The second trade in the new system
The first trade in the retooled Sensex weekly short strangle — the one that replaced the retired iron condor — got whipsawed on both legs for −₹1,900. This is trade two, and it's the first time the system has actually looked like the backtest instead of the worst week of it.
The trade
Entered Monday, 10-08, per the system's rules: sell the ATM-adjacent call and put, no wings, one lot each.
| Leg | Strike | Action | Premium | Lot | Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short call | 79300 CE | Sell | 149.05 | 1 | 20 |
| Short put | 77500 PE | Sell | 144.55 | 1 | 20 |
Sensex lot size is 20.
The math
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Credit, CE | 149.05 × 20 = ₹2,981.00 |
| Credit, PE | 144.55 × 20 = ₹2,891.00 |
| Total credit | ₹5,872.00 |
| Breakevens | 77355.45 – 79449.05 (≈2,094-point range) |
| At deployment, broker payoff screen showed | ≈₹5,800 max profit (rounding against the ₹5,872 computed above) |
| Result, booked 12-08 | +₹2,922 (≈49.8% of total credit) |
Why this one followed the rules and the first one didn't
Sensex's weekly expiry sits on Thursday, not Tuesday like Nifty's. This trade was entered Monday 10-08 for the Thursday 13-08 expiry, and it was closed Wednesday 12-08 — the day before expiry, which is exactly the system's written exit checkpoint, not a discretionary early close. That's worth stating plainly, because after the last strangle post flagged a whipsaw with no rule to blame and the 07-08 BankNifty re-entry post flagged a decision with no rule governing it at all, it's easy to start assuming every trade in this journal has a hole in its process. This one didn't. Entry rule followed, exit rule followed, both legs held to the mechanical checkpoint instead of being managed on feel.
The market fell over the two days I held this, which matters for how to read the ₹2,922. A down move works against the short put and for the short call — so this wasn't a case of the index sitting still and both legs decaying evenly. Part of the credit here came from the call side losing value fast as Sensex moved away from 79300, while the put side gave some of that back as the index approached 77500. Net, theta plus the directional split still landed at roughly half the total credit banked in two days, which is a good outcome for a short-premium structure that had real distance to run before its exit checkpoint.
What this trade doesn't prove yet
One clean trade after one whipsaw is two data points, not a verdict. The system's whole premise — backtested over 11 months against the condor it replaced — was that this shape wins more often than it whipsaws, not that it never whipsaws. The open thread from the first trade still stands: gather more live trades, log entry and exit fill quality against what the backtest assumed, and watch how often the no-wing structure gets caught the way it did on trade one. This trade is a reason to keep running the system as written. It is not a reason to stop watching it as closely as I have been.
Disclaimer
This is a personal trading journal. It is a record of my own trades, my own money and my own mistakes — nothing more.
Nothing here is a trade recommendation, a tip, a call, or advice of any kind. I am not a registered adviser and I am not qualified to tell anyone what to do with their capital. The strikes, premiums, entries and exits above are what I did, not what you should do.
If you read this blog and place a trade because of it, that trade is yours. I accept no responsibility for anyone else's losses. Do your own research, size for your own risk, and understand that options can lose you more, faster, than you expect.