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How to Buy Shares?
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If a person wants to venture in the share market direction and wants to know how to buy shares, one should be well versed with some basic knowledge about shares, the stock market and how the stock market works.
Creating wealth is one thing and managing as well as increasing the existing one is another. With this thought, we start thinking about various options of investments available to us in today’s world.
Very few people are satisfied with the rate of return generated by conventional methods of investments like a fixed deposit, a recurring deposit, gold, a mutual fund etc. Isn’t that right?
Investment in stocks or shares has the potential of generating much higher returns in a comparatively small amount of time.
It has made people millionaires or billionaires in a span of a few years, but if not managed properly, has caused many bankruptcies as well.
Before getting to know how to buy shares, let us try to understand the brief history of stocks and the journey from the beginning until today in India.
This will provide a concise summary of the transition of stock markets into the complicated and complex systems that exist today in India.
Before trying to learn how to buy shares, it is good to know a little about the history of the process.
Shares or stocks are a representation of one’s ownership interest in the capital of the company. The history of buying and selling of stocks has been centuries old in India.
The beginning of the stock market can be dated back to the 18th century when the East India Company started trading in loan securities.
Gradually, the informal group of traders that used to trade in stocks formed a formal body, The Bombay Stock Exchange in the year 1875.
BSE is the oldest stock exchange in India. For a very long time, buying stocks used to mean owning physical share certificates issued by the companies.
Let us understand how traders used to buy shares at that time.
For buying shares being issued in Initial Public Offering (IPO), investors were required to form application forms and send them along with cheques to the brokers.
After some days, the allotment of physical share certificates was used to reach applicants.
The whole procedure used to take many months. Once the shares had reached the common public, buying and selling of shares among those shareholders used to take place through transfer deeds.
The names of the shareholders along with their signatures used to change with every transaction.
All the steps of the process used to be conducted offline.
Then came the mandatory law of dematerialization as the physical process of transfer of shares was quite cumbersome and used to take a long processing time. If you don’t understand the dematerialisation meaning, then it is a good idea that you should get aware of all these technical terms too.
As per the rules and regulations in the Indian stock markets, it became necessary for all the shareholders to get their physical share certificates converted into demat form.
Shareholders were required to surrender their shares to the issuing company and inform them about their depository participant (DP).
After the completion of this step, the physical share certificates used to be cancelled by the issuing company and the shareholdings of investors were registered in the name of their DP informing it about the same.
After this, the stocks owned by the shareholders got to be held in a demat account.
The 2 types of depository participants in India are the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) and the Central Depository Services Limited (CDSL) which are registered with the Indian market regulator, the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
A depository is a place where the financial securities are held in demat form. And a depository participant is the intermediary agent between the depositories and the investors.
In the year 1996, trading started to take place on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) as well.
There are 2 major stock exchanges in India for the trading of shares, The National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). And for making transactions, a stockbroker is needed.
So, the first step is to search for a broker that suits your needs. A broker is an intermediary company or online agency acting between individual investors and stockbroking firms.
Some brokers provide other services like research, investment products, financial advice, etc. and charge accordingly. After carefully evaluating all the services provided by different brokers and their fees, one should decide upon their broker.
It is mandatory for a broker to be a member of SEBI. There are two mechanisms to understand how to buy shares:
How To Buy Shares Offline?
When one wants to buy shares of a particular company, clear instructions need to be placed with the broker either telephonically or by being in the broker’s office.
The instructions must include the name of the share, the price at which one is willing to buy shares, the number of shares, etc. The broker then places the buy order on the investors’ behalf.
Offline brokers charge a heavier fee as compared to online ways of buying shares. Thus, it makes total sense to go through a round of comparison of demat account charges while you are choosing a stockbroker. Moreover, the whole process is more time-consuming.
How To Buy Shares Online?
Buying shares has been made very easy through online means.
Transfer of funds, placing orders and buying and selling of shares can be done just by a few clicks on one’s computer and even mobile phones.
Many trading apps are available where one can open an account with brokers and access the trading platform on their mobile phones, tabs, laptops, etc.
The brokerages and fees charged by online brokers are very less in comparison to the offline method of buying and selling shares. In fact, if you go
Also Read: How to Buy Shares in IIFL App?
A demat account is an account that acts as a bank for storing an investor’s shares in electronic form.
A demat account is the first and foremost requirement of holding stocks and making investments.
A trading account is a link between the demat and the bank account of an investor. It is used for buying and selling of shares. After understanding how to buy stocks online, these accounts are a must for practical application.
Types of demat and trading accounts have been covered under another article. In order to open a demat account, the following things need to be submitted to the broker:
- PAN card
- Identity Proof
- Address Proof
- Income Proof
- Photographs
Having an online banking account is recommended for people who are opening their demat and trading accounts. Funds from the banking account to the demat account and vice versa could be done instantaneously.
Now, let us focus on the exact procedure of buying shares.
Research – The first and foremost thing to remember about investing in shares is that the research should be thorough on the basis of which shares should be selected. One should know the basics of fundamental and technical analysis.
The fundamental analysis covers knowledge about financial, microeconomic and macroeconomic factors affecting the value of stocks.
On the other hand, the technical analysis covers knowledge about the prediction of stock market prices with the help of analysis of previous trends in volumes and prices using charts and technical indicators. All the details of these basics have been covered under other articles.
Using the broker services – After doing the research and opening a demat account with a registered broker, then comes the process of actually placing orders.
This can be done in 2 ways, offline and online. For offline buying of shares, one can give clear instructions and details to the broker either telephonically or in person.
For online services, one needs to log into the account and then place orders.
The types of orders have been discussed below:
1. Market Order – In this type of order, the order is executed immediately.
So, one can be sure of getting the order placed but not exactly sure about the precise price at which the shares will be bought or sold. One can not be sure that the last traded price would be the price at which his/her shares will be bought or sold.
2. Limit Order – In this type of order, one has to mention the exact price at which he/she wants to buy/sell shares. The order will be executed only at that price or better.
There is no guarantee that the desired price will be reached on that day.
3. Stop Order – This is also called stop-loss order. In this type of order, one has to specify a price after reaching which the order will be executed.
Once the specified price is reached, the order becomes a market order.
4. Buy Stop Order – In this type of order, the specified price is set above the current market price of the stock.
This order is initiated in order to limit a loss when an investor has a long position. In case, an investor has a short position, then buy stop order is used for protecting one’s profits. Similarly, in a sell stop order, the specified price is set below the current market price of the stock.
This order also protects one from unlimited losses and protection of profits.
The normal trading time of NSE and BSE is Monday to Friday, 9:15 am to 3:30 pm.
Indian stock exchanges follow T + 2 settlement. T + 2 stands for trade date + 2 days.
For example, if Mr A buys shares of a particular company on Monday, those shares will start reflected in his account on Wednesday.
Once bought at price ‘X’, you may choose to sell the stock at price ‘Y’ when Y > X.
There are situations when the value of Y never seems to reach back to the value of X, in such cases, you may choose to either exit the stock by selling it off at a loss or you may hold it expecting the share may rise. It is highly recommended that all your trade decisions are based on the research of those respective stocks.
Pre Market Orders – In order to reduce volatility at the time of opening of the market every day, the concept of the pre-open session was introduced which occurs from 9 am to 9: 15 am.
In the first 8 minutes of this 15-minute window, limit or market orders for equity are collected. They are entered, modified and cancelled. One can not place an order in the pre-market session after 9:08 am.
In the next 4 minutes, i.e. from 9:08 am to 9:12 am, orders placed are matched and traded. The last 3 minutes are a buffer period.
Post-market orders – They are collected during the post-market session that lasts from 3:40 pm to 4:00 pm.
During this period, investors can place buy or sell orders only in equity. The market orders placed during this window are done at the closing price of the stock.
This session is generally not very active.
Aftermarket orders – Some brokers give this option to their clients. The time duration for which these orders can be placed are as follows:
NSE – 3:45 pm – 8:57 am
BSE – 3:45 pm – 8:59 am for equity segment & 3:45 pm – 9:10 am for Futures & Options Segment
On the basis of the duration of time required to earn returns on investments, investors decide whether to invest in shares for the short term or the long term.
These investments are done when investors keep in mind the upcoming good results or favourable news for the company. Short term investments are even made solely on the basis of technical analysis of stocks.
While performing technical analysis, it is recommended that the traders look at the market and stock trends while using technical indicators, charts etc. This gives the trader a quick glimpse of the potential movement and direction of the stock.
These investments are generally squared off within a few minutes, hours if it is for intraday trading but may also stay for a few days or weeks in case the trader is performing swing trading.
Also Read: Swing Trading Vs Day Trading
These investments are based on fundamental analysis of stocks of the companies or the future of that particular sector. They generally last longer than a year and are squared off after a few years.
A lot of investors, historically, keep their investments for decades too.
Financials of companies for the last few years, undervaluation or overvaluation of stocks, etc. are some of the factors that are considered before deciding on investing in shares for longer durations of time.
Investors are advised to perform due diligence in terms of understanding the business of the company and compare metrics such as Put call ratio, debt to equity ratio etc.
Well, the simpler answer to that is no, if you are a retail investor. You need to use the services of a depository participant or a stockbroker in order to trade in the Indian stock market.
However, there are a couple of workarounds.
One, you can become a depository participant yourself, but just to trade for yourself and on your own, that does not seem to be a sensible choice.
Secondly, you can invest in the companies through something called DSPPs or Direct Stock Purchase Plans. Having said that, the Indian companies have certain concerns around DSPPs:
- High Initial Cost
- Automatic Fees
- Not suitable for short-term traders
In India, if you are looking to buy IPO shares, you need to apply for an IPO allotment through ASBA.
The process of applying through ASBA (Application Supported by Blocked Amount) is simple, you need to log in to your bank account netbanking.
Here, you are provided with a provision of applying for an IPO allotment. You can invest in an IPO, as a retail investor, with a maximum amount of ₹2 Lakh per PAN card.
Once applied, you wait till the IPO open date and see if you have been allocated any lots. If you are allocated a lot or more, then the corresponding number of shares will be moved to your demat account.
Well, before you look for an answer to the question on how to buy shares without a demat account, you need to understand what kind of trading are you looking for?
Are you looking for delivery trades where the holding period of the trade lasts for more than a trading session? Or you would like to do it at Intraday level? Or are you confused about Intraday vs delivery.
Nonethless, let’s say its delivery trading.
In that case, you cannot buy shares without a demat account. However, if you are looking to enter and exit your position within the same day or in other words, you are looking to perform intraday trading, then there is a possibility.
In an intraday trade, you are not looking to have the shares in your demat account as you are looking to exit the trade almost right away.
And as it takes T+2 days anyway for the shares to reflect in your demat account when you buy, where T is the time of the trade, then in an intraday trade, shares won’t be reflected in your account if you are exiting the trade, the same day.
Thus, yes, if you are looking for intraday trading, then you don’t need a demat account in order to store your shares.
If you are looking to buy shares cheaply, then you need to save money on the brokerage you end up paying since the rest of the charges including the share price, GST, STT, transaction charges will stay the same nonetheless.
In order to do that, you can open your demat account with a discount broker that charges flat rate brokerage charges.
Thus, whether you trade for ₹100 or ₹100 Lakh, you will be paying the same brokerage charge. And if you pay low brokerage, then you end up having a larger chunk of the profit in your pocket.
The concept of the grey market is for IPOs. When an IPO is to be launched, the grey market gets activated and tries to provide an objective idea of the potential opening price of the offering. You can check out the below table for GMP of upcoming IPO:
The table with ID 5869 not exists.
Thus, in simpler terms, it is not a platform for you to buy shares from. Shares can only be bought from the secondary market for retail trading along with the option of buying them from the primary market through IPO allocations.
Summary
In order to understand how to buy shares and generate returns by trading in them, it is imperative to know that a demat and trading account is a must and how the process works.
There are 2 mechanisms to buy shares, offline and online.
The online mechanism is hassle-free and more convenient and cheaper in comparison with the offline method. The question of how to buy shares can be answered through the knowledge about different kinds of orders that can be placed with brokers.
After doing thorough research, an investor can buy shares for short term or long terms gains as per one’s preferences.
In case you are looking to start investing in the stock market and buy/sell shares, let us assist you in taking the next steps forward.
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