Open interest is the number of unsettled or outstanding contracts of a particular derivative instrument. It is a metric or data point that helps gauge the traders’ participation in an underlying. Rising Open Interest points to a rise in the trading interest in the underlying. This rise could be a result of rising in trading positions by a variety of trading participants. The participant may be retail or institutional. High open interest means that there is a large number of derivative contracts still open, which means market participants are active in that asset. In the case of futures, if prices rise up and open interest also increases, it suggests that new participants are entering the market despite rising prices, implying an upward or bullish bias. If prices were to move lower and open interest were to increase, it would be suggestive of a downward bias. Continuing, if prices were to move lower and open interest were to decrease, it would be suggestive of long liquidation/long unwinding. Further, if prices were to move higher and open interest lower, implies participants who were sellers are buying back in the instrument, also known as short covering. A data analytics tool in Quantsapp, namely, Builtup indicates a pictorial representation of the open interest history with price action. It helps in gauging the cycle a specific stock or sector is in, based on the price & open interest behavior. It has different color coding for the varied positioning of traders in the market.