While there are tons of data available online, as a beginner who wants to take the first baby step in this deep ocean could be very overwhelming. In this article, I will be covering basic information that will help you build confidence in this journey.
Do understand that these are my personal opinion and you may find other similar options which you might feel comfortable with and that is absolutely your personal choice. All the information in this article is primarily relevant for the Indian stock market hence everything is based on the Indian economy and Indian stock exchanges namely the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE). With that said let's get started.
To begin investing in the stock market, you would require a DEMAT account which lets you hold financial securities in electronic form. You can open a DEMAT account from any available brokerage options as detailed below.
Discount broker vs Full service broker
The very basic difference between these two options is the advisory service provided and the fees charged.
As a beginner, you must ask this question to yourself if you are looking for a broker who will provide stock recommendations based on their inhouse research and analysis team or you will be doing your own research and then make a buy/sell call. Also, the advisory service comes for a price hence the brokerage and account maintenance charges are comparatively higher for full service broker as compared to a discount broker.
In the case of discount brokers, they provide a very fluid, interactive, and high experience trading platform and their brokerage charges are very steep.
My personal recommendation would be to select between Upstox or Zerodha as a discount broker whose charges are almost similar. The brokerage charged on delivery (when holding a stock more than a day in your DEMAT account) is Zero by both the brokers.
in terms of full service brokerage house, you can choose any of the banks like HDFC, ICICI which provide banking as well as brokerage service or pure brokers like Motilal Oswal or Sharekhan. Do not underestimate these reputed brokerage houses as they have established their name in the market with top-notch advisory service and helped their customer build a robust portfolio with quality recommendations.
Now that you have the DEMAT sorted, let's talk about various other options to make your journey exciting.
Portfolio Management Tool
As you start owning various assets, you might find it tedious to keep track of these assets and suddenly resolve to maintain a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet although is a nice data gathering tool, you may find it difficult to make sense of that data as your brain likes visual representation better than crunching numbers.
My personal recommendation would be to use MoneyControl. I have been personally using moneycontrol for more than a decade and had a fantastic experience in keeping track of all my assets at one single place. You can keep track of Stocks, Mutual Fund, ULIPs, Bullion, Loans, and many more. Not only does it give a consolidated view of all your assets but also provides visual insights in terms of your exposure and best practices and it is absolutely free of cost.
Moneycontrol is also a comprehensive and exhaustive financial website that has up to date information of all the companies and their financials. I will cover this topic in the forthcoming section.
Charting Tool
Although all the brokerage houses have their own comprehensive chart options, I personally find the technical charting options of TradingView to be the best. It has all the options of candlestick patterns along with various technical indicator and strategies which you can apply to a certain script and bring out the best possible technical insights. As a beginner, you might find it overwhelming but as you start building up on your knowledge, you will find it to be very friendly. You can choose between the free option which can surely help you get started with and as you advance you can think about the paid options which let you save your customizations and lets you apply multiple strategies and alert feature along with various other options.
I would like to emphasize the fact that these are only tools and your practice is what will make you good at anything you do and without burning the midnight oil, there is no easy way to succeed.
Now that I have covered all the arsenal you need to attack, lets move towards the strategy part. As this article is becoming lengthy, I have covered it in the next part of this article.
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