Portfolios — Paper Trading for Indian Options on NSE, BSE, NCO & MCX
Practise real multi-leg positions on live prices, with real brokerage charges and live mark-to-market. Free on every account, with no trade limit.
Most paper trading tools in India simulate buying a stock. This one simulates what options traders actually do: multi-leg spreads — straddles, strangles, butterflies, ratio spreads, iron condors and calendar spreads — opened at live bid and ask prices, carried with live mark-to-market, and closed with brokerage and statutory charges applied to both sides.
It covers all four Indian derivatives segments in one place: NSE index options, BSE index options, MCX commodity options and NCO, the NSE commodity segment. Very few simulators cover MCX at all, and fewer still cover NCO.
It is free. Paper trading is open to every authenticated Quintal Mind account with no Pro requirement and no cap on the number of trades you can run.
Try It FreeWhat It Does
Fills priced by the server, not the browser
Entry and exit prices are re-priced server-side from the live quote mirror on every create and close. A price sent by the client is never trusted, so a paper record cannot be talked into a fill the market never offered.
Real bid/ask, not last-traded price
A BUY leg fills at the ask and a SELL leg fills at the bid. On exit the sides flip. You pay the spread in both directions, exactly as you would live.
Brokerage and statutory charges applied
Charges are modelled per segment in rupees per crore of turnover and applied to both sides. Override the default rates in your profile to match what your own broker actually bills you.
Live MTM in points and rupees
Open positions stream live mark-to-market over a WebSocket, shown both as spread points and as rupees — because options traders quote spreads in points and settle in rupees.
Any spread from any sheet, in one click
Every live sheet carries an Add to Trades button in its leg popup, so a butterfly or ratio spread you spotted becomes a tracked position with its legs already filled in.
Lot sizes that follow the exchange
Lot sizes come from the live instrument master rather than a hardcoded table, then freeze onto the trade at fill — so a mid-life revision never retroactively rewrites a position you already opened.
Expiry settles itself
Positions still open at expiry are settled automatically rather than hanging as stale open rows inflating your P&L.
Open and closed books kept apart
Realised P&L and win rate are computed only from closed positions, so open MTM swings never flatter the record.
How It Works
- Build or capture a positionUse the trade builder to pick symbol, expiry, strikes and directions — or click a cell on any live sheet and press Add to Trades.
- The server prices the fillWhatever prices the browser suggested are discarded. Every leg is re-priced from the live quote mirror: BUY at the ask, SELL at the bid.
- Carry it with live MTMThe position joins the live stream, updating in points and rupees. Adjust lots or correct an entry price if you need the record to match a fill you got elsewhere.
- Close and book itLegs are re-priced on the flipped sides, exit charges applied, and the trade books its realised P&L into the closed history.
Supported Markets
What Traders Use It For
- Test whether a strategy actually clears its costs before risking capital on it
- Practise multi-leg spreads — straddles, strangles, iron condors, ratio and calendar spreads — as single positions
- Learn a new segment: move from NIFTY to MCX gold or NSE WTI crude without paying tuition to the market
- Check a spread you spotted on a live sheet by tracking it as a paper position instead of guessing
- Compare a simulated fill against the one your broker actually gave you
What paper trading actually needs to get right
The purpose of paper trading is to produce a P&L number you can trust enough to act on. If the simulated number is systematically better than the live one, the practice is worse than useless — it teaches that a strategy is profitable when it is not, and the lesson only gets corrected with real money.
Three things account for almost all of the gap between a flattering simulator and an honest one. The first is the spread: filling at the last traded price rather than at the bid or ask quietly hands you half the spread on entry and half again on exit. On a four-leg options spread that error compounds eight times over the life of the trade. The second is charges: brokerage, STT, exchange fees, stamp duty and GST are small per lot and very large per year, and a simulator that ignores them will show a positive expectancy for strategies that lose money net of costs. The third is the lot size, which determines whether a points number becomes the right rupee number at all.
This engine takes a position on all three. Legs fill at the correct side of the book, charges are applied per segment on both sides at rates you can set yourself, and lot sizes are read live from the instrument master and frozen onto the trade at fill.
Multi-leg spreads, not single-leg orders
Indian options traders overwhelmingly trade structures rather than single options: short straddles and strangles, iron condors and iron butterflies, ratio spreads, calendar spreads, and butterfly variants across strikes. A simulator that only models one leg at a time cannot represent any of them honestly, because the whole point of a spread is that the legs offset.
Positions here are multi-leg from the start. A trade carries its legs with their individual strikes, option types, directions and quantities, and the net entry is computed across all of them as a credit-positive number in points per spread — independent of how many lots you are running. Scale the lots up and the rupee figure scales; the points figure does not move, which is the number you actually compare against your entry thesis.
Expanding a row shows the per-leg detail behind the net: signed quantity, entry price, current live price and the MTM contribution of that leg on its own. When a spread is going wrong it is usually one leg doing it, and that is the view which tells you which.
Commodities: MCX and NCO, not just index options
MCX coverage is the gap in most Indian paper trading tools. Commodity options behave differently enough from index options that practising on NIFTY teaches you comparatively little about trading crude: the session runs to roughly 23:30 IST rather than 15:40, the risks are supply shocks and inventory data rather than domestic policy, and the rupee sits between the Indian contract and the international benchmark.
All of the main MCX contracts are covered — gold and its smaller variants, silver and its mini, crude oil and its mini, and natural gas and its mini. Because MCX quantity conventions differ from equity ones, the contract multiplier is handled per symbol rather than assumed, which is what makes a rupee P&L on a gold spread come out right.
NCO — the NSE commodity segment — is covered too, currently through NSE WTI crude, quoted in rupees per barrel. It is a newer segment with correspondingly little tooling around it, and it is not something most simulators price at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is paper trading on Quintal Mind free?
Yes. Paper trading is available on every account at no cost, with no Pro plan requirement and no limit on how many trades you can open. You need to be signed in so your positions can be saved to your account, but there is nothing to pay.
Which exchanges and segments does it cover?
Four: NSE index options and futures (NIFTY, BANKNIFTY, FINNIFTY, MIDCPNIFTY), BSE index options and futures (SENSEX, BANKEX), MCX commodity options and futures (gold, silver, crude oil and natural gas, including the mini contracts), and NCO — the NSE commodity segment — currently through NSE WTI crude.
Does it support MCX paper trading?
Yes, across GOLD, GOLDM, GOLDGUINEA, GOLDTEN, SILVER, SILVERM, CRUDEOIL, CRUDEOILM, NATURALGAS and NATGASMINI. MCX contract multipliers are handled per symbol rather than assumed, which is what makes the rupee P&L on a commodity spread come out correctly.
What prices do paper trades fill at?
Live bid and ask, not the last traded price. A BUY leg fills at the ask and a SELL leg fills at the bid; on exit the sides flip, so the original BUY leaves at the bid and the original SELL leaves at the ask. You pay the spread in both directions, as you would in a live account.
Are brokerage and taxes included in the P&L?
Yes. Charges are modelled per segment in rupees per crore of turnover and applied on both the entry and the exit. The default rates can be overridden in your profile so the simulation matches what your own broker actually charges you.
Can I paper trade multi-leg option strategies?
Yes — that is the primary use case. Straddles, strangles, iron condors, iron butterflies, butterflies, ratio spreads, calendar spreads and cross-spreads are all supported as single multi-leg positions, with net entry computed across all legs and per-leg detail available on expansion.
Is the P&L shown in points or rupees?
Both. Net entry and MTM are shown as spread points, which are independent of your lot count, and as rupees, which scale with lots and contract size. Options traders reason in points and settle in rupees, so both are carried rather than one being derived on demand.
What happens to a paper position at expiry?
It is settled automatically. Open positions are not left hanging past expiry as stale rows, which would otherwise distort both the open MTM and the realised history.
Can I correct a trade after opening it?
Yes. You can change the number of lots, correct individual entry prices, or set an exact net entry if you want the paper record to line up with a fill you actually received elsewhere. Charges re-scale accordingly.
How is this different from a virtual trading game?
There is no virtual cash balance, leaderboard or scoring. It is a position book intended to produce a P&L figure honest enough to base a real trading decision on, which is why the emphasis is on bid/ask fills, charges and correct lot sizes rather than on gamification.
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