How does online share trading work?

• Open an online trading and Demat account
  • The first pre-requisite of trading online is having an online trading and Demat account. In case, you don’t have one, you’ll need to open a trading and Demat account. That takes less than 5 minutes and is a completely paperless process.
• Research, Discover and Decide to Buy/Sell a Share
  • Generating a trading idea is by far the most important step in the whole trading process. Traders should be able to identify opportunities for trading. These could be by a variety of strategies, tools, processes. Once a trading idea is generated, then the next steps on execution of the trade follow. In case you do not have trading ideas, you could check out the StockNote App and you’d find a variety of trading ideas.
• Transfer funds to your trading account
  • Since exchange regulations require that money for placing a trade shall be available upfront, traders are required to transfer funds to their trading account before actually initiating a trade. Check out the step by step process of transferring funds to your trading account.
• Place an initial order
  • The next step is placing an order based on the trading idea generated by you. This can be placed by logging on the trading platform and simply placing an order. Check out the detailed steps on how to place an order on the StockNote App.
• Order matching by Exchanges
  • Once you place an order, the order gets executed into an actual trade on the stock exchanges once a suitable counterparty is found. For each buyer, there needs to be a seller and vice versa. Exchanges match orders on price, time, quantity priority i.e. first prices are matched, then the time is assigned priority for matching (based on time of order) and finally quantities are matched.
• Settlement of transaction
  • Once an order is executed into a trade, the settlement of trades shall happen depending on the settlement cycle of the instrument. Stocks get settled on T+2, whereas derivatives transactions are settled same day. Samco is one of the only brokers that allows customers to pay for stock purchases on T+2 instead of paying on T Day. Once you buy stocks on T day, they are credited to your Demat account on T+2 day and are essential “Open Inventory/stock”.
• The post trade movement in price of share
  • This is the holding period of a trade. Once you buy a stock, you’d like it to move upwards over time and vice versa if you are a seller. There are different types of traders with different holding periods. We’ve discussed this in the sections after this.
• Decision to Exit a trade
  • This refers to the process of exiting an open trade. The exit decision decides the realization of your profits/losses for each trade. There are various factors that could drive the exit trade – meeting price targets, exiting via a stop loss, exiting for better opportunities or simply exiting because the trade did not play out as visualized.
• Placing the exit order
  • The next step is placing an exit order. The steps for placing an exit order are similar to that of a placing an initial order.
• Order matching by Exchanges
  • Similar to the initiation leg, the exit leg order gets matched by the Stock Exchanges and gets converted to a trade.
• Settlement of transaction
  • Similar to the initiation leg, the settlement of transaction will happen on T+2 days. In case you have sold your stocks, your stocks shall be debited from your Demat account linked to your trading account and the funds shall be credited to your trading account.
• Bank Account credited with capital and realized profits/losses
  • Once your trading account is credited, you can place a request to withdraw funds from your trading account. This shall include your initial capital as well as your realized profits/losses.

The above example was an example of chronology of events and how you could make money in online trading by buying shares, holding them for some period of time and then selling those shares at a profit. However, there are multiple approaches of making money by online share trading.

You could trade across different time periods, a few seconds, a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, few months or few years. Traders with different time horizons have different strategies and are popularly referred to as different names. This is an illustrative but not exhaustive list.

As you can see, the 2 primary objectives of trading are either to create an income by active trading or to create wealth over a period of time by passively investing.

Samco Securities offers India’s best online share trading experience!

• Zero % Brokerage for Online Share Trading
• Great Savings up to 98% on brokerage as you pay Flat Rs. 20 per executed order – irrespective of order size, segment. Check out our Brokerage Savings Calculator and calculate your savings.
• 3 – in – 1 account – Online Trading, Demat Account and Mutual Fund Investing Account
• Rated India’s Best Equity Stockbroker by CNBC
• Super-Fast Trading with StockNote – India’s Top-Rated Mobile Trading App
• Trade all instruments – Stocks on NSE, BSE; Equity Derivatives i.e. Futures & Options on NSE; Commodity Derivatives on MCX and Currency Derivatives on NSE
• Advanced Trading Tools and Order Types with StockNote
• Multiple Trading Platforms – Mobile, Web, Trading APIs, Desktop EXE’s, etc to choose from
• Research Ideas on StockNote
• Invest in IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) at the click of a button
• Trusted by over 200000+ traders and investors from over 4000+ cities in India!
• And a lot more! Check out why should you trade stocks at Samco!

What is Online Share Trading?

Online share trading is one of the oldest business activities of all times. It works very similar to any other trading business which involves buying and selling, except that, in case of online share trading, instead of goods or products, one is actually buying and selling shares or stocks of companies.

Over 5000+ companies are listed and available for trading on the 2 leading stock exchanges of India - BSE and NSE.

Chronological sequence of events in how online share trading works:

How to be successful in online share trading?

In order to be successful in online stock trading, the first and most important thing is having a set of rules.

As a traders/investor, while we may initiate trades to make a profit, no one knows how the market will actually unfold and play out. Therefore, it is extremely important to have a set of rules for trading.

In this section, we will try and lay out a template of the kind of rules that traders must have to be successful stock traders. This will not only help traders be successful but also navigate the markets in case anything goes wrong in one’s trading plan.

• Build a trading strategy
  • It is important to identify a trading strategy and then practice implementation of that strategy day in and day out. You could choose from a variety of strategies – breakouts, breakdowns, large candle moves. What is important that you select a strategy that suits your psychology.
• Identify entry points of trades identified with the trading strategy
  • Once you decide on a strategy, it’s important to identify the entry levels and exit levels of each stock. One must be very careful not to chase stocks. Don’t go out and buy a stock just because it is moving away from your identified price. Be patient and only enter a stock/trade once your ideal entry level is reached.
• Identify a Strict Stop Loss for each trade
  • One of the most important rules of trading is having a STOP LOSS. There is an old saying “Cut your losses and let your winners run” which means that a trader should be quick to cut their losses in case the trade goes against the direction that they were hoping for. Once could use a static stop loss or a dynamic trailing stop loss.
• Identify an exit strategy for your trades
  • Along with an entry and stop loss rule, it’s also important to have an exit strategy in place. There could be a variety of ways in which you could identify an exit price for your trade. That could be based on a certain pattern identified at the time of a trade, or by way of a trailing stop loss (helps in case of breakouts and trending moves), or could be a fixed percentage (%) - 20-30-50% gain. It is ultimately your exit strategy that shall determine how profitable you actually are.
• Risk Management by Sizing your position correctly
  • It is very important to decide the correct quantity for your trade. This is because if you go overboard on a particular trade, that could completely wipe out your trading capital. If you are simply trading stocks, you mustn’t invest more then 15% of your capital in a single stock. If you are actively trading, you mustn’t risk more than 2% of your trading capital in a single trade.
• Don’t blindly follow advice without understanding the rationale or Doing some homework yourself
  • Every time you initiate a trade, make sure you are aware of the underlying rationale for that trade. Do not simply enter a trade based on hearsay or just because you saw an expert advising an idea on TV without digging deeper. Understand the why of each trade before you initiate it.
• Write and document your trades in a Trading Journal
  • Create a trading journal and record your trades. Keep reviewing your trades from time to time and check the trades initiated against your trading plan. Modify your trading strategies and plan based on your findings.
• Be Patient and disciplined
  • A trader will not make money every day. There will be some profitable days and months and some days and months when a trader will lose money. It is important to understand that losing is a part of the game and not to be too affected by it. It is important to follow your trading plan perfectly and not keep changing it based on a few months of underperformance. It’s important to be patient and disciplined. If one is patient and disciplined in stock trading, then the chances of one being hugely successful are very high. What is important is that you let your profits run and make profits month after month and not lose too much money by holding onto losers. That will make sure that you stay in the game and make money over the long run.

Check out our free video on the 10 golden rules for trading and investing in the stock market for beginners.

FAQs on Online Share Trading