. |
| Open interest | The level, its share of the ladder with a bar, a tick at yesterday's share, and the change since. The tick compares with the same time yesterday or yesterday's close (choose in settings). |
| Volume | The day's volume and its share of the ladder. |
Click a row to pin it, double-click to open its chart, and right-click for the chart, the option chain, a price alert, copying the symbol, and switching between lots and units. Hover a row for the full figures and where each one comes from.
Roll ticket and roll cost by session
The roll ticket prices a calendar roll at the current prices: I'm long sells the near month and buys the next, I'm short buys the near month back and sells the next. It shows the spread you pay or collect, STT on the leg you sell, and the cost or net credit. Brokerage and exchange fees are not included. Below it, the spread at this session in the last three expiries is given in rupees at today's index level.
Roll cost by session draws T-8 to expiry day: bars for the last three expiries at the close, grey dots for this cycle's closes, and the blue dot for now.
The premium through the day
On Pro and Max, with live spot, the chart draws the pinned contract's premium over spot from 09:15, against the usual band and its median. On expiry day it adds the near month and a timeline of the rest of the day.
Since 3 August 2026 NSE spot stops at 15:15 for the closing auction and prints its close at about 15:28, while futures trade to 15:40. From 15:15 a live future against a frozen spot would compare two moments, so premiums and carry use the 15:14 prices from then on, in end-of-day views too. Index futures settle on the closing-auction value; stock futures settle physically.
Live, snapshot and end of day
The toolbar badge says what you are looking at:
- Live: rows are ticking now.
- Last trade HH:MM: no trade since; the price is that trade.
- Snapshot · not ticked yet: a value replayed when the panel connected. It is never shown as live.
- EOD · Mon 26 Oct close: Free and Lite plans, and Pro before the open, show the last session's close. End-of-day open interest is the exchange's figure (the next session's first reading), compared with the session before.
- Closed · as of 15:40: Pro after hours, with the session's last values.
The panel subscribes to dated contracts (NIFTY26NOVFUT), never the continuous NIFTY-I and -II, which re-point at each expiry. Futures stream on Pro and Max on NSE and BSE and on Max on MCX. Index spot is live on Pro; stock spot is live only on Max, so on Pro a stock's premium is shown from the previous session's 15:14 prices and says so. MCX has no spot, so the roll cost is the spread between months.
Premium, carry, roll cost and moved share describe the cost of holding and rolling a position and how far the roll has gone. A test on NSE data from 2019 to 2026 (1,847 sessions) found they did not predict NIFTY's next move. They are context for the roll, not a trade signal.
A roll-cost alert needs spread conditions in server alerts and is not available yet.