Comparison

NIFTY vs BANKNIFTY for intraday option selling

NIFTY & BANKNIFTY · Mar 2024 – Mar 2025 · 244 sessions each · 1 lot, net of costs

Disclaimer: For educational purposes only. These are backtested past results, not investment advice. Trading involves risk, and past performance does not guarantee future returns.

query › "Sell the ATM straddle at 9:45 and trail the stop — run it on NIFTY and on BANKNIFTY."

Every option seller eventually asks: NIFTY or BANKNIFTY? We ran the identical 9:45 AM short-straddle rules on both over the same year — with the stop and trail scaled to each index's typical move (40 points on NIFTY, 90 on BankNifty) — and squared off at 3:20.

	NIFTY	BANKNIFTY
Win rate	40.6%	40.4%
Avg win / loss	+47 / −38	+119 / −88
Net points	+523	+4,187
Max drawdown	−406	−801
Sharpe	0.74	2.64
Stop-loss used	40 pts/leg	90 pts/leg

Same hit rate, very different ride

Both indices won almost exactly the same share of trades (~40%). But BankNifty's fatter premiums and stronger intraday trends produced a much smoother equity curve — a Sharpe of 2.64 versus NIFTY's 0.74 in this window — while NIFTY ground sideways for months before finishing barely green.

NIFTY straddle — cumulative P&L (points · 1 lot)

BANKNIFTY straddle — cumulative P&L (points · 1 lot)

Points don't translate across indices

BankNifty's ~+4,187 points look 8× NIFTY's +523 — but that's mostly because BankNifty moves far more per point and its lot size differs. Compare the shape and the risk-adjusted return (Sharpe), not the raw point totals.

Takeaway

In this one-year window BankNifty gave the smoother straddle ride — same edge, more leverage to the index's volatility — but at nearly double the absolute drawdown (−801 vs −406). Pick the index by the drawdown you can actually stomach, not the point total.

Want to stress-test your own version — change the entry time, the stop, the trail?

New to this? Read the guide on how to backtest trading strategies, or see how options backtesting works.