Buildup Screener
Live futures buildup across the entire F&O universe — long and short buildups, unwinding and short covering ranked by OI change, updated through the session and frozen at the close.
What the Buildup Screener shows
Futures buildup for the entire NSE F&O universe, live through the session. Every stock's futures price change is read against its open interest change and classified into one of the four canonical states — long buildup, short buildup, short covering, long unwinding — then ranked by the size of the OI move, so the names where real positioning is happening float to the top instead of drowning in a 200-row table.
Watch the tutorial
Buildup Screener, section by section, in a 2-minute video, also in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.
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How to read the four states
- Long buildup — price up with OI up — fresh money entering on the long side, the cleanest bullish read.
- Short buildup — price down with OI up — fresh shorts being opened into weakness.
- Short covering — price up with OI down — existing shorts exiting. The rally is real but it is positions closing, not new conviction.
- Long unwinding — price down with OI down — longs giving up. Bearish, but exhaustion-flavoured rather than aggressive.
- Ranked by OI change — the default sort is the size of the positioning move, because a 4% OI build means more than a 0.4% one with the same label. Any column header re-sorts the table — symbol, close, price change, futures OI, OI change or volume.
- Filters and search — the tabs show All or one state at a time; Include indices adds the index futures to the stocks; the search box finds one symbol; Qty or Lots switches the units and CSV downloads the list.
- New entrants — a New tag marks a stock that moved into its category during the session, with the time it moved, say from short covering into long buildup at 13:40. The tag is filled for moves in the last half hour. The New entrants switch lists only those stocks, latest first, and the Buildup header sorts by the same time. A stock that has stayed in one category since the open has no tag.
- Live, then frozen — rows update through market hours and the closing state is preserved after the bell for end-of-day review — the badge at the top says which day you are looking at.
Frequently asked questions
A long buildup is price rising while open interest rises — new long positions entering. A short buildup is price falling while open interest rises — new shorts entering. Both mean fresh conviction; the price direction tells you whose.
The label matters less than the magnitude and the follow-through. A large OI build that persists across intervals carries information; a small build that flips state every half hour is churn. That is why the screener ranks by OI change rather than treating all rows equally.
Pick the category tab (Long Build Up, Short Build Up, Long Unwinding or Short Covering) and turn on New entrants. The list then shows only the stocks that moved into that category during the session, latest first, each with the time it moved and the category it came from. A move counts once it holds for two checks a minute apart, so a brief flicker around an unchanged price or open interest does not tag a stock.
A stock future is one instrument per expiry, so its OI change maps directly to positioning in that name. Options spread the same story across dozens of strikes, which is powerful but noisier — for a universe-wide sweep, futures give the cleanest single read per stock.