56 short chapters on risk, P&L, taxation, F&O, costs and the habits that show up in a trading journal — with charts you can read in ten seconds. Written for Indian traders, in plain English, looking backwards at trades that already closed.
No chapter matches that. Try “cost”, “stop”, “expiry” or “ITR”.
Two lots means nothing on its own. Here is how to read the rupees you actually risked, trade by trade.
RiskDrawdown is a dip in a curve you already lived through. Depth is half the story; duration is the other half.
RiskA limit is a rule if it has a timestamp, and a story if it does not. Also: check the breach on net, not gross.
RiskThe textbook formula assumes a trader you are not. Here is what it can still tell you.
RiskTwo prices tell a story that one price hides. Slippage, dragged stops, and the no-stop trade.
RiskA busy blotter can still be a single bet on a single expiry. Split the day and find out.
RiskHolding past 15:30 is a different sport. Flag it, so your statistics stop mixing two games.
Between the two sits a stack of statutory and broker charges that never asks whether you were right.
P&LA one-line formula that becomes useful the moment you attach a sample size to it.
P&LSeventy percent winners can still be a red book. Pair the rate with the payoff or do not publish it.
P<he payoff ratio, why charges hit the two sides differently, and what one giant expiry does to your averages.
P&LGross profits divided by gross losses. Anything hovering near 1.0 is weather, not evidence.
P&LEvery trade has a worst moment, a best moment, and an exit. Most journals only keep the third.
P<he calendar heatmap and the trade table are two cameras pointed at the same session.
What Securities Transaction Tax is, why it is charged on turnover, and what a journal should store.
TaxationYour broker already separates them. If your journal does not, April gets loud.
TaxationA widely used professional treatment, not a setting inside your journal.
TaxationThe utility changes every year and your facts change with it. Here is only what the labels mean in conversation.
TaxationNotional, premium and absolute-profit methods produce wildly different numbers. Label yours.
TaxationTwo very different uses of the same word, and what the anxiety usually turns out to be about.
TaxationSeparate columns now, legal mapping later. Also: what GST is actually charged on.
Screenshots are souvenirs. Structured trades answer questions.
Trading journalThree honest lines per trade beat a manifesto you will never reread.
Trading journalTag hygiene, why auto-tags are drafts, and how to retire a strategy without corrupting the record.
Trading journalPre-market intent, timestamped, is the only fair thing to grade the close against.
Trading journalCounts first, story second, and at most one process change.
Trading journalEvidence beats memory, and a boolean beats "I kind of broke it".
Trading journalBroker truth, then human layer. Reversing the order is how journals become fiction.
Premium P&L is not a scaled copy of the index move, and your journal should stop pretending it is.
F&ODays-to-expiry belongs in a column. Also: the Indian expiry calendar changed, and your history spans both versions.
F&OLot count, notional exposure and premium at risk are three different measurements of the same trade.
F&OA broker file records legs. Your brain traded a structure. Something has to reconcile the two.
F&OTime decay is a property of the contract you held. Here is how to see it in your own hold-duration data.
F&OSettlement events arrive without an order. If the journal misses them, your year stops matching the note.
F&ONine in ten individual traders lose. What that means for the crowd, and what it does not mean for your book.
Define it operationally and it becomes a number you can count instead of a feeling you argue about.
BehaviourEntry-time buckets turn a vague feeling into a countable pattern.
BehaviourStreaks happen by chance. The behaviour after them is the part worth measuring.
BehaviourFill count means nothing without the plan it is compared against — and without the charges it generated.
BehaviourPlan-versus-fill mismatches are countable, and counting them is less painful than feeling guilty about them.
BehaviourRevenge after losses gets all the attention. Confidence after wins is quieter and equally expensive.
BehaviourEmotion recorded at 08:50 is data. The same field filled at 15:45 is a reaction to the result.
How you are billed changes which habits are expensive. Read the plan, not a two-year-old tweet.
CostsA small structural detail that fixes a lot of confused cost calculations.
CostsStamp duty, exchange transaction charges and the SEBI fee look like rounding errors until you count the fills.
CostsIntended price minus filled price, signed by side. Without the first number there is nothing to measure.
CostsOne number per product per day, computed from real notes — and the hurdle it sets for scalping.
CostsSEBI found profitable individual traders spending a wide range of their profits on costs. Your own ratio is calculable.
CostsMulti-broker traders need a merged view — and a rule against comparing unlike periods.
FY26 means the year ending March 2026. Label it, or spend every April reconciling two calendars.
Indian marketsThe equity session runs 9:15 to 15:30. Everything you measure by time depends on getting that right.
Indian marketsA short ceremonial session distorts every time-of-day average unless you label it.
Indian marketsIndia runs on T+1 with an optional same-day facility that is still not fully rolled out. Do not teach folklore.
Indian marketsCircuit limits, halts and the temptation to write down a price that never traded.
Indian marketsNSE trimmed index lots for the January 2026 series. Any per-lot statistic that spans that date is comparing two units.
Indian marketsHoliday-shortened weeks distort weekly averages. Tag them instead of training a theory on them.