What Does Held to Close Mean?

At the close we check one thing on every flagged contract: is the position still on? Three answers, and none of them is about profit.

Held to close compares a flagged contract's open interest at the end of the session against the previous close. It answers a single, narrow question: did the position stay on?

There are three possible answers, and the board shows all three.

Held

Open interest finished above the previous close and stayed there through the session. The position was opened and it was still open at the bell.

Round-tripped

Open interest built up during the session and then gave most of it back before the close. It still finished above the previous close, so technically the position stayed on — but calling that the same thing as "held" would flatter it. A contract that built to 1,609 and closed at 946 did not behave like one that built and stayed.

This is the distinction most flow tools do not make, and it is the reason we show the path — where open interest opened, peaked and closed — rather than a tick mark. A tick cannot tell those two apart. A line can.

Unwound

Open interest fell back below the previous close. Whatever was opened was closed again before the session ended.

What this is not

This is the part worth reading twice. Held to close is not a record of whether a trade made money. It is not a win rate, not a success rate, and not a prediction. It does not know the entry price, the exit price, or whether the position was a hedge against something else entirely.

It measures one observable fact — open interest at the close versus the prior close — and nothing beyond it. We publish every outcome, including every contract that unwound, because a graded record that only shows what went well is not a record.

Where the path was not recorded for a contract, the board says so rather than drawing a flat line. An unknown is shown as an unknown.