October 2026 Watchlist
This month, we are tracking 8 strategies across 3 different strategy categories.
Credit Spread Strategies
- Ratio-Fluxer Credit Spread Expiry
- Curvature Credit Spread Overnight
- Zen Credit Spread Overnight
- Delta-Rotation Credit Spread Expiry
- IV-Imbalance Credit Spread Overnight
Credit spreads remain an important part of the watchlist because they provide a defined-risk approach to option selling and can be useful when volatility and price movement remain manageable.
The expiry-based strategies can be particularly interesting when the market approaches expiry with controlled movement, while overnight strategies bring a different holding structure.
Short Straddle
- Synthesized Gate
A short-straddle strategy can behave very differently depending on volatility and the magnitude of the underlying’s movement.
For this reason, this is something to monitor carefully rather than blindly deploy.
Option Buying
- Nash Drift Option Buying
- Girsanov Prism Option Buying
After the recent correction, directional moves can become sharper if the market establishes a clear trend.
Option-buying strategies can therefore provide diversification from premium-selling strategies, but they also require strict risk management because option premiums can decay quickly when the expected move doesn’t happen.
What Are We Watching in October?
The current market setup is not a simple “bullish” or “bearish” environment.
We are seeing a combination of:
- Higher uncertainty after the September correction
- Continued FII selling pressure
- Elevated global yields and crude prices
- Changing volatility
- Attempts of recovery in the broader market
At the same time, India VIX has recently eased from its September levels, showing that volatility can change quickly.
That makes strategy diversification more important than simply selecting the highest-returning algo.
Risk Management Comes First
One important reminder for this month’s watchlist:
A watchlist is not a recommendation to run every strategy simultaneously.
Instead:
Don’t concentrate your capital
Avoid putting your entire trading capital into one algo or one strategy category.
Diversify the logic, not just the names
Running five different credit spreads doesn’t necessarily mean you are fully diversified.
Think about diversification across:
- Credit spreads
- Option buying
- Different expiry structures
- Overnight vs expiry strategies
Respect the strategy’s SL
Don’t manually interfere because an algo temporarily goes into drawdown.
The risk parameters are part of the strategy itself.
Watch the market environment
A strategy that works well in one volatility regime may behave very differently when the market changes.
Don’t chase performance
The purpose of a monthly watchlist is to identify strategies worth tracking and evaluating, not to predict which algo will give the highest return.
Our October Approach
This month’s watchlist intentionally includes:
5 Credit Spread strategies + 1 Short Straddle + 2 Option Buying strategies
The idea is to keep exposure across different strategy structures rather than depending on a single market behaviour.
The goal isn’t to predict the market.
The goal is to be prepared for it.
We’ll continue monitoring how these strategies behave as October progresses and how changing market conditions impact different strategy categories.
Which strategy from the October Watchlist are you most interested in tracking? 
