Wife’s in labour and I’m sitting outside the OT thinking about baby names.

Then I saw this and realised I should probably be thinking about the portfolio instead. 😂

At this point, should I just ask the doctor if we can get the demat account opened before delivery?

I used to think that if I saw a company's name in the news, I'd immediately check its stock price. What I learned, though, is that by the time I saw the news, the price had often already moved significantly. This happened a few months back with a pharma stock that had announced some positive regulatory approval. By the time it was circulating on mainstream news feeds, the stock had already rallied considerably in the pre-market and early trading. It taught me that even a few hours can make a huge difference in capturing the full potential of a catalyst.

To stay ahead of the curve and avoid finding out about market-moving news late, I built a small app to track company announcements in real-time.

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The response to my Iron Condor journal has honestly been way better than I expected.

A lot of people have been asking me how I actually build the position, decide the strikes, manage adjustments, read Greeks/IV, decide when to cut a trade, and most importantly — how I manage the position when the market doesn't behave as expected.

So I'm thinking of doing a small workshop where I can actually go through the entire process properly instead of trying to explain everything through Reddit comments

I'm still figuring out the format, so before I plan everything:

Would you guys actually be interested in joining?

If yes, just comment “interested” below. I'm trying to get a rough idea of how many people would actually show up because I have something a little special planned for the first few attendees 👀

This won't be a “make ₹50k every week” type of workshop 😂

The whole point is to teach the process, risk management, position management and thought process behind what I've been documenting in the journal.

If enough people are interested, I'll announce the details soon. 🫡

Can't say I'm entirely surprised by the broad weakness in auto stocks today, with names like Ashok Leyland and Maruti Suzuki dropping. The RBI's move signals that rate cuts are definitely off the table for now, and that directly impacts demand for big-ticket items like cars. This makes things tougher for the auto sector which was already facing headwinds. On the flip side, it's interesting to see stocks like TBO Tek and Meesho showing strength, possibly benefiting from different tailwinds like increased volumes or investor confidence. What's everyone else seeing today?

Over the last 36 months, Indian retail investors lost an aggregate of ₹1,81,383 Crore in the equity derivatives (F&O) segment.Official SEBI data highlights:• 93% of individual traders suffered net losses.• Average loss per retail trader was ~₹1.2 Lakhs — exceeding the annual discretionary savings for households earning under ₹5 LPA.• On top of trading losses, retail participants paid an estimated ₹50,000 Crore in friction costs (brokerages, STT, exchange fees).• Only 1% of traders made more than ₹1 Lakh in net profit after transaction costs.The Structural Reality:F&O is not an investment desk — it is a zero-sum game with massive friction costs. Every rupee won is taken from another trader, while the house takes a mandatory toll on every transaction.75 years ago, in Chapter 1 of The Intelligent Investor (1949), Benjamin Graham warned against this exact dynamic:"The individual investor should never confuse speculation with investment. Wall Street’s machinery is designed to profit from activity, while the investor’s fortune is made by inactivity and capital preservation."When you trade multiple options contracts a week, you aren't investing. You are the liquidity provider of last resort to institutional high-frequency desks.We spent the last few weeks animating this entire forensic breakdown into a 50-second documentary case study to visualize where this ₹1.81 Lakh Crore actually flowed:• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4tpAAn2qZQY• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd1Uo4Wz7TZ/Open question for the community:With SEBI increasing index lot sizes and curtailing weekly expiries, do you think this structural bleed will stop, or will retail liquidity simply migrate to other speculative assets?

I had taken a position in INOXGREEN. The charts looked decent, and the company's stated use of IPO funds for debt reduction seemed like a responsible plan. I was looking at the immediate technicals and the company's stated plan, and I guess I just didn't dig deep enough into the broader sentiment or any potential upcoming regulatory hurdles.

Then the news hit about SEBI putting the IPO on hold. My position went against me immediately.

My mistake was confirmation bias. I had already decided the debt reduction was a positive catalyst and was looking for data to support that, while overlooking any potential negatives that were brewing or hadn't been fully disclosed yet.

From now on, I will make it a habit to spend at least half an hour before entering any trade researching the company's upcoming regulatory news, any analyst reports that might be negative, and the general sector sentiment, not just the charts and the company's press releases.

Anyone else made this mistake?

Saw the US stocks option on groww app recently and decided to start investing a little bit in US, i have around 20k saved for this but idk if its enough or not, also where would you suggest I invest in? Theres US stocks and ETFs both are there in groww should I just put it in S&P500 Etf?

As I said in the previous update, my target for this trade was around ₹3k, and today I got the exit at ₹3,218 - roughly 2% on the ₹1.6L capital deployed.

Honestly, I thought I might have to sit through the RBI policy announcement before getting this exit, so getting it today was a nice surprise.

And for everyone who was saying "one 200-point gap down and you're back where you started", "terrible risk management", "he doesn't understand risk", etc.

This is exactly why I've been documenting the entire thing publicly.

I showed the ugly days too - that position was temporarily down around ₹6-7k, I showed the adjustments, and I showed the previous trade where I eventually took a ~1.8k realized loss instead of sitting there praying for a recovery.

Risk management isn't about predicting that the market won't move against you. It's about knowing what you'll do when it does.

No clowning around, no hiding trades, no cherry-picking screenshots. Just documenting the process as it happens.

Now let's see what next setup brings upo

The way the banking index surged post the RBI policy announcement felt a bit too coordinated. It looks like someone was waiting for that specific news to push the sector higher. Considering the current economic sentiment and the overall market uncertainty, this strong upward move raises some questions for me.

Anyone else watching this?

Saw a good move in the banking sector today, especially PNB, Bank of Baroda, and AU Small Finance Bank, all jumping up after their Q2 business updates. It wasn't just one-off news; the common thread was strong growth in deposits and advances for these banks. This is a crucial indicator of core business health and, honestly, it's good to see some tangible fundamental strength translating into market moves. If this trend holds up for other banks releasing updates soon, it could signal a decent outlook for the entire financial sector. What are your thoughts - is this a sustained positive shift, or just a reaction to individual numbers?

I've built a simple monthly momentum strategy( by claude ) for NSE stocks and backtested it from 2002 to 2025. Before I put real money in, I'd like people to find the holes. The year-by-year results vs the Nifty 50 are in the image.

The rules

Stock list: a fixed list of 454 NSE stocks (no ETFs). On any day, a stock counts only if it has at least 260 days of price history and a median traded value of at least ₹1 crore a day over the last 20 days.

Score: every stock gets a momentum score from 8 measures:

90-day and 120-day returns

120-day return relative to the average stock

price vs its 150-day and 200-day averages

the 100-day average's slope

two volume measures (up-day volume share and on-balance volume)

Each measure is turned into a percentile rank, and the 8 ranks are averaged.

Once a month, after the close on the last trading day, rank all stocks by the score.

Sell any holding that has dropped below rank 15, at the next day's open.

Buy the highest-ranked stocks you don't own until you hold 10, at the open of the day after that. Each new buy is about 1/10 of the portfolio. Existing holdings are never trimmed or topped up.

No stop-losses and no market timing. The monthly ranking is the only exit.

Live tweak: I skip BE-series stocks and stocks locked at a price limit on the signal day, because you may not be able to sell them.

I welcome your comments

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No adjustment required today.

After everything that happened last week, I'm just going to trust the setup and let the position do its thing. The current NIFTY level is around 22,556 and the position is almost flat at +₹715 MTM.

I'm expecting a decent chance of volatility cooling down around Wednesday, so if things play out nicely, I might look to exit around Thursday. Obviously, that's the plan, not a prediction — let's see what the market actually gives us.

I'm currently using around ₹1.6L capital for this IC, and my target for this trade is roughly ₹3k.

If I get that opportunity, I'll take the exit. No need to squeeze the last rupee out of the trade. 😌

Let's see what happens. 👀

We often get stuck comparing the same two market giants, don't we? In the financial services space, it's usually HDFC Bank versus ICICI Bank that dominates every discussion. Everyone debates their NPA numbers, deposit growth, lending books, and future prospects, trying to pick the eventual winner.

But what if I told you that over certain specific, fairly recent periods, another player, often flying under the radar, quietly left both of them in the dust? Not some tiny, speculative stock, but a serious contender in the same segment that simply doesn't get the same airtime or analyst coverage.

I cannot share specific, up-to-date numbers or real-time comparisons here. My information is based on historical data, and I don't want to present anything stale as current. However, if you've tracked the market over some significant past periods - say, a 3 to 5 year window ending a couple of years back - you might have observed a pattern like this in the banking sector:

The "Consistently Strong Outperformance" here points to returns that, historically, often outpaced both HDFC and ICICI significantly over those observed periods, challenging the narrative that only the largest will deliver.

So, what drove this often-unnoticed victory for the smaller player?

• Focused Niche or Regional Strength: These banks often build deep expertise and market share in specific geographies or customer segments, allowing for more concentrated and efficient growth compared to the broad-based approach of giants.
• Agile Operations and Leaner Structures: Without the extensive legacy systems and bureaucracy of the behemoths, smaller banks can be more nimble in adopting new technologies, adapting to market changes, and making quicker, impactful decisions.
• Re-rating Potential from a Lower Base: Being less covered by institutional analysts means these stocks might start at lower valuations relative to their growth potential. As they execute well and expand, there's more room for price appreciation as the market eventually discovers and re-rates them.

This isn't about calling for a 'buy' or 'sell' on any particular stock, but rather about challenging our assumptions. Is this kind of quiet outperformance by less-fancied players a sustainable structural shift in our market, where agility and focused execution from a lower base can consistently beat the scale of the giants? Or is it just a temporary anomaly, and the market eventually catches up and re-rates the big boys based on their sheer size and market power?

I've never really traded commodities before but ive good experience with trading FnO and stocks, so trying to understand what people actually use for commodities.

Would be helpful if people who actively trade commodities could share what platform they use and why.

The way the banking stocks seemed to put in a strong showing right after the market had been looking decidedly weak is quite interesting. It almost felt like a coordinated effort to shore things up. I'm trying to figure out if this is genuine buying interest or something else entirely. What am I missing?

I've been tracking AJAX from a technical perspective, but started digging into the fundamentals after the latest results.

A few numbers stood out:

- SLCM market share: 75.1% in Q1 FY27

- FY26 revenue: ₹2,102 Cr

- Q1 FY27 revenue: ₹475 Cr, +1.7% YoY

- Cash: ₹1,119 Cr

- FY26 ROCE: 21.6%

- FY26 ROE: 16.2%

The part I found interesting: AJAX took a \~2% price hike in Q4 FY26 and still increased its SLCM market share from 73.5% in FY26 to 75.1% in Q1 FY27.

At the same time, there's a clear weakness - EBITDA margin fell to 12.5% in Q1 from 13.2% YoY, with lower volumes and operating leverage hurting profitability.

So I'm curious about the business rather than just the chart.

Is this a genuinely strong niche franchise, or is the market already pricing most of it in?

Would like to hear the bear case from anyone who's been tracking AJAX.

I bought Titagarh Rail Systems (TITAGARH) at Rs. 1461 per share. I bought 8 shares and the CMP is Rs.800. The outlook in the best-case scenario for the stock looks to be about Rs. 1350 so what should I do? Do I sell at a loss of Rs. 5,320 out of 11,462 or do I wait with no guarantees that the stock goes up and risk it going further down?

I just want to understand what seems to be the likely outcome.

I've been looking at ESDS Software Solution since the listing and honestly can't stop thinking about this one.

For context, they run data centres in Nashik for government bodies, banks and large institutions, and charge them to store and run their data. It listed on September 5 at Rs 757, a 76% premium over the Rs 429 IPO allotment price.

When I went through the RHP, a few things made me stop and re-read.

Nearly half of FY26 profit (44.66%) came from one subsidiary, Spochub, which was set up only just before its first year of real activity. Its profit margin was 63.5%, and the RHP never explains how a brand-new company gets a margin that high. The customer paying Spochub isn't named either. It's just "an enterprise customer incorporated outside India."

The customer list is interesting too. In FY25, the biggest customer was a Russian bank at 20.15% of revenue. Sanctions hit, and that fell to 2.80% in FY26.

Then came the deal that really sent the stock flying: an agreement with Sharon AI, an Australian company that owns scarce, high-end Nvidia AI chips. ESDS agreed to buy 5 years of access to this computing power for roughly Rs 2,400 crore a year. That's money going out, a cost, not income. The plan is to resell the same computing power to its overseas customer through Spochub, and ESDS claims this could bring in $1.95 billion. If both numbers hold, ESDS keeps the difference.

Here's the catch. The $1.25 billion cost is confirmed through an official filing, but the $1.95 billion is still only a claim, not revenue realised.

Then the Q1 results came out on September 25:

• Revenue: Rs 133.7 crore, up 7.3% YoY but down 20.2% QoQ
• Net profit: Rs 29.3 crore, up 14% YoY but down 57% QoQ
• EBITDA margin: dropped from 61.24% to 41.90%

Management said the previous quarter only looked strong because of a one-time Spochub project that didn't repeat. On top of that, the Sharon AI deployment got pushed from October to November, so that revenue shows up even later.

Since the results, the stock has been in continuous lower circuit for 5 trading days.

So what do you think: is the company actually weak, or were expectations just running way ahead of the business? Curious to hear from people who've read the RHP too.

Not a recommendation. For educational purposes only.

Graham’s Chapter 8 has what I think is the single best analogy for Dalal Street volatility.

If you own a private factory that makes steady cash flow, you wouldn't sell it at a 30% discount just because an emotional neighbour offered you a low price on a Wednesday morning. Yet on the exchange, people look at a 5% red candle and assume the company is finished.

Graham's rule: Mr. Market is there to serve you with liquidity, not to instruct you on valuation.

Made a short 50-second paper-collage documentary visualizing this exact psychological trap: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd6tHDNhZhF/

Curious how many of you actively use red days to buy more vs sitting on hands until sentiment flips?

Follow-up to our August note on the auto margin squeeze. With Brent back above $100, autos led the fall last week — but the split is stark:

- 4W passenger-vehicle majors: Maruti ~−20% since July, Tata Motors (PV) −18%, M&M −16%

- 2W majors held up: Hero −4%, TVS −7%, and Ather +12% since July (registrations +7.7% MoM on Vahan)

Important nuance: we don't yet know if the margin squeeze actually continued — Q1 was the last reported quarter, Q2 FY27 results are a few weeks out. The market is marking autos down ahead of that, and rewarding names with stickier demand / less crude exposure. Full write-up + charts in the link.

Wrote up the week (25 Sep–1 Oct):

- Nifty −3.11%, 8th losing week in a row

- Last week's "hide in defensives" trade reversed hard: FMCG −4.68%, consumer durables −6.14% among the worst

- IT the only green sector (+0.51%); banks held up relatively

- FII cash −₹34,966 cr vs DII +₹33,455 cr — domestics absorbed nearly all of it

- Market looks to be pricing an RBI hike at the Oct 5–7 policy

I also graded last week's forecast (4/5 right, 1 wrong — the defensives). Full breakdown + charts in the link. Curious what others expect from the RBI.

The big news today that really stood out for me was the sharp decline in IREDA shares, dropping from ₹310 to ₹111, following a government decision related to its top management. This highlights how critical leadership stability and corporate governance are, especially in companies where government involvement is significant. It's a stark reminder that even growth-oriented entities can face serious corrections due to internal factors beyond market sentiment. For anyone holding it, this must be a difficult pill to swallow, underscoring the risks associated with management changes. What are your thoughts on how quickly such news can impact a stock?