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FNOTrader Backtest — Strategy Builder & Backtesting Guide

FNOTrader Algo is a no-code builder for F&O trading systems. You describe a strategy as a recipe — which instruments to watch, what triggers an entry, which legs to fire, and how each leg is protected — then replay that exact recipe against minute-bar history in the backtester, and finally deploy the same recipe to paper or live trading.

The Builder is a single page of eight numbered steps:

1. Strategy identity — name, underlying, template, single- or multi-leg.
2. Instruments to watch — the market data your conditions can reference.
3. Entry & exit conditions — when to get in and out, plus BTST/STBT and overnight protection.
4. Strategy legs — the actual orders, with per-leg stop-loss, target, trailing and adjustment rules.
5. Strategy risk settings — basket-level (combined) stops, targets, trailing and rollover.
6. Execution — how orders go to the exchange: sequencing, order types, sizing, day filters.
7. Summary — a one-page recap of every setting.
8. Save — store the strategy, or export/import it as a file.

Once saved, the same strategy runs through the Backtest page. All times in the product are IST and all money values are ₹.

Step 1 — Strategy identity

Give the strategy a Name and an optional Description; both appear on the Strategies, Portfolios and Signals pages, so name it something you will recognise in a list ("920 Short Straddle NIFTY", not "test3").

Symbol

The Symbol is the underlying for the whole strategy — every watched instrument and every leg inherits it. The list covers:

• Indices — NIFTY, SENSEX, BANKNIFTY, FINNIFTY, MIDCPNIFTY, BANKEX, NIFTYNXT50.
• MCX with options — CRUDEOIL, CRUDEOILM, NATURALGAS, NATGASMINI, GOLD, GOLDM, SILVER, SILVERM.
• MCX futures-only — ZINC, ZINCMINI, LEAD, LEADMINI, COPPER, ALUMINIUM, ALUMINI, NICKEL, STEELREBAR, GOLDGUINEA, GOLDPETAL, GOLDTEN, SILVERMIC, SILVER100, MCXBULLDEX, MCXMETLDEX, ELECDMBL — marked "futures only" in the list; legs on these must be futures.
• F&O stocks — a curated list of liquid names from ADANIENT through WIPRO.

Symbols with a backtest archive carry a "✓ backtest" badge in the dropdown. Everything else can still be forward-tested live on the paper broker.

Template

A Template seeds the later steps with a working recipe so you start from something that already runs:

Template	What it sets up	Use it when
Custom (build my own)	A blank slate	You want full control from the first leg
Short Straddle — SELL ATM CE + PE	Two short ATM legs	Classic premium-selling intraday base
Iron Condor — SELL straddle + BUY wings	Short straddle plus protective OTM buys	You want defined risk and lower margin
BTST — BUY ATM CE 15:15 → 09:20 T+1	Buy at close, exit next morning	Playing overnight gap-ups
STBT — SELL ATM CE 15:15 → 09:20 T+1	Sell at close, cover next morning	Harvesting overnight decay / gap-downs
Rolling Straddle — ATM CE+PE, roll ±0.5%	Straddle that re-centres when spot drifts 0.5%	Staying delta-neutral in trending sessions
Rolling Strangle — OTM-2 CE+PE, roll ±0.5%	Same idea, two strikes out	Rolling with more room and less gamma

The rolling templates also enable automatic re-centring with a move threshold and a cap on how many times the position may roll.

Strategy Kind

Choose Multi Leg (basket) for a fixed basket of legs — a straddle, condor, or any custom combination — or Single Leg (option / future) for exactly one leg whose direction comes from the incoming signal: a Long Entry buys it, a Short Entry sells it. Single Leg is the natural fit for TradingView-style directional signals; Multi Leg is for structures you define up front.

Step 2 — Instruments to watch

Everything you add here becomes a named data source your entry and exit conditions can reference — for example SPOT.EMA(10) or STRADDLE.LTP. If your entry is "sell the straddle when the spot crosses above VWAP", you first add the spot here so the condition has something to look at. Quick-add buttons create a plain instrument, an ATM Straddle or a Strangle in one click.

Each watch row has:

• Underlying — inherits the Step-1 symbol; press override to watch a different underlying (e.g. trade BANKNIFTY but condition on NIFTY).
• Scope — what the row represents:

Scope	What you're watching	Use it when
Option (single strike)	One CE or PE contract's premium, OI, greeks	Conditioning on a specific strike's behaviour
Underlying Spot	The cash index / stock price	Price-action entries — VWAP, EMA, breakouts
Futures	The futures contract	You want futures price, OI and buildup, not cash
ATM Straddle (auto-tracking)	Combined CE+PE premium at the ATM strike	Straddle-premium entries; volatility reads
Straddle (fixed strike)	CE+PE at one fixed strike	Tracking the straddle you actually sold
Strangle (CE + PE)	A two-strike combined premium	OTM premium plays with per-side offsets
Custom Strategy (multi-leg)	Any weighted CE/PE combination	Synthetic spreads — condor premium, ratio structures

• Expiry — which contract series the row resolves to at entry: current week, next week, far week, current monthly, next monthly or far monthly.
• Strike Mode — Relative picks a strike by moneyness (ITM10 … ITM1, ATM, OTM1 … OTM10, resolved off spot at entry time), Absolute lets you pick an explicit strike from the live chain (centred around ATM ± 30 strikes).
• Type — CE or PE, for single-option scope. Strangle scope instead offers a CE Offset and PE Offset (each ITM10 … ATM … OTM10) so the two sides can sit at different distances.
• ATM tracking — when the ATM strike is resolved: ATM at start (fixed) pins it at entry, Auto re-adjust (every 1m) re-centres each minute as spot moves, and Fixed at time of day resolves it at a time you pick (default 09:20) — useful for "the 09:20 straddle" as a reference level all day.
• Components (Custom scope) — build the synthetic line by line: add or subtract a CE/PE at an ATM offset or absolute strike, with a multiplier per line. The synthetic's price is the signed, weighted sum of the legs' premiums.
• Alias — the name you use in conditions. It auto-fills per scope (OPTION, SPOT, FUTURES, ATM_STRDL, STRADDLE, STRANGLE, CUSTOM) and you can rename it to anything made of letters, digits and underscores.
• Timeframe — the candle size every indicator on this alias uses: auto (1m), 1m, 3m, 5m, 15m, 30m or 1h. Point-in-time values (LTP, OI, IV) are unaffected. Watch the same underlying on two timeframes and the aliases disambiguate themselves automatically (SPOT_5M, SPOT_15M) — handy for "15-minute trend up AND 3-minute pullback" setups.

Example. For a trend-filtered straddle sale, add the spot on a 15m timeframe (alias SPOT_15M) and an auto-tracking ATM Straddle. Your entry can then require SPOT_15M above its EMA(20) while the straddle premium is still above a floor you set.

Step 3A & 3B — Entry and exit conditions

Entry (3A) and exit (3B) share the same row builder. Each row reads like a sentence: Symbol · Metric · Operator · value(s) — "SPOT LTP Crossing Up VWAP", "STRADDLE LTP Moving Down ₹10 in 5 bars × 5m". Multiple rows combine with AND (all) or OR (any). A live Preview box shows exactly what you've built, in plain text, before you save.

• Check Frequency — evaluate every X-min bar close (default; steady, one decision per bar) or on every tick (real-time) for the fastest reaction. Bar-close checking avoids intrabar noise; tick checking suits fast breakout entries.
• Exit rows are armed only while a trade is open; when any fires, every open leg is squared off. Leave 3B empty and exits come solely from stop-losses, targets, trailing and the square-off time.

Symbols you can condition on

The symbol picker lists every Step-2 alias, plus two built-ins:

• ⏱ Time (HHMM) — condition on the clock. Time rows offer Greater Than, Less Than, Inside Channel and Outside Channel, with time pickers as the values — e.g. "Time Inside Channel 09:20 → 14:30" restricts entries to that window.
• 📡 External Signal — a webhook or uploaded-file signal (see Backtesting → Entry signals). Use it when TradingView or another system decides when, and your strategy decides what to trade.

Metrics

Every alias exposes the full metric catalogue:

Group	Metrics	Typical use
Market data	LTP, OI, OI Chg, OI Chg %, IV, Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega, Volume, CDV, Buildup	Raw price, open-interest and greeks reads
Averages & momentum	VWAP, EMA (period 10), SMA (20), RSI (14), ATR (14), MACD (12/26), MACD Signal (12/26/9), MACD Histogram (12/26/9), ROC (12), SAR (0.02/0.2)	Trend and momentum filters
Bands & trend	Supertrend (10, ×3), BB Upper (20, 2σ), BB Middle (20), BB Lower (20, 2σ)	Volatility-band entries and mean-reversion
Oscillators	Stoch %K (14), Stoch %D (14, 3), ADX (14), CCI (20), Williams %R (14), OBV	Overbought/oversold and trend-strength gates
Floor pivots	Pivot P, Pivot R1/R2/R3, Pivot S1/S2/S3	Classic support/resistance levels
CPR	CPR Pivot, CPR TC (Top), CPR BC (Bottom), CPR Width, CPR R1–R3, CPR S1–S3	Narrow-CPR trend days, wide-CPR chop filters
Fibonacci pivots	Fib Pivot P, Fib R1–R3, Fib S1–S3	Fib-based intraday levels
Camarilla	Camarilla H1–H3, H4 (breakout), L1–L3, L4 (breakout)	Range-reversal (H3/L3) and breakout (H4/L4) plays
Day structure	Day High, Day Low, Prev Day High, Prev Day Low, Prev Day Close	Breakouts of today's or yesterday's range

Indicator periods are editable inline next to the metric — change EMA's period box to 25 and the condition uses EMA(25).

For the change metrics (OI Chg, OI Chg %), a change basis selector sets the anchor: vs prev bar (default, bar-over-bar change), vs day open (cumulative since today's open) or vs prev day close (change including the overnight gap). "OI Chg % vs day open Greater Than 5" reads as "OI has built up 5% since the open".

Arithmetic between metrics

An optional Arith step (+, −, ×, ÷, or — for off) combines the left-hand metric with a second operand before the comparison. The second operand can be another metric on the same symbol, a symbol (a different instrument plus its metric), or a fixed number. The canonical use is a strike-wise PCR: ATM PE OI ÷ ATM CE OI Greater Than 1.2 as a bullish gate.

Operators

Operator	Fires when	Use it when
Moving Up	The metric rises by at least your amount (₹ or %) within a window of N bars (1m, 5m, 15m, 30m, 1h or 1d bars)	Momentum bursts — "premium up ₹15 in 3 × 5m bars"
Moving Down	Same, falling	Premium-crush entries for sellers
Crossing	Crosses a threshold in either direction	You care about the touch, not the direction
Crossing Up	Crosses from below to above	Classic bullish cross — LTP over VWAP
Crossing Down	Crosses from above to below	Bearish cross
Greater Than	Metric is above a value	Simple level gates — RSI > 60, IV > 18
Less Than	Metric is below a value	The mirror gate
Inside Channel	Metric sits within [Low, High]	Range filters — "ADX inside 15–25"
Outside Channel	Metric sits outside [Low, High]	Avoiding the middle of a range
Entering Channel	Transitions from outside to inside	Mean-reversion back into value
Exiting Channel	Transitions from inside to outside	Volatility expansion out of a range
Above	Metric is above another metric	Line-vs-line states — LTP above VWAP all bar
Below	Metric is below another metric	The mirror state
New Day High	Price prints a fresh intraday high	Strength confirmation
New Day Low	Price prints a fresh intraday low	Weakness confirmation
Range Breakout UP	Price crosses above the high of a time window you set (default 09:15–10:15); armed only after the window closes	Opening-range breakout longs
Range Breakout DOWN	Crosses below the window low	ORB shorts
Range Breakout EITHER	Breaks the window high or low	Direction-agnostic straddle/strangle triggers

Moving Up / Moving Down are offered on raw data metrics (LTP, OI, IV, Volume, Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega) where "moved by X in a window" is meaningful. Range-breakout rows let you choose whether the window's extremes come from bar highs/lows or closes — closes give a cleaner range, highs/lows a stricter one.

For single-threshold operators, the right-hand side can be a value (with a ₹/% unit toggle), a metric on the same instrument (EMA crossing SMA), or a different instrument and its metric (CE OI Crossing Up PE OI — an OI-crossover regime flip). Crossing operators add a checkbox — "or fire on day's 1st bar if already crossed" — so a cross that happened before the open still counts on the first closed bar; tick it when your setup is a state ("above VWAP") rather than the moment of crossing.

Step 3C — BTST / STBT

Hold a position overnight with two fields: a Start Time today (typically 15:15) and an Exit Time the next trading day (typically 09:20). Filling both switches the strategy into overnight mode — the entry fires in the closing minutes, the position rides the gap, and it is squared off at your exit time next session. Any 3A/3B conditions still gate the entry inside that window. Leave both blank for a normal same-day strategy.

Example. BUY ATM CE at 15:15, exit 09:20 tomorrow: you capture the overnight gap with a defined, premium-limited risk. The STBT mirror sells at 15:15 to harvest overnight theta and gap-downs — pair it with Overnight Protection below.

Step 3D — Overnight protection

When you carry short options overnight, this feature buys a protective further-OTM option against every open short leg at a time you choose, and unwinds the hedge next morning — capping overnight gap risk without touching the core position. The hedge uses the same expiry and quantity (split to respect exchange freeze limits), its P&L counts in the strategy's MTM, and it needs the NRML product. In backtests it is simulated whenever an overnight carry is active.

Configure:

• Strike by — how the hedge strike is picked:

Method	Picks the strike	Use it when
Strike distance	N strikes beyond the short	Simple, predictable width
Premium closest to ₹	Whose premium is nearest your ₹ target	Fixing the hedge's cost — "spend about ₹10"
Delta closest to	Whose delta is nearest your target	Consistent tail-risk sizing across vol regimes
Max OI strike	The biggest OI wall beyond the short	Parking the hedge at the market's own barrier
Straddle-width ×	A multiple of the ATM straddle premium away	Width that auto-scales with volatility
Underlying % away	A fixed % of spot away	Percent-based width independent of premium

• Value — the number the method uses (strikes away, target ₹, target delta, straddle multiple, or % of spot). Default 3.
• ± strikes — a final nudge (−20 … +20) after the method picks; positive moves the hedge further OTM. The hedge always lands OTM-ward of the short, at least one strike beyond it.
• Apply at / Remove at — hedge on at 15:20 (default), off at 09:20 (default).

Example. An STBT short straddle with protection set to Premium closest to ₹ 10, applied 15:20 and removed 09:20, spends roughly ₹10 a side to make a violent overnight gap survivable — the hedge legs gain what the shorts lose beyond their strikes.

Step 4 — Strategy legs

Each row in the legs table is one order. The basics per leg:

• Leg ID — the automatic number other legs' actions can reference ("on stop-loss, fire Leg 3").
• Idle — the leg is not entered at start; it sits dormant until another leg's action triggers it. Use idle legs for hedge-on-trigger designs ("only buy the wing if the short side is stopped") or stop-and-reverse structures.
• Hedge — marks the leg as a protection hedge: it is excluded from move-SL-to-cost cascades and exited last on square-off, so your shorts are never briefly naked.
• Side — SELL (collect premium; the stop fires when the premium rises) or BUY (pay premium; the stop fires when it falls).
• Fut/Opt — OPT for options; FUT switches the leg to the futures contract (no type/strike, monthly expiries only).
• Type — CE or PE.
• Qty (Lots) — quantity in lots; the Builder multiplies by the symbol's real lot size automatically.

Strike Selection

How the leg's strike is picked at entry:

Mode	You enter	Use it when
Distance	A moneyness pick from ITM15 … ITM1, ATM, OTM1 … OTM15	The classic "sell ATM", "buy OTM2 wing". Offsets beyond ±10 are marked "(live only)" — backtests cover ATM±10 and clamp beyond it
Absolute	An explicit strike number	You want exactly the 24000 CE, every day
Premium	A target ₹ premium — the strike whose price is closest at entry	Selling "the ₹50 option" regardless of where it sits — consistent credit across vol regimes
Delta	A target absolute delta (e.g. 0.30)	Probability-based selection — a 0.10-delta strangle keeps risk roughly constant
Straddle Width	A % of the ATM straddle premium, or a direct × multiplier	Vol-adaptive strikes: 50% of straddle width sits closer on quiet days, further on wild ones
Underlying Price	A signed % of spot (+0.5 → strike ≈ spot × 1.005)	Fixed percentage OTM, independent of strike spacing
OI Levels (Max OI ± offset)	An offset from the biggest OI wall — CE legs anchor on the max Call-OI strike, PE legs on the max Put-OI strike; 0 = the wall itself, ±1 = one strike either side	Selling at the market's own support/resistance walls — a data-driven iron condor

Expiry

Expiry Selection is Relative (a named series the platform resolves each day) or Absolute (an explicit date you pick). Relative choices: Current Weekly, Next Weekly, Far Weekly, Current Monthly, Next Monthly, Far Monthly. Weekly expiries exist only for NIFTY and SENSEX; every other underlying — and all futures legs — offers the monthly series only. Far Weekly/Far Monthly reach two series out, for positional structures that want more time value.

Example. A weekly NIFTY iron condor: SELL ATM CE + PE on Current Weekly, BUY OTM5 CE + PE wings marked as Hedge, one lot each. A stock covered-call-style play on RELIANCE uses Current Monthly automatically, since stocks are monthly-only.

Per-leg risk — the ⚙ panel

Every leg's gear button opens five tabs: Wait & Trade · Stoploss · Target · Per-leg Trailing · Profit Lock & Trail.

Wait & Trade

Instead of entering immediately, the leg waits for the premium to move by an amount you set before placing the order. A positive value waits for a favourable move (confirmation); a negative value waits for an adverse move (a retracement entry at a better price); 0 places immediately. Units: pts (₹) — an absolute premium level, pts_rel — a points offset from the premium at the moment waiting starts, or % — a percentage offset. A per-leg Wait & Trade overrides the basket-wide one in Step 5.

Example. Selling a CE trading at ₹100 with Wait & Trade −5 pts_rel places the sell only if the premium first ticks up to ₹105 — you collect ₹5 more on the same strike whenever the market gives a bounce.

Stoploss

The main stop reads as a sentence: SL [type] [value], then [what happens to this leg], then [follow-up action].

Stop types:

Type	Fires when	Use it when
% of premium	The premium moves against you by X% of entry	The standard options stop — SL 30% on a short leg sold at ₹100 exits when it trades ₹130
Premium distance (points)	The premium moves X ₹ against you	You think in absolute points, not percentages
₹ on this leg	This leg's loss reaches ₹X	A hard rupee cap per leg regardless of premium level
Spot moves either side	The underlying moves X (points or % of entry-time spot) in either direction	Straddle sellers who care about the move, not the premium
Spot rises	Same, but only upward moves	Protecting a short CE against a rally
Spot falls	Only downward moves	Protecting a short PE against a slide
|delta| crosses	The option's absolute delta crosses X	A "the strike is becoming ATM" alarm — delta 0.45 on a sold 0.25-delta leg
× ATR	The adverse move exceeds X × ATR(period)	Volatility-scaled stops — wider on wild days, tighter on quiet ones. The ATR can be computed on the option's own premium or on any Step-2 instrument (e.g. spot ATR)

Leg fate — what happens to this leg when the stop fires: close this leg (default), close this strategy (square off every open leg — a hard stop), or no action on this leg (don't exit; use the stop purely as a trigger for the follow-up action — e.g. keep the short running but fire a hedge).

Follow-up actions — what happens next:

Action	What it does	Use it when
no further action	Just the leg fate	Simple stops
re-execute strategy	Squares off everything and re-enters a fresh copy at the new ATM, up to N times with an optional wait	Straddle re-entry after a stop-out — the classic "re-strike at new ATM"
re-execute leg	Fresh entry on this same leg at market, N times / wait S sec	Re-selling the stopped side only
re-enter at original price	Places a limit at the leg's original entry; fills only if price comes back, capped at N times	"Only re-enter if the move reverses" — no chasing
close all losing legs	Exits every leg currently in the red	Cutting all the pain at once
close all profitable legs	Banks every winner	Locking gains when one side blows through its stop
close all CE buys / CE sells / PE buys / PE sells	Exits a whole side/direction class	Side-level risk-off — "if the sold CE stops, drop every CE sell"
move SL to cost on profitable legs	Ratchets winners' stops to breakeven	Making the rest of the basket risk-free after a stop
execute other leg	Fires a specific Leg ID, optionally after a delay	Waking an Idle hedge or reverse leg
execute other strategy	Launches another saved portfolio as a follow-up	Chaining a defensive strategy after a stop-out
Close Leg N / Enter Leg N	Direct close or fire of a named leg from the list	Precise cross-leg choreography

Stacking conditions. + Add condition appends extra stop rows. Each row picks its own trigger — % of premium, premium points, ₹ P&L, spot either side/up/down, |delta|, × ATR, or absolute LTP ("exit if the premium itself trades ₹180") — its own action (the same vocabulary, plus just exit, close current strategy, close strategy & re-enter strategy, keep leg running, and add qty to this leg), and its own evaluation cadence (every tick or every X-minute close). Rows combine with AND (all) (every condition must be true — e.g. "premium up 25% AND spot beyond 150 points") or OR (any) (first one wins).

Timing controls. The group Check Frequency evaluates the stop on every tick or only at X-min bar close — bar-close checking ignores intrabar spikes entirely. SL Wait (sec) is a breach debounce (0–3600 s): the stop must stay breached that many consecutive seconds before firing, filtering one-tick flash spikes without dulling real moves. The × on the main row disables the stop altogether for a leg you intentionally run naked (say, a far OTM hedge).

Target

The Target tab mirrors the stop exactly — same types, same fates, same stacking, plus one extra type: × SL distance (R-multiple) — the target is placed at X times the stop-loss distance (default 2), so a 30% SL with R 2 books at a 60% favourable move, keeping reward:risk constant however you tune the stop. A delta target fires when |delta| decays to the value — a natural "the option has gone far OTM, book it" exit for sellers.

Target follow-up actions: no further action, re-execute strategy, re-execute leg, add qty to this leg (pyramid the winner), close all losing legs, close all profitable legs, close all CE buys / CE sells / PE buys / PE sells, move SL to cost (this leg), move SL to cost on profitable legs, execute other leg, execute other strategy.

Example. Short strangle: each leg SL 40%, target 80% of premium, on-target action move SL to cost (this leg) on the other side — when one side books, the survivor can no longer lose.

Per-leg Trailing

Once the leg moves in your favour by the Trail Trigger (in % of entry premium or premium points), the stop starts ratcheting: every further Trail Step of favourable move lifts the stop by Trail Lock (leave Lock blank and it moves in full lockstep with Step). Trail Check runs every tick or every X-min close.

With two or more stop conditions on the leg, Trail Mode decides what trailing does to the rest: Shift together (default) moves every stop condition up with the trail — your ladder stays intact, just tighter; Trail only collapses everything to the single trailed stop once it arms — cleaner, but drops the other conditions.

Example. A sold leg at ₹100 with Trigger 20%, Step 10%, Lock 5%: nothing happens until the premium hits ₹80; from there every further ₹10 of decay pulls the stop down ₹5, turning an open-ended winner into a locked one.

Profit Lock & Trail (₹, this leg)

Rupee guards on the leg's own P&L. Profit Locking — when the leg's profit reaches ₹X, never let it fall below ₹Y. Profit Trailing — every further ₹X of profit lifts that floor by ₹Y. Use these when you think in rupees per leg rather than premium percentages. Note: in backtests, profit lock/trail is honoured at the strategy level (Step 5); the per-leg version applies to live runs.

Step 4B — Strategy adjustment rules

Adjustment rules watch the open position and repair it automatically — rolling, exiting or hedging legs as the market moves — the way a discretionary seller manages a straddle. Switch them on with Enable rules, then add one card per rule. They act on live and paper deployments; backtests replay a rule only when it is set to act automatically rather than alert-only.

Rule	What it does	Configure	Use it when
Roll / exit a leg at a price level	When the CE and/or PE premium reaches your level, roll it N strikes or exit	Per-side trigger (leave one blank to skip that side); unit: % from entry, points above entry, or absolute ₹ (LTP); action: Roll away (further OTM), Roll in (closer to ATM), or Exit that leg	"If the sold CE doubles, roll it 2 strikes away" — mechanical defence
Roll / exit a leg at a delta level	Same, triggered by the leg's |delta| (0.02–0.99), rolling by steps or to a target |delta| (target overrides steps)	Actions: Roll away, Roll in, Exit that leg	Delta-based defence — "when a side reaches 0.45, roll it back to ≈0.25"
Price-diff band around entry (two-sided)	Draws a band above and below each leg's entry premium and acts on whichever edge is touched	Band width per side in ₹ points or % of entry; separate ▲ above-entry and ▼ below-entry actions: Roll away, Roll in, Exit leg, or Do nothing	Rolling losers away and rolling winners in from one rule
CE/PE divergence — winner & loser actions	Fires when the gap between the CE and PE premiums exceeds a threshold (in % of combined entry premium or absolute ₹)	Winner: Roll IN to ≈ % of loser's premium, Roll IN N strikes, Exit winner, or Do nothing; Loser: Roll AWAY N strikes, Exit loser, or Do nothing	A trending day skews the straddle — rebalance both sides in one shot
Rebalance — roll the cheap side in (premium match)	When one side's premium is ≥ N× the other (default 2), rolls the cheap side in until it's ≈ a set % of the expensive side (default 80)	The two numbers	Keeping a straddle's credit balanced without micromanaging
Delta / gamma hedge	Watches the basket's net delta (default trigger |0.20|), optionally net gamma, and re-balances	Action: Roll the heavy leg (delta-match, default) or Hedge with FUTURES (buy/sell front month, with an optional max-lots cap)	Staying delta-neutral; the futures variant hedges without touching the options
Spot re-center at ATM ± offset	When the underlying moves ≥ X% from entry, closes and re-opens the structure at the new ATM ± a strike offset	Move %, offset; movement measured on Spot (index), Futures (current month), or Synthetic future (ATM CE−PE)	The rolling-straddle behaviour, as a rule you control

Guards apply across all rules: a minimum CE−PE strike gap (default 100 points) stops rolls from inverting the structure; an auto-action limit caps actions at N per run (default 3) with a cooldown between them (default 60 s) so a whipsaw can't roll you to death; and Only sold (SHORT) legs (default on) keeps the rules' hands off your hedges.

Step 5 — Strategy risk settings (combined)

Everything here works on the basket as a whole — the sum of all legs — rather than any single leg.

Contract rollover

For positional strategies, Auto-rollover squares off and re-enters the whole position on the next expiry, N days before expiry (default 1; 0 = expiry day itself) at a time you set (default 15:00). Use it for strategies that should stay on continuously — a perpetual covered structure that never faces expiry day unattended.

Combined Wait & Trade

The basket-level version of Wait & Trade: hold all entries until the combined premium moves by your value. Units: pts (₹) — an absolute combined-premium level, pts_rel (default) — an offset from the combined premium when waiting starts, or %. A negative value waits for a move against the position (enter the straddle ₹5 richer than first quoted). The timeout sends orders to market anyway after S seconds (0 = wait forever). Any leg with its own Wait & Trade opts out of the basket-wide wait.

Combined Stoploss and Combined Target

The same stop/target machinery as a leg, applied to the basket:

Types — % of combined premium · combined premium distance (points) · ₹ on basket MTM (the default — a plain rupee stop on the whole position) · spot moves either side · spot rises · spot falls (each in points or % of spot) · basket |delta| · × ATR(period).

Actions when it fires:

Action	What it does
just exit	Fires the exit and nothing else
close current strategy (SL) / book the strategy (Target)	Square off every open leg — the default
close strategy & re-enter strategy	Flatten, then re-enter a fresh copy at the new ATM, × N times with a wait between
re-enter at original price	Flatten, then wait for the combined premium to return to the original entry level and re-enter the same strikes, capped at N times
close all losing legs / close all profitable legs	Partial exits by P&L
close all CE buys / CE sells / PE buys / PE sells	Partial exits by side and direction
move SL to cost on profitable legs	Breakeven-lock the winners
execute other leg	Fire a specific leg (with delay)
execute other strategy	Launch a saved portfolio as the follow-up

+ Add condition stacks extra basket conditions (same trigger vocabulary, including absolute LTP), combined with AND (all) or OR (any) (default OR). The group Check Frequency is tick or X-min close, and SL Wait (sec) debounces basket-level breaches. In backtests, which run on 1-minute bars, waits under 60 seconds are absorbed into the bar; longer waits require the breach to persist across bars.

Example. A 2-lot short straddle with Combined SL ₹3,000 on basket MTM and Combined Target ₹5,000 turns the whole position into a simple risk:reward bracket, whatever the individual legs do.

Combined Trailing, Profit Locking and Profit Trailing (₹)

• Combined Trailing — once combined profit reaches the Trail Trigger (default ₹200), every further Trail Step (default ₹50) of profit raises the exit floor by Trail Lock (default ₹50). All three must be above zero for the trail to run.
• Profit Locking — when combined profit reaches ₹X, never give back below ₹Y.
• Profit Trailing — every further ₹X of profit lifts that floor by ₹Y.

Profit Locking/Trailing work independently of the Trailing switch — use locking alone for a simple "once I've seen ₹2,000, I keep at least ₹1,000" rule, or all three together for a full ratchet.

Additional gates

Two quieter protections also live at strategy level: a gap gate that can skip the day's entry when the underlying opens more than a set % away from the previous close — in either direction, gap-up only, or gap-down only — and an auto-hedge helper that can pick protection strikes by premium, by delta, by distance from ATM, or by strike distance. Use the gap gate on strategies whose edge dies on big gap days.

Step 6 — Execution

How orders actually reach the exchange.

Sequencing and failure policy

• Legs Execution — parallel (fire all together) for speed; sequential (one after another) when order matters; buy_first (BUYs → SELLs, margin-safe) to place hedges before shorts so the margin benefit is in place when the sells land. With buy_first, Between hedge & short legs controls the pause: Fire immediately, Wait for fills (safest — shorts go only when the hedges are confirmed), or a fixed 1 / 2 / 3 / 5 / 10 seconds.
• Strike Reference — which price defines ATM: Spot price (index cash), Futures price (current-month), or Synthetic Futures (ATM CE−PE forward). Futures/synthetic shift your strikes by the cost-of-carry — sellers often prefer the synthetic forward. Backtests always resolve ATM off cash spot; a non-spot reference only shifts strikes in live trading (the backtest report warns you).
• If Leg Fails — cancel_all (unwind already placed) keeps you from running a partial basket; keep_placed (continue with partial) accepts what filled; retry_failed retries up to Max Retries (default 2), then falls back to cancel_all.

Entry quality guards

All default to 0 = off:

• Spike protect % — ignore a stop-loss breach caused by a freak tick beyond this %.
• Spread Limit % — refuse to enter when the bid-ask spread is wider than this; protects you from thin, illiquid strikes.
• Premium Gap % — refuse entry when the live premium has diverged from the expected premium by more than this; catches stale quotes and fast markets.
• Slippage % — log a warning event when a fill diverges from the expected price by more than this.

Trading days and sizing

Pick one day filter:

• Weekday — run only on checked days (Mon–Fri checked by default; Sat/Sun available for MCX). Untick Friday if your seller bleeds into weekends.
• Days-to-Expiry (DTE) — run only on days at a chosen distance from expiry, counted in trading days (expiry day = 0; the Friday before a Tuesday expiry = 2), with a weekly or monthly basis. Modes: off — no filter, discrete (pick DTE values) — tick any of 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, or range (from → to) (defaults 5 → 15, up to 60). DTE 0–1 discrete = an expiry-day-only seller; range 5–15 monthly = the mid-cycle theta zone.

Sizing:

• Max Lots — a hard cap on total quantity (0 = no cap); a safety net above every other sizing input.
• Exposure (₹) — auto-size every leg from capital: the platform computes how many lots the exposure buys at the entry premium. Set ₹5,00,000 and the same strategy sizes itself correctly on NIFTY and BANKNIFTY without touching lots.
• Lot sizes are filled automatically per symbol (NIFTY 65, BANKNIFTY 15, FINNIFTY 40, SENSEX 20, and real exchange lot sizes for stocks and MCX).

Notifications

Send to Telegram bot pushes entries, exits, stops and warnings to your Telegram.

Order types

• Entry / Exit Order Type — Market (immediate, takes the spread), Limit (placed at LTP ± the Buffer %, default 5), or Mkt Protect (a market order with a protective band of Buffer % — the recommended default for options, since it fills fast but can't fill at an absurd price).
• Limit-order chase — Off, or On — convert to Market-Protect: an unfilled limit starts repricing toward LTP after Chase after (sec) (default 3), stepping by Chase buffer % (default 1) each time, and finally converts to Mkt-Protect. Use it to earn the spread when you can but never miss the trade.
• Product — NRML for positional/overnight (required for BTST and overnight protection), MIS for intraday with broker auto-square-off.
• Validity — DAY (rests until filled or cancelled) or IOC (fill immediately or cancel).

Steps 7–8 — Summary & save

Show summary renders a one-page recap of every setting — read it before saving; it is the fastest way to catch a leg you forgot to configure. Then Save Strategy (saving again under the same name updates it), or Export JSON / Import JSON to move a strategy between accounts or keep versioned copies of your own.

Backtesting

The Backtest page replays a saved strategy bar-by-bar over minute-level options history — CE/PE prices, IV and OI per strike — with realistic fills, costs and slippage.

Setting up a run

• Mode — Single strategy, or Portfolio, which replays every strategy in a saved portfolio over the same range and aggregates them into one combined equity curve — the honest way to judge a basket of systems that trade together.
• Strategy / Portfolio — pick the saved recipe. The Underlying field fills itself from the strategy's own legs and cannot be changed — a SENSEX strategy can never accidentally replay on NIFTY data.
• From / To — the inclusive date range, clamped to available history. Range presets jump to 1M, 6M, 1Y, 2Y, 3Y, 4Y or 5Y ending about a week ago.
• Cost ₹/order (default 20) — brokerage, STT, GST, exchange and stamp charges per order. Every buy and every sell is one order: a 2-leg straddle round trip is 4 orders.
• Slippage % (default 0.5) — an adverse-fill percentage applied per side on every entry and exit premium.
• Capital ₹ (default 10,00,000) — the base for Return % and CAGR. Quantity stays fixed; results do not compound.
• Intrabar SL (default on) — with it on, price-level stops and targets (%, points, ₹, ATR, trailing, breakeven) are tested against each 1-minute bar's high/low and fill at the trigger level, matching how a live stop order behaves. Turn it off only to reproduce the older close-only model, which triggers at bar close and fills at the next bar's open — optimistic for tight stops. Keep it on for honest results.

Run Backtest consumes 1 credit per year of range (a 5Y run = 5 credits; portfolio mode multiplies by the number of strategies; Algo Unlimited plans show ∞). The credits chip shows your balance, queued runs land in Backtest History, and every finished report offers three views of the same replay — Plain, With Costs and With Slippage — so you see exactly how much friction eats.

Entry signals (optional)

Upload a CSV of external entry/exit signals and the backtest trades only when your signal says so. A TradingView Strategy Tester "List of Trades" export works as-is; or use the two-column template — a date-time (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM, IST) and a signal code: ENTRY, EXIT, LONG ENTRY, LONG EXIT, SHORT ENTRY, SHORT EXIT (short codes E, X, LE, LX, SE, SX).

• Use rows — All signals, Long only, or Short only. Untagged rows count in every mode. No direction is inferred from the file: your strategy's own legs define what gets traded, the file defines when.
• The signal is a state: an entry signal stays active until the matching exit or an opposite signal. If your conditions reference the External Signal symbol explicitly, the file drives that term; otherwise it simply gates the whole strategy — entries only while the signal is on. ✕ clear removes the file and runs ungated.

Example. Export your TradingView supertrend system's trade list, upload it, set Long only, and backtest "sell an ATM put whenever my TradingView system is long" — your indicator logic, the platform's option execution.

Parameter sweep

Tick Parameter sweep (single-strategy mode) to test variants side by side without cloning the strategy. The composer shows only the sections your strategy actually uses — per-leg stop rows (type, value, leg fate, action — the same dropdowns as the Builder) and any enabled adjustment rules' numbers plus the Guards. Name a variant, Save as variant (variants persist between sessions), or Reset to original. The original always runs as the baseline; results list one row per variant, best first, and Use this writes the winning values back into the strategy.

Example. Sweep a straddle's stop across 20% / 25% / 30% / 40% in four variants, run once, and let the table tell you where the stop-out cost stops paying for itself.

Reading the report

The report opens with a recap of the strategy's rules and headline stat chips, then:

• Equity Curve & Drawdown — the shape of the returns; a smooth curve with shallow drawdowns beats a taller, jagged one.
• Performance Metrics — Sharpe, Sortino, Profit Factor, Payoff ratio, Expectancy, win/loss streaks, Calmar and Recovery factor, annualised on 252 trading days.
• Monthly PnL Calendar and Yearly Summary — consistency across regimes; one monster month propping up a flat year is a warning.
• Day-of-Week Summary and DTE Summary — profit split by weekday and by days-to-expiry. Feed the winners straight back into the Weekday / DTE filters in Step 6 — this loop is how a rough idea becomes a tuned one.
• Trade History — the day-by-day table, with toggles for Executed days only and Show filter-skipped days so you can see exactly which days your filters excluded.
• Warnings — every clamp, skip, and unsupported feature the run encountered. Always read them; a warning about clamped strikes or missing series changes how much you should trust the numbers.
• Portfolio runs add a per-strategy breakdown alongside the combined curve.

Every run is saved to Backtest History — filter by text, symbol, or result (All · Profit · Loss), and click any row to reload the full report instantly without spending credits on a re-run.

How backtests differ from live

The backtester is built to be honest rather than flattering. Know these behaviours:

• 1-minute resolution. Backtests replay 1-minute bars; live runs on ticks. A tick check frequency means "every 1-minute bar" in a backtest.
• No lookahead. Entry and exit conditions arm on the bar where they fire and fill at the next bar's open. Nothing in a backtest sees data it wouldn't have had live.
• Intrabar stops. With Intrabar SL on, per-leg price-level stops/targets fill at the trigger price against each bar's high/low (gap bars fill at the open) — live stop-order semantics. Spot-move and delta triggers, AND-combined groups, and all combined (basket) stops still evaluate at bar close, because a basket's true intrabar extreme isn't knowable from per-leg bars.
• Strikes clamp to ATM±10. The archive covers ten strikes either side of ATM. Distance picks beyond ±10 are marked "(live only)" and clamp with a report warning; dynamic modes (Premium, Delta, Straddle Width, Underlying Price, OI, Absolute) clamp too if they resolve outside the band. Live trading uses the raw strike.
• Fills and friction. Entries fill at the firing bar's open, slippage is applied adversely on every fill, and the per-order cost is charged on each entry and each exit. Costs and slippage appear as separate report tabs so you always see the raw edge and the net edge.
• One expiry series per day per basket. Mixed-expiry legs are replayed on the first leg's series with a warning — calendar spreads cannot be backtested faithfully. Next/ far series may have no archive data for older dates (the run reports zero days plus a warning).
• Overnight carries hold the position at pinned strikes to the next session's exit bar, but per-leg stops/targets are not re-evaluated during the brief next-morning window.
• Not simulated: launching another strategy as a follow-up action, the delta rule's futures hedge, alert-only adjustment rules, and per-leg profit lock (the strategy-level version works). Combined-stop breach waits under 60 seconds are absorbed into the bar.
• Greeks source. Backtest greeks are model-derived from bar IV; live greeks come from the broker feed. Differences are largest near expiry and deep ITM — treat delta-based results there with extra care.
• Billing. 1 credit per year of range per strategy; Algo Unlimited runs free. Forward-testing on the paper broker is free; starting a live deployment costs 100 credits.

Supported markets & data coverage

Backtestable indices — NIFTY, SENSEX and BANKNIFTY carry the deep options archive (minute bars, IV and OI per ATM±10 strike). NIFTY history starts 2021-05-28 (about five years), SENSEX from 2023-05-15. The date pickers clamp to each symbol's coverage automatically.

Backtestable stocks — 211 stock F&O underlyings are backtestable from 2026-06-18 onwards, the day full-chain stock options capture began. Stock backtests use each name's real exchange lot size (RELIANCE 500, for example) and monthly expiries only — there are no weekly stock options, and the Builder's expiry dropdown reflects that. Anything dated before 2026-06-18 is outside the stock archive; don't expect stock runs to reach further back.

Weekly expiries exist only for NIFTY and SENSEX. BANKNIFTY, FINNIFTY, MIDCPNIFTY, BANKEX, NIFTYNXT50 and all stocks trade monthly series — the Builder offers only Current/Next/Far Monthly on those symbols.

MCX commodities are live-and-forward-test only: options on crude, natural gas, gold and silver (plus minis), and futures-only metals and index contracts. The backtester refuses MCX underlyings — use a free paper forward test to evaluate MCX strategies on live prices. MCX strategies can run to 23:30 IST with MIS square-off at 23:25.

Rule of thumb: if the symbol shows the "✓ backtest" badge, replay it against history; for everything else, save the strategy and forward-test it on the paper broker — same recipe, live data, zero credits.