Copied percentages are not a risk choice. "One percent because a video said so" is a slogan. The useful question for a practice month is narrower: if an ordinary losing streak shows up — and arithmetic says it will — does the month still have enough honest decisions left to teach you anything?
That is Month-Survival Sizing. You pick a hypothetical 1R so the block survives its worst plausible run, not so the next trade feels brave.
The problem: sizing from mood, then calling it a rule
On NSE replay, risk-per-trade errors show up before the P&L column does.
You mark a clean pullback on a liquid cash name after 10:15. Stop sits a logical swing away. Then you size from how the morning felt. After two green practice fills you "can afford" a wider stop. After two red ones you cut size so far that the log becomes theatre — you would never have taken that quantity live, so you stop honouring the stop.
The rupee column is hypothetical. The habit is not. Position sizing practice trains the arithmetic once entry and stop exist. This article trains the prior choice: what 1R is allowed to be for the next thirty days.
Practice fills ignore brokerage, taxes and slippage. Live NSE orders do not. Keep the 1R figure as a decision unit, not as a forecast of take-home rupees.
The misconception: smaller is always wiser
Two opposite mistakes wear the same respectable clothes.
Too large. A hypothetical 2% of a ₹5,00,000 practice notional is ₹10,000 per trade. Five consecutive −1R outcomes, compounded, leave about 9.61% of that notional gone: remaining fraction (0.98^{5} \approx 0.9039). Illustrative arithmetic only — not a market statistic. A 30-day block is easy to abandon after a week of that, then declare the setup "does not work." That tests a pain budget, not the setup.
Too small. A token ₹200 1R on the same notional makes every stop feel fictional. You move it. You add. You take a fourth trade after the session cap because "it is only practice." Tiny 1R trains contempt for the rule. Contempt transfers.
Safer, in a practice month, is a 1R large enough that a stop stings your attention and small enough that a streak you should treat as ordinary does not abort the calendar.
Better framing: size the month, then size the trade
Write three numbers before the first candle of the block. Freeze them.
1. Hypothetical notional. Example only: ₹5,00,000. Not a recommendation of capital, not a claim about what you "should" risk, not a live account.
2. Streak you will treat as ordinary. Independent-trial arithmetic, assumptions stated: if a hypothetical win rate were 40%, then loss rate (q = 0.6), and the chance the next five trades are all losses is (0.6^{5} = 0.07776) (7.78%). That is the probability of one specific five-trade window, not a prediction of your NSE tape. Over a 300-decision block, clusters of that length are not exotic. See what a losing streak actually looks like.
3. Abandonment drawdown. The R total at which you would quietly stop logging, "take a break," and never finish the month. Be honest. For many people it is not 20R. It is 6R or 8R of attention pain, even in replay.
Month-Survival Sizing sets:
1R ≤ (abandonment drawdown in rupees) ÷ (ordinary-streak length in trades)
Worked example, labelled hypothetical throughout. Notional ₹5,00,000. You admit you would abandon the block at about 5% notional pain, which is ₹25,000. You want a ten-loss cluster at −1R each to land near that ceiling, not through it.
- Simple sum: ten trades × ₹2,500 = ₹25,000, so 1R = ₹2,500 = 0.5% of notional.
- Compounding check: remaining fraction (0.995^{10} \approx 0.9511), a 4.89% drawdown. Same order of magnitude.
If instead 1R = 1% = ₹5,000, ten consecutive full losses compound to remaining (0.99^{10} \approx 0.9044), a 9.56% drawdown. That may still be fine — if and only if 9–10% is inside your abandonment line. If it is not, you did not choose 1%; you chose an early exit from practice.
None of these percentages are "correct" live risk. They are levers so the 300-decision practice month remains a month.
Workflow: the MSS card (one page, thirty days)
Tape this next to the replay screen. Change it between blocks, never between losses.
| Field | Frozen example (hypothetical) |
|---|---|
| Notional | ₹5,00,000 practice units |
| 1R | ₹2,500 (0.5%) |
| Daily cap | 2R = ₹5,000 |
| Ordinary streak to survive | 10 × −1R |
| Abandonment line | ~5% notional or 10R |
| Size formula | shares or lots = 1R ÷ stop distance per unit |
| Lot rule | always round down |
| Forbidden | resizing after a win, after a loss, or because the name is "Nifty-related" |
Session loop on randomised NSE history, hidden dates, candle by candle:
- Setup appears. Mark entry and invalidation before the next reveal.
- Measure stop distance. Compute size from the frozen 1R. If the name is too illiquid for that size to be a realistic fill even hypothetically, skip and tag
liquidity-unrealistic. - If size would require rounding up into a second lot that pushes risk above 1R, skip or cut to the lower lot. Do not fudge.
- Advance candles. Log the outcome in R, not in rupee theatre.
- If daily 2R hits, end the session even if the cash tape still has hours until 15:30. That interrupt is daily loss-limit practice, not optional colour.
Indian session note: 9:15–10:00 often needs wider structure stops. MSS does not let you keep the same share count and shrink the stop to "fit" 1R. It shrinks size, or it skips. Midday compression does the opposite: tight stops, larger share counts on paper — still capped at 1R, still subject to the daily 2R.
Intraday cash, delivery, and index futures are different products. Do not silently reuse a cash-intraday 1R on a swing hold that can gap. Separate cards.
What MSS does not claim
It does not find your optimal live fraction. It does not make 300 practice decisions into expertise. It does not include impact, rejection, or the tax stack. Replay Trader's ₹999 for 30 days is a finite practice block: ten-ish decisions a day is a repetition budget, not a profitability programme.
If you cannot state 1R in writing, you are not choosing risk. You are waiting to see how the trade feels. Feeling is not a unit.
Pick a 1R your practice month can survive, then keep it still. Join the waitlist.
Related reading
- Position Sizing Practice Without Live Capital
- Risk-Reward Practice: Designing Trades Before Entry
- What a Losing Streak Actually Looks Like
- Practising Through Drawdowns (Simulated)
Educational note
Educational practice content only. Not investment advice. No guaranteed returns. Practice ≠ live profitability.