I am basically an IT guy, and it took a while for me to get my head around various terms used in the stock and trading industry. Some of the concepts had my thought process going back and forth but it was definitely worth investing in terms of time/ money. And as I learn more about this industry, I must say that I am really impressed by the depth and breadth of this great field.

Trade specific terms

1. Intraday vs Delivery trading
2. Order Types
3. Margin Trading
4. Short Selling

Research Ideas

1. Murrey Math in detail
2. Fibonacci Retracements

(more to be added later)

Labels: investment, research, stock, trading, wealth

(NOTE: This post is very India specific)

After researching on various brokerage firms( companies that help you buy/sell shares), I decided to zero in on ICICI Direct, Reliance Money and SBICap Securities Due to relatively low 'Account opening charges' and 'Minimum balance' and brokerage charges, I decided to go for Reliance Money or SBI. Since SBI people reached back to me first and I already had an account with this bank, I had my account created in less than week and I placed my first order yesterday.

Links about using the SBI platform

1. Detailed help on using the trading platform
2. SBI Faq
3. SBI trading demo
4. Buying Mutual Funds through SBICAP Securities
5. Reivew of SBICAP securities

Other related resources

1. Realtime Details on stocks from Rediff
2. Comparison of various brokerage companies (The details presented might be a little outdated, by the time you read this, so check the respective brokerage firms to get
3. Top 100 bullish shares
   

Labels: investment, stock, trading, wealth

With suggestion from my best friend and fiancee, I had decided to go for investing in Gold shares. And the first place was to ask my parents, since they were veterans in share trading over the past 2 decades. With some basic information, that I got from them, I decided that it was upto me to take this forward. So I did the following changes in my lifestyle to accommodate this new interest in wealth and investment:

1. Developed a new interest in reading financial newspaper. A special mention goes to 'Economic times'. You can get its e-version here. ( Man !! can't believe the trash that comes in today's regular newspapers)
2. Changed my home page to forbes.com. I must say that's definitely one site that must be on your daily reading list, among others if you are serious about wealth and investment
3. Got some really amazing books : 'Rich Dad, Poor dad', 'Success Secrets of the Rich and Happy' and many others
4. Started making entries of my daily expenditure, first started with excel then moved onto full fledged software - Gnucash
5. Started thinking about ways I could reduce my expenditure, including reducing my broad band plan, which I rarely used, Using more public transport than private cabs. The habit of making note of daily expenditure helped me identify these hot spots and take measure to solve them (Again another amazing suggestion from my fiancee)
   

In the next post, I would try to tell more about my adventures in stock market and the thought process behind those decision. Until then, be happy.

Labels: investment, stock, wealth

My crush with investment started a few weeks back and it was a combination of things that triggered it. It started off with some amazing books "Sucess secrets of Rich and Happy "by Bart A Baggett , "Rules of Wealth" by Richard Templar and "Rich Dad Poor dad" by Robert. Slowly I started to see a lot of things in a different perspective.

The flashback
I first heard about shares and stocks from my parents. But it remained inside me, until my fiancee asked about things that she could do after marriage, at home. And it occurred to me that, my mom had been doing share trading in her free time, back in my college days. I remember she studying about various companies and investing in the ones that would make profit in the future. Her effort did yield results and I told this to my fiancee. Now I had no idea about banking/ finance/ economy or money for that matter. The only contact that I had with money was when I swiped the cards and withdrew cash from the ATM. Equity, stocks and forex sounded like foreign terms

Now
(NOTE: The following numbers are very specific to India)
It's been two months since I have been seriously looking for investment options around me. I am no more satisfied with the 3.5 % that I get if I stash it in a savings account in a bank. If we are looking at an inflation rate of 8% +, we need to talk about some serious number about investments.

Firstly I started with moving my current savings to a Fixed deposit where I could get maximum returns(for a bank deposit) in a short amount of time. My dad informed me about a Co-operative society where they would give 8.5 % for 3 months. This looked like a good deal. So there goes my money. Other options included Fixed Deposits in SBI/ Dhanalakshmi Bank etc, Most banks these days offer a sleek interest of 9.0 % + for long term deposits.

In this post, I am going to speak a little bit about Mutual funds

I had been hearing about Mutual funds, the last time, it was from my Manager on a casual discussion about investment options and today I was doing some homework on that.

• I started with Mutual Funds India. This site has details on various mutual funds, their growth etc. The section about Mutual funds was also interesting.
• I learned about Tax Savings scheme here.
• Next to get a listing of top players in various industries, I checked out India infoline's mutual fund section
• To buy mutual funds online, check out this page, where you could get listing of several popular online mutual fund offerings.
  

The phone call
Next thing in my list was to give a ring to my dad. He had been investing in several mutual funds over the last couple of years. And from him, I got to know about various definitions used in this industry
There are some basic things that has to be in place before we could proceed further
(I have tried my level best to keep it simple, if you need a more authoritative explanation, look somewhere else)

1. When we buy shares of a company, there is a high risk potential. If the share price of the company goes down, you would in for a toss(For the record: I believe almost all financial investments have some inherent risks associated to them, Its all about doing your homework and hoping for the best)
   


2. So here comes mutual funds, where the amount we put in, goes to several shares bought on our behalf.
   


3. There are 2 types mutual funds
   


1. Once which invests in shares that belong to same industry
   
2. Diversified mutual funds - Here shares of companies that belong to different industries are invested on
   


4. Some mutual funds would have entry/exit loads(see below). Check them before you buy
   


5. Also there would be a minimum investment amount. So even thought the NAV me be 10 Rs, you might need to do a minimum investment for 10,000 Rs
   


6. Investment duration - The duration for which the amount is invested. Withdrawing/cancelling the amount before this time might result in exit load (see below)
   

Entry load - Amount paid to the company issuing the mutual fund when we buy mutual funds from them
Exit load - Amount that has to be paid if money it taken back before the mutual funds compelets its maturity period

(More investment/ financial things coming up in future posts)

I believe just like any other industry, I guess I need to go a long way, investing time and money before I could see results for my effort. But I would be more than willing to share what I learn with all of you. Wishing me all the best. Have a great day. Bye

Labels: finance, investment, money, savings