NSE Shifts F&O Expiry Days Of Nifty, Bank Nifty, FinNifty, Others To Monday
Currently, the F&O expiry day falls on the last Thursday of expiry month. The changes will come into effect from April 4.
The National Stock Exchange of India has shifted the monthly and quarterly expiry days of futures and options contracts of Nifty, Bank Nifty, FinNifty, Nifty Midcap Select, and Nifty Next50 to the "last Monday of expiry month", according to a circular issued on Tuesday.
Currently, the F&O expiry day falls on the last Thursday of expiry month.
The changes will come into effect from April 4, 2025, NSE stated in the circular.
NSE has also shifted the expiry days of Nifty weekly contracts to Monday from Thursday. In addition, the exchange has also moved the expiry days of Nifty half-yearly contracts to Monday from Thursday.
"There is no other change in the contract specifications of index and stock derivatives," NSE said, adding that the settlement schedule will be intimated separately by Clearing Corporations.
The rejig in F&O contract expiry days comes after the NSE had, with effect from Jan. 1, 2025, aligned the expiry days of various contracts to Thursday.
Till last year, the expiry day of Bank Nifty's monthly and quarterly contracts was Wednesday, and for FinNifty, it was Tuesday. For Nifty Midcap Select and Nifty Next50, the contracts used to expire on Mondays and Fridays, respectively.
Notably, in October last year, the Securities and Exchange Board of India mandated only one weekly F&O contract per stock exchange. This led to an end to the weekly derivatives index contracts of Bank Nifty, Nifty Midcap Select, and Nifty Financial Services on the NSE, and Sensex 50 and Bankex on the BSE.
These changes come in response to a rise in retail investors trading options, which regulators and the government viewed as a potential risk to household finances.
A study by SEBI last year revealed that nine out of 10 individual traders incurred losses in F&O trading over the three years ending March 2024, with total losses exceeding Rs 1.8 lakh crore.
The study found that individual traders faced average losses of approximately Rs 2 lakh each, including transaction costs. The top 3.5% of loss-makers, about 4,00,000 traders, reported average losses of Rs 28 lakh each.
Furthermore, the percentage of traders aged under 30 in the F&O segment increased from 31% in the financial year ending March 2023 to 43% in the following year.
