Rollover means carrying forward your futures position by switching from the current-month contract closer to expiration to another-month contract with expiry in another month. You perform a rollover by closing your position in a contract that is about to expire and opening a similar new position in another month's contract.
Example scenario
- You buy a Nifty futures contract with an expiry date of 23rd February.
- You think that Nifty will continue to go up in March and want to hold this position till then.
- Since this position will expire on 23rd February, you can exit the Nifty February futures contract and take a new position for March futures contract with an expiry date in March.
You can roll over F&O (Futures and Options) positions during the ban period, but only under specific conditions set by SEBI's delta-based FutEq OI (Futures Equivalent Open Interest) rules.