Before your first stock market order
Start here. What the market is. What each of your accounts does. And what happens when you press buy.
What this track is for
This track is for you if you have not placed an order yet. It starts with the trade itself: who pays whom, and what a share price does and does not tell you. Then it separates the exchange from your broker and from an index. It gives each of your three accounts a job. It follows one order from your screen to a matched trade. It ends with the checks worth making before any money moves.
Steps12Each says why it follows the last
You will be able to5Things to read and recognise
Comes afterNothingThis is where the curriculum starts
The track, in order
12- How the Indian Stock Market Works: Ownership, Trading and SettlementStart with the trade, not the ticker. Who pays whom when a share changes hands? And why is a price not a profit?The stock market is where investors buy and sell shares in listed companies. A share is a small piece of ownership in a company. It is not a promise of profit. If you buy ten shares at ₹200 from another investor, that ₹2,000 goes to the seller. It does not go to the company. Price, value and profit are three separate ideas.
- NSE vs BSE: What an Exchange Does, and What It Does NotYou have seen a trade happen. Now separate three things: the venue it happened on, the broker who sent it, and the index that sums it up.NSE and BSE are two separate exchanges. An exchange is a venue with rules, where buy and sell orders meet. It is not a broker, not a demat account and not an index. The same company's shares can trade on both. The orders waiting at each venue need not match. What matters is the price you can really get for the quantity you want, after charges. Not the lowest figure on a screen.
- Demat, Trading and Bank Accounts: Three Records, Three Different JobsThree records, three jobs. This lesson tells you which one to open when a number looks wrong.Three records do three different jobs. A bank account holds money. A trading account is where you place orders through a broker. A demat account holds the shares themselves, in electronic form. One app can show all three, but they update at different moments. So "did the money leave", "did the order go through" and "what do I hold" are three questions. Three different statements answer them.
- How a Share Order Reaches the Exchange: Six Stages, and Where One Can StopNow follow one order all the way through. Accepted, matched, filled in pieces, settled. Those are four different things, and a screen calls them one.Submitting an order is not the same as owning shares. Your instruction goes to the broker, which runs its account and risk checks. The broker then sends it to the exchange. It becomes a trade only if a matching order is waiting there. Orders at the same price are filled in the order they arrived, earliest first. A 100-share request can end up as 75 filled and 25 still waiting.
- Market, Limit and Stop Orders: What Each One ControlsThe order types, and the trade-off under all of them. You can fix your price, or you can make sure the order fills. No order type can promise both.A market order takes whatever prices are on offer. So a 30-share buy can take shares from several price levels and average out above the best one on screen. A limit order sets a boundary it may not cross. That can leave part of it, or all of it, unfilled. A stop order creates a second order only once its trigger is met. That order still has to find a match.
- What is margin?Some positions require blocked collateral. See why margin differs from a fee and why it cannot cap a loss.Margin is money a broker holds as a safety deposit for a leveraged position. A leveraged position is larger than the money you put up. It is not a fee or the position's price. The amount can change with prices, risk rules, the product and the broker. It does not limit your loss.
- What is a lot size?Now count the units in a contract. Multiply the option quote by the lot size to find the amount for one lot.Lot size is the number of units in a derivatives contract. One lot's premium is the quote multiplied by the lot size, before charges. The exchange can revise lot sizes. The figure tells you quantity, not margin or future profit.
- How do capital gains on shares work?A share sale raises a different money question. Dates and costs change the taxable gain before a rate applies.Capital gain starts with the sale value minus the purchase cost. Some allowed costs can change how much of that gain is taxed. Holding dates decide whether these listed share sales have short-term or long-term gains. Current tax rules use different rates and set a yearly tax-free limit for long-term gains.
- How do market hours and holidays work?Finally, read the session clock. Different segments can be in different phases, and a holiday changes the whole day.Market hours depend on the segment, meaning a group of products. Cash stocks are company shares bought or sold directly. Some stocks also have derivatives, meaning contracts such as options based on them. Near the close, those stocks enter a closing auction that sets one closing price. Other stocks keep trading. Holidays stop regular sessions, and special sessions are announced separately.
- Investor Safety Checklist: Before Money Moves or Access Is GrantedBefore any of that is worth doing with real money, check three things from an independent source. Who they are. What they are allowed to do. And where the payment goes.Before money moves or access is granted, three things are worth checking on their own: who the person is, what the permission really allows, and where the payment lands. Each one is checked through a channel found independently, not one supplied by the person making the claim. A finished check never proves an offer is genuine. It can only bring a mismatch to light, and a mismatch nobody can explain is reason enough to stop.
- Stock-Market Scam Warning Signs: Reading the Sequence, Not the MomentThe same checks, seen from the other side. This is the pattern an approach follows when the investment does not exist.A scam is easier to spot as a sequence than as a single moment. The steps run in order: an identity that looks familiar, a display of profits, a deposit outside the normal route, then a fee demanded before money can come back. None of those steps proves fraud on its own. Read together, they describe an arrangement in which nothing has been confirmed independently at any step.
- How to Complain: Preparing a Securities Complaint and Using SCORESAnd if something has already gone wrong, this is what a complaint must contain before anyone can look into it.A complaint works better as a record than as an accusation. It sets out the dates, the transaction references and the difference found. It says what is being asked for. It attaches the documents that back up each point. Current guidance sends an investor to the entity first, then to the securities grievance portal. Filing creates a record and a tracking reference. It does not establish liability, and it promises no compensation.