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Paper trading

Paper trading lets you test a strategy in live market conditions without risking real money. Orders match against live Kite quotes on a 5-minute cadence (sufficient for daily and swing strategies; intraday paper trading is on the roadmap).

Creating a paper account

  1. Open Paper Trading in the sidebar.
  2. Click the account selector → New account.
  3. Pick a name and starting capital (default ₹10,00,000).

You can have multiple paper accounts — useful for keeping different strategies' performance separate.

Placing manual orders

From the Place order tab:

  • Symbol — typeahead search
  • Side — BUY or SELL
  • Quantity — must be a multiple of the instrument's lot size
  • Order type — MARKET / LIMIT / SL / SL-M
  • Price / Trigger price — required depending on order type
  • Product — CNC / MIS / NRML

The form previews estimated brokerage + slippage live as you type. Hit Place order.

How orders match

Every 5 minutes during NSE hours (9:15–15:30 IST, weekdays minus published holidays), the matcher checks every pending order against the latest LTP and fills the ones whose conditions are met:

  • MARKET — fills at the next LTP
  • LIMIT BUY — fills when LTP ≤ your price (you get the better price)
  • LIMIT SELL — fills when LTP ≥ your price
  • SL_M BUY — triggers when LTP ≥ trigger; fills at LTP
  • SL BUY — triggers like SL_M, then acts as a LIMIT order at your price

Charges (brokerage + slippage) apply on fill and reduce your cash balance immediately.

Positions

The Holdings tab shows every open position with live MTM (mark-to-market). The matcher refreshes LTPs every 5 minutes; the unrealized P&L column is recomputed each tick.

When a closing trade fills, the corresponding position is reduced. The realized P&L moves to your account's cumulative figure and the open position quantity is decremented.

Resetting an account

Account menu → Reset. This sets cash back to your initial capital, closes all open positions, and cancels all pending orders. There's no auto-reset — useful when you want to start a fresh test of a strategy.

Deleting an account

Soft-delete via the account menu. Existing trades and fills are preserved for audit; the account just stops appearing in the selector.