Lost 4 Lakhs in options. Please advise me on the future.

F&O
1

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post. Don’t know where to share this but I have messed up with my savings and lost 4 Lakhs .

It all started in Dec 2025. Got to know about fno from a friend where some of his friends were making 20k per month. At the same time I was not enjoying my job and thought of giving it a try. Initially made some profit around 10k with small small capital and seeing that started trading with higher capital it went so much down was not able to sell it and held it for over the weekend and luckily made a profit of 15k on single trade. Holding it over the weekend was so traumatic so to come out of that trauma stopped trading for 10 days and after that restarted it again the trade went high have seen some good profit and it took reversal, i thought it will go high again so increased more capital and losses piled up and am not able to exit again held it over the weekend with so much stress this time it didn’t go up because of time decay, lost around 70k and after that didn’t trade for many days

restarted it again in Jan end after one month break and made few profits and lost 1.5l in one week

In parallel I was also trying for job change but it was not happening and I was not liking the current job

So to have financial independency wanted to trade again but with proper learning, tools and risk management.

Took two months break and started again with stop loss have made few losses and made some good profits like 30 k per day in two continuous days and then again traded with more lots and lost 1.1 lakh in one day and 60k next day.

Felt so depressed my heart shattered.

Felt so lonely lost weight, always regretted why I didn’t exit the trade and why I have made such decisions.

But read few forums watched some videos

Learnt I was doing over trading

So started paper trading done it for 1 week analysed with only one trade per day in the morning first hour and then after one week started again

In 2 weeks mostly followed strict risk management stop loss and target,

But in that also made few over trades when lost the trade and able to end the day with some profit

In 2 weeks recovered around 40 k

And today again started with the trade with proper entry, stop loss and traget

Seeing the market speed increased the target way higher than my daily Target

It reached my traget and came back very quick and after that increased lots size to reach the target fast and to close the app

But losses piled up and lost around 1 lakh again today

Don’t know what to do now

Have made some good calculations thought of taking only one trade and thought I could recover this amount in 1-2 years slowly with the 50% winning rate and planned to increase lots size slowly but somehow fuc*** up again

Please advise me

How to control

How to accept loss and how to fix the target

Feeling so depressed i don’t like loosing
Especially money

Will I ever recover my money :frowning:

Planning to take a big break and first focus on job switch

And once life gets stable will start with new account with small capital in broker account

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Slow and steady wins the race. It’s not about rules but what you believe - the core belief: “the desire to make money fast and that you can do that”, is recipe for disaster. The rest of your actions are based on that belief and you try to control them with rules. Change your belief: Believe that trying to get money “fast” is recipe for disaster and the rest of your actions will follow. If you’re into options try at least 30dte/next month options and trade on a higher timeframe. Purposely let go of trades that you think will print. Always expect your trade to backfire any time and consider the max loss you’re willing to take that month. Don’t double down. Just let go!

3 Likes
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Start trading stocks or invest in mf for few years , with few basics you can recover money explore fundamentals you can recover losses. Swing , momentum and trend following can also get you there.

Start with longer time frame single stocks and when you are comfortable move to options then futures. FNO can provide excellent hedge. I heard somewhere when you are learning to drive start with hatchback and not formula1 car. Why dive into 12 feet pool when you just learnt swimming.

Financial independence comes from planning , it may disappoint you but decades of earning and saving. If you plan properly i mean proper financial plan can get you there is 20 years or less.

You haven’t asked but hating your job will make us miserable I suggest find out why, we have to live with few uncomfortable things, unless it drains or stresses i suggest think of it as your ticket to freedom everyday we punch in gets us closer to freedom. Trading may seem like an easy path we may convince we can do it, but it’s not. Most like to trade as an excuse to get out of job if we honestly introspect , can we start a business to make some cash, no! then we back off because it’s a lot of work instead we want to punch keys and make money.

Don’t try to make it all back if you in hole stop digging! Learn make a plan, never try to recover or break even it’s trap, just find way to make money and in process it will recover.

Provide trade details here people here can help where did you go wrong , feedback when trading is very important.

Ps: next time you trade and are in fno just because you learnt few more basics, back tested few strategies then you dived into deep end of pool again. Cheer up as long as we have job we should be fine it’s our life jacket. We live and learn.

Don’t take me seriously am not a trader.

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Make a rule: Never do manual trading.

Make a discipline: Always create strategies and Backtest them over atleast 4yrs of data before you put single penny to trade.

Make a habit: Follow the strategy to the core like a brainless robot doing only what strategy says, no manual overriding.

These are the things you should do. Manual traders have highest chances of loss. It is the mechanical trading that wins over time. All trading desk firms, from small to Jane street do trading based on strategies that are automated, backtested and free of human bias in execution.

In today’s AI world, it has become so easy to code a strategy in Python or pinescript and test it. Even Zerodha themselves have a video YouTube on how to use Claude ai for developing a pinescript strategy and backtest it in Tradingview.

This is the only sure shot ‘non gambling’ way of dealing with trading where you do the trades based on rules, not beliefs or hunches, where you rely on data, not insider info or news based lucky throws and where you are disciplined to size the position correctly and not put your whole life savings on a single jackpot trade.

From my personal experience too i could say this works. I was laid off from my job in Jan 2024 from a startup which i joined thinking i will learn a lot although i had a very prestigious job in a very employee friendly 150yrs old india group. After that i tried dozens of things like youtube, teaching, videography, blogging, podcast, momentum investing, quant analysis, stocl researching and finally trading.

In trading i learnt slowly slowly everything by completing one by one all chapters of Zerodha varsity before actually putting any money on the line. Initially i too did manual trading and earned enough for couple of months before the harsh reality of not triggering stop loss at right time hit me. I lost 70% of what i earned from trading and i made up my mind no more manual trading.

Then i resorted to telegram paid groups of famous YouTube traders. They turned out to be all filthy fake and unsustainable. And so after putting trust on others and losing a little i stopped that and decided i will learn how to create strategy and backtest it.

I did and it took me around 2 months of constant work to put together a strategy which proved itself in backtesting. Then i created another 2 in streak of Zerodha which too worked well for few months before Zerodha shut down the streak.

But all in all, it was this station, the station of creating my strategy and backtesting it tht made the biggest sustainable difference. And i made a promise to myself that in remaining life i will never manual trade again.

I hope this really helps you. I wish retail traders make use of free AI and cheap AIs that are available now to create strategies and develop a system from themselves before it becomes too costly and out of reach of many.

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Hi :wave: @Saikiran1 welcome to the club! :trophy:

Here are the folks who climbed the summit before you did…
https://tradingqna.com/search?q=lost%20lakhs

Hopefully, the above linked discussions around their achievements
help you better organize your own thoughts.

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Please don’t trade.

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Thank you for the suggestions, will take a long break and will become disciplined in life, will focus on upskilling and getting a bigger pay check, once life becomes stable will try with one / two lots for a year.

Also will start sip for long term

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I was also planning to do this instead of doing manual trading. Will explore more on automation and it would be really helpful if you could share any refferences

Thank you

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If you are into OB

  1. A strategy that gives you some form of statistical edge is important.
  2. That statistical edge must be robust and not just an alignment of numbers. Read up curve fitting dangers.
  3. Once you have an edge, position sizing and discipline becomes important. I’d size it in terms of ‘1 lot per 10 lakh capital’ and only if the strategy is also validated with ‘live performance’ for atleast 6+ months, is when I’d move it up to ‘1 lot per 5 lac capital’ - no further than that. Talking of ITM1 buying.

You can backtest using TradingView pinescript (premium plan) or python, and if you dont want to go that route, atleast backtest manually (feasible if you only trade nifty). min 5+ years, preferably 10+ years backtest.

Simplest though is ‘dont trade’. If you must ‘scratch that itch’ try swing trade in cash segment. Maybe you will slowly discover whats right for you that way.

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Switch off all the things u r dng to trade f&o, STOP IT

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Trading is one of the most challenging professions because it tests not only your strategy, but also your mindset.
In trading, controlling emotions is just as important as understanding charts, indicators, patterns, and setups. The market is driven by psychology, risk management, patience, and discipline.

Everyone wants to make money in the short term, but successful trading is a long-term game.

A few trading principles I personally follow:

• Always use a Stop Loss
• Always set a proper target
• Avoid overtrading
• Never blindly follow people’s results, because many sell unrealistic or fake expectations
. Fear, greed, revenge trading, and overconfidence often lead to poor decisions.

In the end, consistency and discipline matter more than quick profits.