Introducing the MCX info widget on Kite web

Trading commodity futures and options involves more moving parts than equity derivatives. In equities, most contracts follow a common rulebook. In commodities, the rules change depending on what you’re trading, expiry dates, cut-off times, and even settlement methods can differ from one contract to another.

Take Gold and Crude Oil as examples.

Gold futures are physically settled. As a contract nears expiry, it enters a tender period, where any open position can lead to physical delivery. Since physical delivery isn’t supported, trading in Gold futures stops before the tender period begins.

Unlike equity options, which expire alongside futures, Gold options are monthly contracts. If the underlying futures contract expires in the following month, the options expire seven trading days before that futures expiry. Otherwise, they expire on the last trading day of the month.

Crude Oil works very differently. Crude Oil futures are cash-settled, with no delivery or tender period. Positions can be held right up to expiry and are settled in cash. Crude Oil options follow their own timeline as well, expiring two trading days before the underlying futures contract.

When every commodity comes with its own timelines and rules, keeping track of these details can quickly get overwhelming.

To make this easier, we’ve added the MCX Info Widget on the Kite web. It brings all key contract details into one place.

You can access it by clicking on any MCX contract in your watchlist and selecting Info from the context menu.

What you can quickly check using the MCX Info Widget:

The exact expiry and last trading day for each contract and switch between different futures and options expiries for the same commodity without leaving the screen.

Check how long trading is allowed for that contract at Zerodha. For physically settled commodities like Gold, this shows when trading stops ahead of the tender period.

For the selected expiry, the widget shows key F&O details such as lot size, price quotation, open-interest change, ATM strike, implied volatility (for options), PCR, max pain, and how much profit or loss a one-rupee price move translates to.

As expiry approaches, the Specs & expiry timeline view shows when overnight positions are no longer allowed, when the contract becomes intraday-only, auto square-off timings, and how positions are handled at expiry.

Finally, all contract specifications are available in one place, including trading hours, quality standards (such as 995-purity gold bars), pricing references, and the settlement mechanism, so you don’t have to look these up separately.

Note: This feature is currently available on the Kite web and will soon be available on the Kite app.

At Zerodha, we offer a single-ledger facility. This means you can trade commodities using the same funds you use for equity, no separate balance is required. Learn more about single ledger.

If you want to understand the basics of commodity markets, check out this module on Varsity.