Equity

What is an Equity Share?

An equity share represents the form of ownership. The holder of such a share is a member of the company and has voting rights.

What is online share trading?

Online share trading is the process of buying and selling of shares through the internet on the secondary market with a view to profiting from the difference in the buying price and selling price. The share price of a stock is determined by the demand and supply of a particular share. Online share trading enjoys various advantages such as accessibility, security, convenience in tracking portfolio etc over traditional branch trading.

What returns can I expect from my investments in equity shares? What are the risks?

Equity shares are “High-Risk High-Return Investments.” The major distinction of Equity investment from all other investment avenues is that while the return from many avenues such as Bank Deposits, Small Saving schemes, Debentures, Bonds etc are fixed and certain, the earnings from equity investments are highly uncertain and varied. A good scrip picked up at the right time could fetch fairly good returns else the return may be meager or it may even turn negative, i.e. the invested fund itself may be eroded. In short, if the investment in fixed income category instruments is secured and risk-free to a large extent, investment in equities and related fields could be termed as risky.

What is Dividend?

Dividend is the part of profit distributed by the company among its investors. It is usually declared as a percentage of the paid-up value or face value of the share.

What is a Bonus Share?

A Share issued by companies to their shareholders free of cost by capitalization of accumulated reserves from the profits earned in the earlier years.

What is a Rights issue?

An issue of shares offered at a special price by a company to its existing shareholders in proportion to their holding of old shares.

What does a Stock Split Mean?

Stock split is a corporate action in which a company's existing shares are divided into multiple shares. Although the number of shares outstanding increases by a specific multiple, the total Rupee value of the shares remains the same compared to pre-split amounts, because no real value has been added as a result of the split.

What is a Bond?

A Bond is a promissory note issued by a company or government to its lenders. A Bond is evidence of debt on which the issuing company usually promises to pay the bondholder a specified amount of interest at intervals over a specified length of time, and to repay the original loan on the expiration date. A bond investor lends money to the issuer and in exchange, the issuer promises to repay the loan amount on a specified maturity date.

What is a Debenture?

It is a Bond issued by a company bearing a fixed rate of interest usually payable half-yearly on specific dates and principal amount repayable on a particular date on redemption of the debentures. Debentures are normally secured/charged against the asset of the company in favor of debenture holder.

What is a Stock Exchange?

A Stock Exchange of India is a place where the buyer and seller meet to trade in shares in an organized manner.

What shares can I buy?

You can buy the shares that are listed on any of the recognized Stock Exchanges.

Whom should I contact for my Stock Market related transactions?

To be able to buy or sell shares in the stock markets a client would need to be registered with a stock broker who holds membership in stock exchanges and who is registered with SEBI.

What is Buying and Selling?

There are several types of orders and solutions that you can dictate to a broker. The most common type, which is a regular buy or sell order, is called a market order. Another type of order is a limit order wherein you ask the broker to trade only if the price reaches a specific level. In a stop order, you tell the broker to sell your shares if the price drops to a certain level to prevent significant loss because if it drops to that level it is likely to drop further and your losses are likely to increase.

What is meant by bullish and bearish trend?

When the market goes up it is called a bullish trend and when the market goes down it is called a bearish trend.

What is taking a position?

When you act upon a stock and buy into it, you are taking a position. A position is an amount of money committed to an investment in anticipation of favorable price movements. There are two kinds of positions: Long positions are what most people do. When you buy long, that means you are anticipating an upward movement in the price, and that is how you profit. People usually buy stocks at prices expecting to sell them later at higher prices and hence make profits. Short positions are the tricky ones. When you buy short, you are anticipating a fall in the price and the fall is the source of your profits. The shares will be sold and when the price falls they will be repurchased and given back and the difference is the where the investor profits. Of course, the investor who borrowed the shares carries the risk of not having the price move as anticipated, in which case he may lose money in repurchasing the stocks.

What is an index?

An index is a stock-market indicator created as a statistical measure of the performance of an entire market or segment of a market based on a sample of securities from the market. An index is thus a means to evaluate the overall performance of a market or of a segment of the market. Index measures aggregate market movements. Apart from being a general market indicator, indices are used as a benchmark to evaluate individual portfolio performance. Professional money managers will always try to outperform the market, i.e. they will always try to do better than the indices. For example, if the value of a portfolio moves up by 10% while the index moved up by only 5% then the portfolio is doing better than the market. We have 2 renowned indices viz. BSE Sensitive (BSE Sensex) and S&P Nifty 50 (Nifty) BSE Sensex comprises of 30 large-cap companies. As the name suggests, it is a premier index on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).Nifty comprises of 50 large-cap companies on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

What is a Contract Note?

Contract Note is a confirmation of trades done on a particular day on behalf of the client. It establishes a legally enforceable relationship between the client and the member broker with respect to the settlement of the trades. The Contract Note would show settlement number, order number, trade number, time of trade, quantity and price of the trades, brokerage charged, etc and it would be signed by an authorised person.

What is pay-in day and pay-out day?

Pay-in day is the day when the broker shall make payment or delivery of securities to the exchange. Pay-out day is the day when the exchange makes payment or delivery of securities to the broker.

What do you mean by ‘Market Trades’ and ‘Off Market Trades’?

Any trade settled through a clearing corporation is termed as a ‘Market Trade’. These trades are done through stock brokers on a stock exchange. ‘Off Market Trade’ is one which is settled directly between two parties without the involvement of a clearing corporation. The same delivery instruction slip can be used either for market trade or off-market trade by ticking one of the two options.

How do I deliver or receive shares?

In case of sales, the investor would need to transfer the shares to the pool account for the specified settlement number. The delivery should necessarily come from the demat account of the investor and not from any other person. Similarly the broker would directly transfer shares bought to the account of the investor.

How do I make or receive payments?

A payment has to be made via Account Payee cheque/Demand Draft in favor. The payment should necessarily come from the bank account of the investor and not from any other person. Similarly the broker would pay an Account Payee cheque in the name of the investor, which will also contain the Bank name and account number of the client.

How long does it take to receive my money for a sale transaction and my shares for a buy transaction?

The pay-out of funds and securities to the clients will be within 24 hours of the pay-out.

What is a Rolling Settlement?

In a Rolling Settlement trades executed during the day are settled based on the net obligations for the day. In NSE and BSE, the trades pertaining to the rolling settlement are settled on a T+2 day basis where T stands for the trade day. Hence trades executed on a Monday are typically settled on the following Wednesday (considering 2 working days from the trade day). The funds and securities pay-in and pay-out are carried out on T+2 day.

What is an Auction?

The securities are put up for auction by the Exchange on account of non-delivery of securities by the selling trading member to ensure that the buying trading member receives the securities due to him. The non-delivery by the trading member could arise on account of short delivery. The Exchange purchases the requisite quantity in the Auction Market and gives them to the buying trading member.

What happens if I could not make the payment of money or deliver shares on the pay-in day?

In case of purchase on your behalf, the member broker has the liberty to close out transactions by selling securities in case you fail to make full payment to the broker for the execution of contract before pay-in day as fixed by Stock Exchange for the concerned settlement period unless you already have an equivalent credit with the broker. The shortages in case of sales are met through auction process and the difference in price indicated in Contract Note and price received through auction is paid by member to the Exchange which is then liable to be recovered from the client. In both the cases any loss in transactions will be deductible from the margin money paid by you.

What happens if the shares are not bought in the auction?

If the shares could not be bought in the auction i.e. if shares are not offered for sale in the auction, the transactions are closed out as per SEBI guidelines. The guidelines stipulate that “the close out price will be the highest price recorded in that scrip on the exchange in the settlement in which the concerned contract was entered into and up to the date of auction/close out OR 20% above the official closing price on the exchange on the day on which auction offers are called for, whichever is higher.” Since in the rolling settlement the auction and the close out takes place during trading hours the reference price in the rolling settlement for close out procedures would be taken as the previous day’s closing price.

What are the additional charges other than brokerage that can be levied on the investor?

The trading member can charge: Securities Transaction Tax, Service tax as applicable, Transaction charges levied by NSE, Stamp duty and other charges directly attributable to the transaction.

Note: The brokerage and service tax is indicated separately in the contract note.

How are margins paid?

Exchange prescribes margin rules from time to time, which currently are calculated on the Value at Risk model. Margins are to be paid by the investor before placing the order.

What are the tax implications of investing in Indian equities?

• Tax rates on investments gains are categorized as long term & short term capital gains.
• Long term capital gains
• Long Term investments that are held for more than 12 months are termed as long term capital assets. Profit on sale of such assets is termed as long term capital gain (LTCG) which as per the latest Budget notification will attract nil tax. Short term capital gains Shares that are held for less than 12 months are classified as short term capital assets which as per the latest Budget notification will attract 15% tax.

Who is a Portfolio Manager?

Any SEBI registered person or equity trading advisor or entity who pursuant to a contract or arrangement with a client, advises or directs or undertakes on behalf of the client (whether as a discretionary portfolio manager or otherwise) the management or administration of a portfolio of securities or the funds of the client, as the case may be is a Portfolio Manager.

What is the function of the Capital Market?

Capital Market enhances capital formation in the economy and comprises of -

Primary Market where new offerings by Companies are made either as an Initial Public Offering (IPO) or Rights Issue. Secondary Market where securities are traded after being initially offered to the public in the Primary Market and/or listed on the Stock Exchange. Majority of trading is done in this market which comprises of equity market and debt market.