Bazaar Basics
Start here if you have never bought a share.
What a share is, what Sensex and Nifty measure, how a demat account works, and how your first order actually gets filled. No jargon left unexplained.
What the market is
The ideas everything else rests on: what you own, what the big numbers measure, and who runs the show.
2 of 4 written- 1.1 What a share actually is, and what you own when you buy one
Before Sensex, demat accounts or candlesticks, there is one idea everything else rests on: a share is a slice of a real business. Here is what that slice gives you, what it does not, and why its price moves.
- 1.2 Sensex and Nifty: what the two numbers on the news actually measure
Every evening someone announces that the Sensex rose 400 points. Points of what? What the two big indices track, how they are built, why one heavy stock can drag them, and why you cannot buy them directly but can buy something very close.
- 1.3 Primary and secondary markets: where shares are born and where they trade
- 1.4 Who is who: SEBI, the exchanges, brokers and depositories
Your first account and order
From opening a demat account to understanding the piece of paper you get after your first trade.
1 of 4 written- 2.1 How to open a demat account in India, and what happens after you tap Buy
The three accounts you need, the documents, what a broker charges beyond "zero brokerage", and the one-day journey a share takes from the exchange to your name. Read this before you open anything.
- 2.2 Your first order, step by step
- 2.3 Market, limit and stop-loss orders, and when each one bites
- 2.4 Reading your contract note line by line
Funds, SIPs and the boring habits that work
The route most people should start on, and how to tell a good fund from a loud one.
- 3.1 Mutual funds versus buying shares yourself
- 3.2 What an index fund does, and what it costs
- 3.3 SIPs: the habit, the maths and the mistakes
- 3.4 Dividends, bonuses and splits explained
You own a few shares. Now learn to judge them.