← Options App

The F&O screener: contract by contract, every minute

A stock screener tells you RELIANCE is moving. It does not tell you which RELIANCE contract is moving, or whether you could trade it. This screener works one level down — every future and every near-the-money option — and layers intraday technicals on each row.

App guideFNOTraderPublished
On this page

What it scans

The universe is indices and stocks, futures and options, scanned on the server every minute.

For options the scan covers ATM ±10 strikes on each underlying — enough to catch the strikes people actually trade without drowning in deep OTM noise. Every row is one contract, not one underlying, so a CE and a PE on the same stock can sit in different buckets.

If you are after cash-stock screening by fundamentals or price patterns, that is a different tool — see stock screeners in India. This one is for the derivatives book.

The preset buckets

Eleven presets sort the scan into themes:

BucketWhat lands there
Price Gainers / LosersLargest % moves up or down
OI Gainers / LosersLargest % change in open interest
Long BuildupPrice up, OI up — fresh longs
Short BuildupPrice down, OI up — fresh shorts
Profit BookingPrice down, OI down — longs exiting
Short CoveringPrice up, OI down — shorts exiting
OI Spike, Unusual Vol, Top VolumeWhere positioning or activity is out of the ordinary

The buildup tag is the most useful column on the page. A price gainer tagged short covering is shorts leaving, not new conviction — a very different trade from the same price move on long buildup. Each contract also carries the IST time it first qualified for a bucket today, so a fresh entry is easy to tell from a stale one.

The Stocks Screener with the custom scan builder on the left and the preset scan buckets for price, open interest, buildup and activity on the right.
The Stocks Screener with the custom scan builder on the left and the preset scan buckets for price, open interest, buildup and activity on the right.

The technical columns

ColumnStates
5m / 15m / 30m ORBAbove, within or below that opening range
CPRAbove R2, above R1, above CPR, in CPR, below CPR, below S1, below S2 on the previous day's pivots
EMA5 / EMA9Price above or below the average
X-Day H/LBroke a multi-day high or low (for example 3D-HI), or in range
Day H/LAt the day's high, in the middle, or at the low
RVOLThe underlying's volume today versus its 20-day average
LiqLiquid, OK or Thin

The liquidity badge is built from how continuously the contract traded today — the share of elapsed minutes with a trade — together with OI and volume. A contract that printed one big block at 10:00 and nothing since rates Thin however large its volume looks, and anything under ₹0.50 is always Thin. The Tradable filter keeps Liquid and OK.

Worked example: building a scan

Say you want call options with momentum on stocks that are trading actively. In the Custom scan, add rows that are all AND-ed together:

  1. Type: CE; Liquidity: Tradable.
  2. 15m ORB: above; EMA9: above.
  3. RVOL ≥ 1.5; Chg% ≥ 10.

A hypothetical contract trading at ₹44 against a previous close of ₹38 shows Chg% = (44 − 38) ÷ 38 = 15.8%, passes the 10% floor, and appears only if its stock's volume is at least one and a half times the 20-day average. Results show the top 300 by absolute % change. Save the scan and it comes back with one click tomorrow.

Presets work alongside: tick several bucket chips, choose Match Any or Match All, and the hits carry tags showing which buckets each contract matched.

Limits and common mistakes

Where to find it

  1. Open Options Analytics → Stocks → Stocks Screener.
  2. Set sector, type and liquidity in the Filters card, then build a Custom scan or tick Preset buckets.
  3. Switch to Grid to see every bucket as a mini-table, or type a symbol to see that underlying's full futures and options list.
  4. Click any contract for a 5-minute chart.

The page refreshes every minute while visible. For the same buckets as a wall of charts, see Scanner Alerts and Trade Finder.

Common questions

How often does the F&O screener update?

The scan runs on the server every minute during market hours, and the page reloads it every minute while it is open.

Which option strikes are included?

ATM plus or minus 10 strikes for each index and F&O stock, together with the futures.

What is the difference between long buildup and short covering?

Both have rising prices. Long buildup has rising open interest, meaning new longs; short covering has falling open interest, meaning shorts closing.

How is the liquidity badge decided?

Mainly by how continuously the contract traded today, together with open interest and volume. Options under ₹0.50 are always rated Thin.

More on Options App

Ask AI in the Options App: alerts in plain English, and the chain explainedMost traders know the alert they want — “tell me when the straddle is 25% off its low” — but not which metric, operator and percent box produce it. AsThe option chain page, card by cardMost chains give you a wall of numbers and leave the reading to you. The Options Analytics chain does part of the reading first: it computes PCR, Max Options screener: what changed in the last few minutesAn option chain shows one underlying at a time. By the time you have flipped through ten of them, the strike that woke up is already up 40%. The Optio

More in Options App · App: Options Analytics · Definitions: glossary · All: every article