In a circular released today, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) said that it will introduce a pre-open session for equity futures and options (F&O) starting 08 December 2025, allowing traders to discover opening prices for index and stock futures before regular trading begins.

This move brings the derivatives market in line with the equity cash market's pre-open call auction and aims to enhance price discovery and reduce opening volatility.

The F&O pre-open session will run from 9:00 a.m. to 9:15 a.m., following a call auction mechanism. Order entry, modification, and cancellation will be permitted until a random close between 9:07'9:08 a.m., followed by price discovery and trade matching until 9:12 a.m. A three-minute buffer will precede the regular session opening at 9:15 a.m.

Initially, the framework will cover current-month futures on single stocks and indices, expanding to next-month contracts during the final five trading days before expiry. Options, spread contracts, and corporate-action ex-dates are excluded.

During the auction, traders will have real-time access to indicative opening prices and order imbalance data. Both limit and market orders are permitted, though stop-loss and IOC orders are restricted.

Unmatched limit orders will carry over to the regular session with their original timestamps, while market orders will convert to limit orders at the discovered opening price.

All orders will undergo margin validation and self-trade checks, and trades executed in this window cannot be cancelled.

A mock trading session on December 6 will allow brokers and participants to test the system before live implementation.

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