With effect from April 4, all Nifty index weekly futures and options (F&O) contracts will expire on Monday rather than Thursday, according to a March 4 announcement from the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
According to the exchange, all Nifty F&O contracts will expire on the final Monday of the expiry month rather than on Thursday. The NSE also moved the F&O expiry dates for the Bank Nifty, FinNifty, Nifty Midcap Select, and Nifty Next50 to the final Monday of the expiration month, starting on April 4.
“The circular shall come into effect from April 04, 2025, i.e., Expiry day for all existing contracts will be revised to’ New Expiry Day ‘on April 03, 2025 (EOD),” according to the NSE.
According to the NSE, the monthly contracts for all equities will expire on the last Monday of each expiry month. The stock exchange stated that the updated expiration date is April 11 due to April 14, 2025, being a stock market holiday. Participants can speculate on underlying asset values in their portfolios through derivatives trading without actually holding them.
According to a Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) analysis in September 2024, individual traders in the F&O market suffered an astounding Rs 1.8 lakh crore in aggregate losses over the previous three fiscal years, with nearly 93% of over 1 crore investors, or nine out of ten traders, suffering average losses of Rs 2 lakh each.
Notably, during the three years from FY22 to FY24, the top 3.5% of loss-makers, or around 4 lakh traders, lost an average of Rs 28 lakh each, including transaction costs. Even after deducting transaction expenses, hardly 1% of individual dealers were able to make more than Rs 1 lakh.
This becomes important because a previous survey by the capital market watchdog, which was released in January 2023, revealed that 89% of individual equities F&O traders experienced a loss in FY22.
