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Open Interest is the number of open long and short contracts of any particular future or option contract, that has not been exercised, closed out, or has expired. Open interest increases when a buyer and seller create a new contract (buyer going long and the seller going short), and open interest decreases when the two sides liquidate an existing contract.

Rising volume and rising open interest tend to confirm the direction of the trend, but falling volume and falling open interest indicate that the current trend may be about to end. Day trading methods using this indicator are rare, as it is at best a peripheral indicator.

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