Position Limits
At the end of each day the Exchange disseminates the aggregate open interest across all Exchanges in the futures and options on individual scrips along with the market wide position limit for that scrip and tests whether the aggregate open interest for any scrip exceeds 95% of the market wide position limit for that scrip. If yes, the Exchange takes note of open positions of all client/ TMs as at the end of that day in that scrip, and from next day onwards the client/ TMs should trade only to decrease their positions through offsetting positions till the normal trading in the scrip is resumed.
The normal trading in the scrip is resumed only after the aggregate open interest across Exchanges comes down to 80% or below of the market wide position limit.
A facility is available on the trading system to display an alert once the open interest on the NSE in the futures and options contract in a security exceeds 60% of the market wide position limit specified for such security. Such alerts are presently displayed at time intervals of 10 minutes.
The position limits of Trading members / FPIs (Category I) / Mutual Funds in equity index option and index futures is as under:
Index Futures
The position limits of Trading members / FPIs (Category I) / Mutual Funds in equity index futures contracts is higher of Rs.500 crores or 15% of the total open interest in the market in equity index futures contracts. This limit is applicable on open positions in all futures contracts on a particular underlying index.
Index Options
The position limits of Trading members / FPIs (Category I) / Mutual Funds in equity index option contracts is higher of Rs.500 crores or 15% of the total open interest in the market in equity index option contracts. This limit would be applicable on open positions in all option contracts on a particular underlying index.
The position limits of FPI II (Other than Individuals, family offices, and corporates) in equity index option and index futures is as under:
Index Futures
The position limits of FPI II (Other than Individuals, family offices, and corporates) in equity index futures contracts is higher of Rs.300 crores or 10% of the total open interest in the market in equity index futures contracts. This limit is applicable on open positions in all futures contracts on a particular underlying index
Index Options
The position limits of FPI II (Other than Individuals, family offices, and corporates) in equity index option contracts is higher of Rs.300 crores or 10% of the total open interest in the market in equity index option contracts. This limit would be applicable on open positions in all option contracts on a particular underlying index.
Stock Derivatives
The position limits applicable for FPI category II (Other than Individuals, family offices, and corporates) for stock derivative contract shall be 10% of the applicable Market Wide Position Limit per exchange
The position limits of FPI II (Individuals, family offices, and corporates) in equity index option and index futures is as under:
Index Futures
The position limits of FPI II (Individuals, family offices, and corporates) in equity index futures contracts is higher of Rs.100 crores or 5% of the total open interest in the market in equity index futures contracts. This limit is applicable on open positions in all futures contracts on a particular underlying index
Index Options
The position limits of FPI II (Individuals, family offices, and corporates) in equity index option contracts is higher of Rs.100 crores or 5% of the total open interest in the market in equity index option contracts. This limit would be applicable on open positions in all option contracts on a particular underlying index.
Stock Derivatives
The position limits applicable for FPI category II (Individuals, family offices, and corporates) for stock derivative contract shall be 5% of the applicable Market Wide Position Limit across exchanges.
In addition to the above limits, in index futures and options, FPI Category (I)/MFs shall take exposure in equity index derivatives subject to the following limits:
- Short positions in index derivatives (short futures, short calls and long puts) not exceeding (in notional value) the FPI Category (I)/ MFs holding of stocks.
- Long positions in index derivatives (long futures, long calls and short puts) not exceeding (in notional value) the FPI Category (I)/MFs holding of cash, government securities, T-Bills, money market mutual funds and gilt funds and similar instruments.
In this regard, if the open position of an FPI Category (I)/ MF exceeds the limits as stated for Index Futures or Index Options, such surplus would be deemed to comprise of short and long positions in the same proportion of the total open positions individually. Such short and long positions in excess of the said limits shall be compared with the FPI Category (I) /MFs holding in stocks, cash etc. as stated above.
The position limits of Trading members / FPIs (Category I) / Mutual Funds in individual stocks is related to the market-wide position limit for the individual stocks. The combined futures and options position limit shall be 20% of the applicable Market Wide Position Limit (MWPL).
Download the file for combined futures and options position limit (.csv)
The gross open position across all futures and options contracts on a particular underlying security, of each specific client or scheme of MF, should not exceed the higher of:
1% of the free float market capitalization (in terms of number of shares)
or
5% of the open interest in all derivative contracts in the same underlying stock (in terms of number of shares) whichever is higher
The position limits underlying-wise, are available to members on NSE's website
Updated on: 03/01/2023
