Starting to trade in stock market can be a cumbersome task for any beginner, learning how to start trading in stock market in India does require patience and eagerness. To be honest and blunt this is not a one day job or rich quick scheme at all, any one starting new should know this in advance.
If you have these aspiration in your mind that you can start earning consistently from stock market within few days or months then either you have been ill advised or get ready for your dreams to be shattered.
I am not denying the fact that you can earn money if you start trading in stock market but in order to achieve, it requires enough time to learn the skill, patience’s, desire with a will and of course some money.
Just like if you have ever newly started playing any game or have taken any activity to learn something new such as music or playing guitar, similar to that learning trading and investing in stock market requires a level of commitment.
The guarantee of you achieving success in any part of life entirely depends upon your own hard work and of course some luck. No, I do not want to sound depressing but this indeed is the reality, as someone famously said “There is nothing called free lunch in this world”.
The above things have been said to make you aware about the practicality of the situation so you do not stay under any ‘day dreaming’, But yes there is a step by step way to learn how to start trading in stock market.
So let us just focus back to the topic and understand first the basics of trading in stock market in India. Just to let you know that you can move to the topic you want to understand from table of contents as this going to be a detailed step by step long guide.
How To Start Trading In Stock Market In India?
At first to start trading in stock market in India you will need two things, these are trading account and demat account, this will get opened through a stockbroker. However selecting the best stockbroker in India is itself a huge task as there are more than 300 stockbrokers available as per latest NSE Data.
Before we know which will be best for you as an stockbroker let us in brief know about how trading and demat account works?
What Is the Use Of Trading Account ?
In laymen terms, trading account is used for the purpose of placing trades, buy and sell orders in stock market. Without trading account you cannot trade in stock market.
A stock broker will give you trading account with unique Client ID and password, so that you can use his trading platform in order to place trades in share market.
Trading account is useful for making any investment or doing any intraday trades in different financial instruments available, for e.g. (Stocks, Futures and Options, ETF, IPO’s, SGB’s, Commodity, Currency ) etc.
To invest or trade in stock market it is compulsory to open a trading account. Trading account is a gateway for you to enter in to the world of stock markets.
To better understand let us take an example.
You entered a shopping mall and you saw so many different things, after sometime you decided to buy a particular T-shirt, now in order to buy you have to make a payment.
Likewise, stock market acting as a shopping mall, where different stocks are listed and you as a trading account selecting the stocks and making a transaction. Your trading account is the source of funds for the transaction.
Suppose, you buy shares of HDFC Bank, from your trading account through call to your broker or by using there online trading platform they provided to you. The moment you buy and the trade gets executed the purpose of trading account is finished.
The money for buying those shares will get debited from your trading account. In a way you can say the role of trading account is just to do the transaction.
What Is the Use Of Demat Account ?
The Purpose of Demat account is just like a bank, where the shares that you bought as an investment will get stored. One thing you need to keep in mind, role of demat account comes only when you bought the shares in delivery not intraday trading.
In intraday trades you have to complete the transaction same day (buy and sell same day, you cannot carry forward).
However, in delivery trades where you are buying shares as to keep them for some time you require demat account. Now, those shares that you have bought will require a place to get stored, this is where the role of Demat account comes in picture.
These shares gets stored electronically to your demat account, so that in future when you want to sell them, like after 1 month or even after 3 days or 10 years, you can easily do so by going to your demat account. Once you sell these shares from demat account the money gets credited to your trading account (wallet).
From trading account you can then withdraw money to your bank account within minutes.
Your stock broker will open the demat account for you, with depository your stockbroker is registered with.
In India there are two depositories who offers you DEMAT account & there is no difference in terms of operation or quality of service.
This is your choice to decide which one you want to go and sometime it depends upon your broker too(as they also select which depository they want to associate with).
- National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL)
- Central Depository Services (India) Limited (CDSL)
In other words, a Depository is a financial mediator who offers the service of Demat account.
Note: You do not need to go to them directly for opening Demat account. Just contact your broker where your trading account is opened or you are about to open it.
That’s all you need to know about usage of trading and demat account, let us now know a little about stockbroker.
What Is the Use Of Stockbroker ?
A stock broker is your gateway to stock exchanges. Stock broker is one of the most essential part of share market. It’s very much similar to a organization (including govt. or private banks and independent discount brokers) registered with SEBI & hold stock broking license with them.
They provide services to an individual trader or investor in opening of a trading & demat account.
Suppose you want to start trading and investing today, however for that you can’t go to National stock exchange‘s office. You can look for broker online or nearby your local area.
For example:
Upstox who is one of India’s biggest and best broker, in terms of active client they have more than 5 million and total client base of 7 million (70 lakh+). You can easily open a demat and trading account that too online with them.
Here is the link to apply for upstox trading and demat account online for best trading & demat account service in India. There charges for brokerage as well as account opening (demat and trading) is quite low i.e. just Rs.249 one time for account opening.
However you can open a Free Upstox account with Zero AMC charges for a limited time period through this link.
You will just need your Aadhar linked with your mobile number and pancard to apply online hassle free within seconds.
The broker helps you execute your buy and sell trades. Once you open account with them they will provide you, your login-ID (client-id) and password to your mobile no., email id. You can use it to login to their respective trading platforms (Desktop or mobile app) and start trading online by yourself.
If you are not technology driven or do not have much time, you can simply call them and ask them to place orders on your behalf.
However you need to let them know what exactly you want to buy, quantity, at what price etc.
Note: You can open a best trading, Demat & mutual account Here
So in simple words Brokers act as a middleman or mediator between you and exchange.
That is all you need to know as a beginner about to start trading and invest in stock market in India. Having said that, this is just like taking admission in school or college, the more important aspect is studying.
As an advise do not spend much of your time finding the best stock trading apps or brokers, it is just wastage of your time and energy.
Once the account is opened you can start trading in stock market in India either by your own using mobile apps of your stockbroker or desktop version of trading platforms. One can also call to stockbroker to place orders on his/her behalf.
Let us now see the important things you should learn once you start your trading journey.
How To Learn Different Stock Market Trading Strategies?
Any individual trader or investor who wish to enter this zestful world of stock trading must have knowledge of different trading styles. So that later he/she can develop his own trading strategies.
As a matter of fact every trading style has its own advantages and drawbacks. For example, if you want to create long term wealth, you can choose long term investments strategies (fundamental or positional trading).
In similar manner, if you wish to make some quick money, then opt for short term trading like, intraday, swing trading, scalping etc.
As a beginner or a newbie, it becomes really essential for you to learn the basics and types of Stock trading that exist in the stock market. There are mainly 7 different strategies to trade in stock market:
- Intraday Trading or Day Trading Strategy
- Swing Trading or Short-Term Trading Strategy
- Positional Trading or Buy and Hold Strategy
- Fundamental Trading Strategy
- Scalping or Micro Trading Strategy
- Arbitrage Trading Strategy
- Event Based Trading Strategy
I will not be explaining all of them here, to read these best trading strategies in great detail you can checkout another blog explaining in detail about the same here.
However there are 2 main types of trading and investing happens in stock market popularly known as intraday and delivery trading let us know in detail about them first.
How to Start Intraday Trading In Stock Market?
To start Intraday trading you have to place your trades within a defined time limit, you can buy and sell stocks for a minute, keep it for hours but make sure at the end of the market hours you have close your position.
In case of intraday trading, the trades are closed out on the same day so the profits or losses, if any, are either credited or debited to the trading account instantly.
Intraday trading also known as day trading, is type of trade that happens within a day. So this is what happens, when you are placing your trades as intraday:
Equity and equity derivatives timings in India is morning 9 a.m. till 3:30 p.m. Avoid the equity derivative as of now, it is much different and requires more learning, but you will gather with time, as a beginner just focus on to Equity only for now.
- You can buy or sell shares even for a minute or hour or before the market gets closed.
- Suppose PNB (Punjab national bank) is trading at Rs.40, you bought 1000 shares now you can sell this shares just after you bought it or can keep it for 1 or 2 hours or before the market gets closed.
- You have to square off (to close your opened position) before the market gets closed same day.
- Brokers usually have a dedicated team named RMS (risk management system), they will auto square off your all opened position, if you do not do it from your end, at whatever market price that share is trading.
- Brokers usually do auto square-off before the exact market closing time mostly it happens from 3:15 till 3:25.
- So whenever you place order as intraday keep in mind to select MIS(Margin intraday square-off). This is the type of order you select while trading intraday.
- You can convert your intraday position to delivery also known as CNC (Cash and carry), however you should have complete margin amount in your trading account to do so before market gets closed.
- 9 am to 9.15 am – Pre-market
- 9.15 am to 3.30 pm – Normal trading
- 3.40 pm to 4.00 pm – Post-market
Note: we will only be discussing about equity (stocks) market here, this does not apply to commodity or currency as the timings are different although the rules remain the same.
If you believe that the price of a stock is likely to fall during the day, you may sell the shares without even buying at the first place. Later, during the day, depending on the profit, you can buy the stock at a lower price to book profit.
What this means is suppose there is a stock named ABC trading at Rs.100, you believe (after research) this stock is going to fall instead of going up, in that case you can put a sell order at Rs.100, and if the stock fall to let say Rs.97 within market hours, than you can buy it back at lower price making a benefit of Rs.3 per share.
So if the quantity is let say 500 than your profit (excluding brokerage and taxes) would be 500*3= ₹1500.
How to Start Delivery Trading In Stock Market?
Delivery trading is just opposite of intraday trading, to start delivery trading as an investor, you take shares of a stock that you buy to your demat account, instead of selling it same day.
Moreover in such transactions, you can hold the shares for a short, medium or longer-term depending up on you.
The duration can range from two days, months, years or even two decades or more.
If you have placed order as CNC, cash and carry order type or delivery order type, than you first require full margin to place the order . So if you are buying let say HDFC bank shares, trading at 800 per share.
You have to have the full Rs.800 (per share) to place the order. Having said that there are few stock brokers who do provide the margin facility in delivery trades as well one of them is 5Paisa.
Once you have placed the order, you can still sell the shares before the markets gets closed, however this time RMS will recognize your order type as delivery and will not square-off your open position. This shares will get deliver to your Demat account.
You can keep those shares as long as you want or sell it whenever you feel so its totally up to you.
Below image tell us in brief about difference between intraday and delivery based trading.
How To Start Learning Technical analysis and Indicators In Stock Market?
Now that you know the different trading styles and methods happens in stock market it’s time to know how to implement them practically in live market. For this I would request you to choose any one trading method which suits your psychology or mind.
So, suppose you want to do intraday trading, always choose less volatile stocks and more liquid. When I say less volatile I mean that stock which respects its support and resistance levels, does not make sudden move (up/down), usually those stocks which are listed in FNO have good volatility range.
Now once the stock is selected we have to do certain technical analysis, keep in mind with tips and shortcuts you may make few bucks for one or 2 days but if you are really serious about making money from stock market than you have to learn this different analysis, there is no other option.
If you are the one who doesn’t want to learn this you can simply opt for stock recommendations service from a well organized company such as ICICIDirect or 5Paisa, which is very much reliable in comparison to many other so called stock advisory companies .
Now, coming back to the implementation process, we have chosen the stock to trade, now below are the list of things you need to do before making that trade.
- Understand the support and resistance zones, pivot points and learn how to find it correctly on chart.
- Learn the basics of charts and candlestick patterns, this is very much important to know when to enter and exit in a trade.
- You should be aware about the moving averages to know whether the stock is in upper range or lower.
- Use technical indicator such as MACD or Bollinger Band, RSI, there are many but learn and try to implement at least one of them.
- Get yourself aware about volumes, as you should trade when volumes are higher for both buy/sell.
- Place the trade, put the stop-loss and relax, even if it goes against you as this will happen. Learn from the losing or winning trades both.
Whether you like it or not but if you do not want to be rely on anyone than you should have at least basic understanding of all things mentioned above. There is no other way, if you want to trade by yourself and earn living out of trading.
Yes, there are companies, websites which do give you the recommendation but you have to spend money, now it’s totally up to you to decide.
Now, that you know the different trading styles and have adopted few of them and also learned to implement the technical tools and resources, the learning should not stop here.
That is where the role of good articles, blogs and books based on stock market comes in picture.
There are many great books based on trading, investing and overall finance that one should always have in his/her home.
Conclusion:
At the end I must say to start with very nominal money to first understand the overall mechanics and how does it function. Once the basic understanding happens on how share market works one can go next step further and invest or trade regularly.
As a beginner in any field one should know that there is nothing called perfect start, one can do as much learning or practicing but at the end of the day what matters is involvement. Learning about the finance and stock market requires indefinite time, hence start slow, steady step by step to reach the ultimate goal of financial freedom.
You can start trading or investing with as little as Rs.100, there is no compulsion. The amount of money or wealth you can create is unlimited, it up to you to decide when to start. In the end remember this “Perfect is the enemy of good.” So keep learning.
So this was in brief I would say, how to start trading in stock market in India.
If you want to know about the derivatives market than learn how futures trading works here.
Also check and learn the basics of Option Trading here.
Looking to make any investment in mutual funds than you should use free moneycontain Mutual fund SIP calculator with inflation here.
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Note: Please do not take this as any recommendation, to trade or invest. This is just for reference, to make you understand about how to start trading in stock market in India, under no circumstances intended to be used or considered as financial or investment advice, a recommendation or an offer to sell, or a solicitation of any offer to buy any securities or other form of financial asset.
Please do your own research and make investment. Moneycontain will not be responsible for any of your losses at all. The point made is for educational purpose only. All investments are subject to risks, which should be considered prior to making any investments.