Weekly iron condor, 2 days out
A purely time-based weekly iron condor on NIFTY. At 15:00, two trading sessions before the weekly expiry, it sells the call and put three strikes away from the money and buys one-strike-wide wings beyond them. It holds through to 15:15 on expiry day with no stop, no target and no adjustment, letting the last days of time decay do the work.How it trades
Results
PRE-BUILT · DEFAULTSWhere it made and lost money
In this test the condor needed NIFTY to stay still, and paid for every week it did not. The 30 weeks in which NIFTY stayed within ±1% made ₹6,536 before costs. The 9 weeks with a rise of more than 1% lost ₹14,336 without a single winner, and the 12 weeks with a fall of more than 1% lost ₹13,028, because the shorts sit only 150 points out and the one-strike wings give little room. Calm conditions hurt: entries after India VIX closed below 11.5 lost ₹15,468, since fixed strike distances collected a tiny credit then.
About this strategy
- Find the session that is two trading days before the nearest NIFTY weekly expiry; with a Tuesday expiry this is usually Friday, so the weekend falls inside the trade.
- At 15:00 that day, sell the call three strikes above ATM and the put three strikes below ATM.
- Buy the call four strikes above ATM and the put four strikes below as wings, making each side one strike (50 points) wide. One lot each.
- Hold without a stop loss, target or adjustment.
- Close all four legs at 15:15 on expiry day, then wait for next week's entry day.
Why traders use it
Option premium decays fastest in the last few sessions before expiry, and short-dated condors aim to collect that decay while the wings limit the worst loss. A fixed entry time and fixed strike distances make the strategy completely mechanical, so there are no judgement calls. Holding through without stops is a deliberate choice: the defined-risk wings act as the stop, avoiding exits on intraday noise.
The year in plain words
On NIFTY from 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Sep 2026 with default settings, the strategy made 52 weekly trades, all held to the expiry-day exit, and won only 38%. It lost ₹19,152 before costs, with a profit factor of 0.59; average losses (₹1,457) were slightly larger than average wins (₹1,374). The first quarter was the weakest, with October to December losing about ₹16,700, while April and July were the best months. With four legs and one-strike wings the credit is small relative to costs, and after ₹20 per order and bid-ask slippage the loss grew to ₹29,648.
What the settings do
Risks
- One-strike-wide wings collect little credit, so a single breached side can wipe out several winning weeks.
- There is no stop or adjustment, so every week runs to expiry whatever the market does.
- Weekend news can gap NIFTY past a short strike at Monday's open.
- Small credits on four legs make the result very sensitive to brokerage and bid-ask spreads.
Who it suits
Traders who want a fully mechanical weekly options routine with defined risk and no intraday monitoring, and who can accept that a small edge may be fully absorbed by trading costs.
Questions traders ask
What is a time-based iron condor?
It is an iron condor opened and closed at fixed times rather than on a market signal. Here the condor goes on at 15:00 two sessions before the weekly expiry and comes off at 15:15 on expiry day, with fixed strike distances, so every week is traded the same way.
Is the weekly iron condor two days before expiry profitable?
Not in this test. On NIFTY from 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Sep 2026 it lost ₹19,152 before costs and ₹29,648 after ₹20 per order and bid-ask slippage (statutory charges not included). Other strike distances may behave differently, and past results do not guarantee future ones.
Why are there no stop losses?
The bought wings already cap the loss on each side, so the rules let the position run instead of exiting on intraday swings that may reverse. The trade-off is that losing weeks always run to their full expiry value.
What is the maximum loss per week?
Each side is one strike, 50 points, wide. The most the condor can lose is that width times the lot size, minus the net credit collected, because only one side can finish in the money at expiry.