10 common options trading mistakes Indian traders make

Options trading in India has a pattern. Most traders make the same mistakes, in roughly the same order.

SEBI found that 87.7% of individual F&O traders lost money in FY26, and options made up 92% of individual losses. Here are the 10 common options trading mistakes behind a lot of those numbers, and one fix for each.

1. No stop loss

You enter a trade and "see what happens". The loss grows and you hope.

Fix: decide your stop before you enter. Step by step in how to set a stop loss in options.

2. Moving the stop loss

The stop is close, so you move it a little further. Then again.

Fix: you can move a stop closer, never further away. If it is hit, the trade idea was wrong.

3. Buying cheap out of the money options

A ₹5 option feels low risk. It is usually close to worthless, and that is why it is cheap.

Fix: pick the strike for your setup, not for the price tag.

4. Ignoring time decay

Option premiums lose value every day, faster near expiry. Holding a losing option and hoping costs you twice.

Fix: give every option trade a time stop as well as a price stop.

5. Position size too big

Taking 5 lots because it "feels right" means one bad trade can take a week of profit.

Fix: risk 1% to 2% of capital per trade and work out lots with the position size calculator. Worked examples in position sizing for Nifty options.

6. Revenge trading

You lose, then jump straight back in to win it back. Bigger size, worse setup.

Fix: after a loss, wait before the next trade. Read how to stop revenge trading.

7. Overtrading

Fifteen trades when your plan had three. Every extra trade pays charges and adds risk.

Fix: set a maximum number of trades a day. Check 8 signs of overtrading to see if this is you.

8. Expiry day gambling

Expiry day options can double or go to zero in minutes. SEBI found that 59% of index options turnover in FY26 happened on expiry day.

Fix: trade expiry day with smaller size, or not at all. More in expiry day trading risk.

9. Ignoring charges

Brokerage, STT, exchange fees and GST come out of every trade, win or lose. SEBI found that transaction costs were 35% of loss-making traders' gross losses in FY26.

Fix: look at your net P&L, not gross. See the real cost of overtrading.

10. Never reviewing your trades

You remember the big win and forget the five small losses after it. Without a review, the same options trading mistakes repeat every week.

Fix: review your trades every weekend. Here is how to read your own trading data.

Find your one biggest mistake

You do not need to fix all ten at once. Most traders have one or two mistakes that cause most of their losses. Fix those first.

LossGuardian helps you find them. It reads your trades from your broker, read-only, and logs every rule you break: revenge trades, overtrading, trades outside your time window, losing streaks. The session drill-down shows which mistakes happened and how often.

See the trading journal and analytics and your discipline score. It never places or blocks trades. It shows you the pattern so you can change it.

Pick one mistake from this list that you made this week. Fix only that one next week.