The commodity options market is simply a market in which producers may purchase the opportunity to sell or...

Since futures are contracts for future date, you should know the current spot market price of...

As in the case of stocks, most of the exchanges, the best five buy and sell orders for every contract available for...

Margin is the deposit money that needs to be paid to buy or sell each contract. The margin required for a...

The commodities market will have three broad categories of market participants apart from brokers and...

In India, commodity trading is taking place through spot market and forward and futures contracts.

From an investor’s point of view, commodity investment has certain unique features as it is...

So, what are the options for investing in commodities? As an investor, people can use many vehicles in...

Commodity trading carries a lower downside risk than other asset classes, as pricing in...

A commonly used approach is to consider as an asset class any instrument

The different commodities that trade on various commodity exchanges can broadly be classified as below

Just as stocks and stock derivatives are traded in stock exchanges, commodity derivatives are traded in commodity exchanges.

The Indian experience in commodity futures market dates back to thousands of years.

Commodities are natural products that grow (such as wheat, rice, etc.)

As we all know, a market where commodities are traded is referred to as a commodity market.

There are other instruments and few of them are briefly covered here.

By combining options and/or stock into spreads, the investor can add even more flexibility to his

For aggressive investors who are very bullish about the prospects for a stock / index, buying calls can...

The optionality characteristic of options results in a non-linear payoff for options. 

The writer of the Call Option is generally bearish, while the writer of the Put Option is...

There are four types of participants in options markets depending on the position they ...

Options, are another type of derivative instruments. Some people might say options are bit complex...

Stock index futures have become the most popular financial derivative instruments and widely traded all...

A futures spread is simply the simultaneous trading of one contract against another.

If on the expiry date, the actual price of Reliance Industries is Rs 1300, Mahesh can buy the shares at...

A future contract, unlike the privately-traded forward contract, is publicly traded. 

Before discussing this concept lets discuss about spot market. In a spot market, what you generally do?

Due to complexity in nature, it is very difficult to classify the financial derivatives.

A derivative is an instrument whose value is derived from the value of one or more basic variables called bases...

As you are aware the financial derivatives have become increasingly popular and most commonly used in

 At times, the focus on past performance is so overwhelming that it leaves investors with the...

Exchange Traded Funds are mutual fund units which investors buy/sell from the stock exchange, as ...

Assets Under Management (AUM) is the total value of assets managed by an AMC in one or all the plans.

How can someone be ready before identifying one's investment needs. right? 

A wide variety of mutual fund schemes exist to cater to the needs such as financial position, risk...

A wide variety of mutual fund schemes exist to cater to the needs such as financial position, risk tolerance and...

The best mutual funds design their portfolios in such a way that investment components will react differently to

The performance of a mutual fund can be appraised from the Net Asset Value (NAV) which is disclosed on a daily basis. 

The mutual fund industry can be broadly put into four phases according to the development of the sector.

A mutual fund is made up when large number of investors pool their money together and invest in stocks, bonds, etc

Well, now we have so far discussed about equities in general in our last three modules.

Many investors do not have the basic understanding of a good portfolio. In fact, there is no...

Asset allocation is a very important tool in building a diversified portfolio.

Beta is the overall risk in investing in a large market such as the BSE and the NSE.

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is an economic model for valuing stocks, securities, derivatives and/or...

The Modern Portfolio Theory is the optimal tool in developing methods and strategies that come...

There are five phases that can be identified in this process:

The contribution each stock makes to the total risk of a well-diversified portfolio depends on the stock's covariance with...

While discussing portfolio management, at the outset we need to define what risk is all about. 

We have, so far, gained clarity about the various aspects of investment and stock market behaviour.

Wireless trading or Mobile trading as it is popularly known is soon going to change the...

BTST stands for 'buy today and sell tomorrow'. It is also a short-term trading strategy and is

Suppose that you, after painstaking research and analysis, have decided that the company ABC is...

Short selling shall be defined as selling a stock which the seller does not own at the time of trade.

Short selling is one of the short-term trading strategies. Suppose you are absolutely sure that a

Day trading requires long-term commitment and risk management. Ultimately if we

Recently, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has removed the regulatory impediments that

Day trading, as previously mentioned, can be very risky. The bottom line is...

While discussing about short term trading, it is important to know about the concept of margin trading.

Intraday traders use different strategies to maximize the profit. However...

It is difficult to pin-point certain strategies exclusively for short-term trading.

Very often professional as well as non-professional investors have a tendency to trade on a continuous basis.

Having discussed mainly about stock investments from a long term perspective, it...

Check your client-broker agreement carefully for hidden clauses that may be detrimental.

The facility of online trading has made stock market transactions very easy.

As mentioned earlier, for stock trading we need to have a trading account and demat account.

The following table enumerates the positive and negative factors of online trading

The exchange has put into implementation index based market-wide circuit breakers in...

With the introduction of screen-based trading system, it is possible to trade from anywhere.

When an investor informs a broker to place an order on his behalf, the broker enters the...

We have earlier discussed how trading on stock exchanges in India used to take place through open...

The equity markets in India have been evolving rapidly in recent times. 

There are no two individuals who are identical and their emotional reaction varies.

The reason investors tend to favour a sure thing over an alternate choice that has an equal or...

What is herd mentality? This refers to the herd of animals which follow other animals in...

When it comes to money and investing, we are not always as rational as we think we are.

This is the opposite of greed. Investors fear losing money due to a market crash or ...

Let us discuss the psychological factors which influence investments in stock.

Our emotions, outlook, frame of mind, fear and greed - everything plays a major role in determining our investment decisions.

Each of us has different investment goals and that plays a big role on how we invest.

This refers to the composition and character of investments in a portfolio influenced by...

Everyone is interested to know how we can minimize our risks in investments.

The beta is a measure of a stock’s price volatility in relation to the rest of the market.

Risk and reward are the two sides of the same coin. So the best strategy of investment is to minimize...

We have discussed certain requirements for starting the trading procedures. 

What are the basic requirements to start trading?

In last two modules, so far we have discussed mostly about stocks and specific strategies for analysing the stocks etc.

Whether to follow Technical analysis or Fundamental analysis

CAN SLIM is a philosophy of screening, purchasing and selling common stock developed by William O'Neil. 

What Does Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) mean? It is a mathematical...

Moving averages are one of the most popular and easy to use tools available to the technical analyst.

There are a number of chart patterns and empirical rules for predicting the future trend.

For forming such decisions, a technical analyst usually examines two factors

Obviously the most important challenge for any investor or market player is predicting the stock market.

It is the relative comparison of opening price, high price, low price and closing price within a day.

As discussed earlier, technical analysts prepare charts and graphs of various market statistics...

According to the Dow Theory, the market (which means price of stocks in general) has three simultaneous movements.

Technical analysts believe that it is possible to forecast the future price of a share by looking

Technical analysis, actually, was the brainchild of Dow Jones, editor of the Wall Street Journal...