Two Breakouts in One Day, 03-08: MidcpNifty and Nifty

Two breakout trades on 03-08-2026, both short puts, both expressing a bullish breakout read, in two different indices. Both worked.

• MidcpNifty: sold the 14,800 PE at 154, closed for +₹2,100
• Nifty: sold the 24,500 PE at 127, closed for +₹1,600

Total: ₹3,700. A good day. Which is exactly when I most need to look at what actually happened rather than the number.

The trades

MidcpNifty: 17.5 points captured, buyback near 136.50, about 11% of the premium. Nifty: 24.6 points captured, buyback near 102.40, about 19% of the premium. Both short puts, both decaying as the underlying held up, both closed the same session.

Mechanically these are the same trade the breakout system always produces — sell a put into a bullish read, collect decay, exit. Running it in two indices at once doubled the size of the day. It also, and this is the point, doubled something else.

Two green trades, one bet

Here is what I want on the record while it is comfortable to admit, because it is free to admit today and expensive to admit on the day it goes wrong.

These were not two independent trades. They were one bet, taken twice.

Both are short puts. Both profit if the market rises or holds and lose if it falls. MidcpNifty and Nifty are not the same index, but they are heavily correlated — when the broad market falls, mid-caps usually fall harder, not less. So on 03-08 I was not diversified across two positions. I was concentrated long the market, expressed through two instruments that would have moved against me together.

Today they moved for me together, and the P&L looks like two wins. On a red day the identical structure produces two losses at once, and the mid-cap leg likely produces the bigger one, because mid-caps have the higher beta. The pleasant symmetry of "two breakouts, both worked" hides the fact that I had stacked my risk in one direction and got paid for the market agreeing with me.

This is the exact lesson from 08-07, when three different short-premium positions all lost together because they were all short volatility and one shock repriced all of them. Same shape, benign face: today two directional-long positions both won because the market went one way. Correlation does not care whether it is helping or hurting me. It just means my positions are not the independent bets my P&L statement makes them look like.

Why this matters even on a winning day

If I judge these two trades on their outcome, I learn the wrong thing: "breakout short puts work, do more of them." What I should learn is: "on 03-08 I was more concentrated long the market than I had consciously decided to be, and it happened to pay."

The number that would tell me the truth is not ₹2,100 or ₹1,600. It is: what was my total short-put delta across both positions at the same time, and what would a 1% market fall have done to the pair? I did not compute that before putting the second trade on. I saw a second breakout, liked it, and took it — without asking whether adding it made me better diversified or just more exposed to the same move.

It made me more exposed. Two short puts in correlated indices is a bigger version of one short put, not a hedge.

What I am watching

1. Aggregate directional exposure, not per-trade P&L. The recurring refrain of this whole journal. Two winning breakout trades in correlated indices is the friendly version of the ₹7,000 afternoon on 08-07. I need a single view of net market exposure across everything open, and I still do not have one.
2. Stops on both, placed at entry. Naked short puts with no resting stop are the same exposure that has hurt me before. Winning today does not change that these went on without pre-placed stops.
3. The temptation to scale the winner. Two breakouts paid, so the itch is to run three or four next time. That is adding correlated risk and calling it opportunity. If I size up, it has to be a decision made against total exposure, not against how good the last green day felt.

₹3,700 is a good day. It is also a day where I was luckier and more concentrated than I planned to be, and I would rather write that down now than relearn it in red.

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.