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Expiry Thursday and we took zero trades: the blank row in our log

17 September 2026 · AlgoRishi
0104091116 Month-to-date cumulative P&L (signals book, 900 qty virtual) +₹27,682
Tracked on real market prices · virtual capital · past performance is not indicative of future results.
0trades taken today
₹0P&L for the session
₹27,682month-to-date, 9 sessions
3losing days this month

If you traded SENSEX options today, expiry Thursday, and you are sitting with a red screen and a knot in your stomach — this post is not going to make you feel better with a story about a clever trade. We did not take one.

Thursday, 17 September 2026. Zero entries. Zero exits. ₹0 booked. That is the whole session.

A blank row in the log

Our machine does one thing. It maps the support and resistance levels on SENSEX, waits for a level to break with confirmation, and only then takes a position — with a fixed stop-loss, a scale-out on the way up, and a trailing floor behind the remainder. Every part of that sentence is a filter. If any one of them says no, nothing happens.

Today nothing happened. No qualifying break inside the entry window, so no order went out, so there is no trade table to show you. The log for 17 September is one blank row.

A day with no trade is not a day with no decision. Sitting out is the decision — it just does not produce a number you can screenshot.

The cricket version of this

Think of a Test opener in the first hour. The ball is moving, the pitch has not settled, and four balls in a row come through the corridor outside off stump. The good opener leaves all four. He does not score. His strike rate for that over is zero.

Nobody calls that a wasted over. He is not there to hit every ball — he is there to still be batting at lunch. A trader who feels obliged to take a position every single session is a batsman chasing everything outside off, and we all know how that innings ends.

Price chopping between levels — no confirmed break, no entry Resistance Support 09:20 11:30 13:30 entry window
Illustration of the pattern that produces a blank day: price stays inside the band, never closes a level out with confirmation, so the entry condition is never met.

What the month looks like around today

Context matters more than any single session, so here is every recorded day of September 2026 so far — winners and losers, nothing removed.

DateDay P&L
01 Sep−₹19,350
03 Sep+₹38,723
04 Sep+₹3,600
08 Sep+₹11,192
09 Sep+₹25,287
10 Sep−₹26,200
11 Sep+₹5,723
15 Sep−₹19,800
16 Sep+₹8,507
17 Sep₹0 — no trade
Month to date+₹27,682

Read that column honestly. Three of the nine active sessions were losers, and two of them were big — ₹26,200 and ₹19,800 gone in a day. The month is positive because a handful of days were larger in the other direction, not because the losses were avoided. They were not.

Two losing days this month cost more than four winning days made. That is normal for a breakout method, and it is exactly why position size and a fixed stop matter more than being right often.

Why expiry day is where the damage usually happens

SENSEX weeklies settle on Thursday. On expiry day, time value drains out of an option hour by hour, so a strike that is not moving is still losing you money just by the clock ticking. Direction has to be right and fast.

That is a brutal combination for anyone who entered because they felt they had to enter. The market does not owe you a setup on Thursday just because your subscription renews on Friday.

If you keep a journal, add one column: "was this trade in my plan before I clicked?" Count the honest No's after a month. For most people that number, by itself, explains the P&L.

What we are not claiming

We are not claiming today was a smart escape — we have no idea what a trade we never took would have done. We are not claiming the method avoids losses; the table above shows it does not. And we are not telling you what to buy or sell, today or any day.

What we are doing is publishing every session, including the empty ones. A ₹0 row is less exciting than a ₹38,723 row. It is also the row that most retail P&L statements are missing.

Disclosure: AlgoRishi publishes signal tracking on real market prices using virtual capital, for information and education only. Nothing here is investment advice or a recommendation to trade. Futures & options trading involves substantial risk of loss. Past performance is not indicative of future results. AlgoRishi is not a SEBI-registered investment adviser or research analyst.