What is Carry Trade?
Carry trade borrows low-yield currency or asset and invests higher-yield, profiting from spread if unchanged.
Formula
Daily swap income = $100,000 × 4% ÷ 365 = ~$11/day 60-day carry income = $11 × 60 = $660
Indian market context (NSE)
Reference levels: Nifty 50 at 24,300, Reliance Industries at ₹1,300, Bank Nifty futures at 55,000 (lot size 30). Examples below show how Carry Trade shows up on Indian index, equity, and futures books — update to live quotes in your journal.
Nifty 50 perspective
Carry Trade on Nifty (24,300): backtest includes 9:15 liquidity and expiry-day behaviour; edge on index may vanish outside 10:00–14:30 window.
Reliance Industries perspective
Carry Trade on Reliance (₹1,300): liquidity is deep but event gaps dominate — strategy rules need explicit earnings blackout weeks.
Bank Nifty futures perspective
Carry Trade on Bank Nifty futures (55,000): high beta suits shorter holds; overnight carry trade must state NRML risk and gap plan in writing.
How to validate
- Validate Carry Trade only after costs — gross win rate can hide negative expectancy.
- Use walk-forward windows (e.g. last 60 / prior 60 trades) for stability.
- Retire or refactor the tag if Carry Trade expectancy turns negative with 50+ trades.
- Ensure no overlapping tags duplicate the same trades.
How to track in TradeLyser
- Define Carry Trade in Strategy Board with entry/exit/skip criteria.
- Enforce single-tag discipline — no secondary discretionary entries.
- Review expectancy, win rate, and avg R monthly on the tag only.
- Archive tag version when rules change; do not blend old and new trades.
Best practices
- One playbook page per Carry Trade strategy with non-negotiable rules.
- Paper trade rule changes for two weeks before live size.
- Track costs explicitly on high-frequency Carry Trade variants.
- Compare versioned tags after each rule amendment.
Common pitfalls
- Adding discretionary trades under the Carry Trade tag.
- Scaling up after one lucky week of Carry Trade results.
- Ignoring brokerage drag on high-frequency variants.
- Retiring a tag without exporting final statistics.
How to use this in TradeLyser
Macro notebook only unless you actively trade carry — tag FX/rates exposure.
Related terms
Funding rate is periodic payment between long and short perpetual futures holders to anchor price to spot.
A futures contract obligates parties to transact the underlying at settlement per NSE rules, with daily mark-to-market and margin.
Hedging reduces exposure by taking positions that offset another book — e.g. Nifty puts against a long equity portfolio.
FAQ
Carry on Nifty?
Indirect via global flows — note risk-off days.
Retail carry common?
Less than FX carry — know product.
Start journaling with
TradeLyser
Connect your broker, tag strategies, and review performance with AI-assisted insights.