Introduction to Stock Market

The most common question that chartered accountants and chartered accountancy students face is, “Where do I invest?” Every friend, neighbour, uncle and even the local shopkeeper will ask which shares to purchase. In order to tackle those questions, it is essential that you know about the stock market well in advance. Here is a crash course to help you with understanding the stock market, it’s functioning, how to invest in it and the risks associated with the same.

To begin, we must understand how the stock market came into existence. It is unlikely for a few people formulating a business idea to have enough money, among themselves, to run a company on a big scale. To surpass this problem, the concept of a joint-stock company was evolved. The “company” form of business organization allows for a separation between the ownership and the management of the business, which we study in Company Law as well. The investors have voting rights and a share of profits, if the company decides to disburse them. In simple words, people gather money to form a company but the company in itself has a separate existence, independent of the funding parties. It may or may not be run by the people who invested in it. The entire capital of a company can be divided into small units of equal nominal value, called shares, these units were offered to be sold to the common public. Hence, a 'share' quite literally means a share in the ownership of a company. A share market is where shares are traded freely. A stock market, being a slightly broader term, not only offers shares but other instruments such as debentures, bonds and options for trading as well.

Now that we have established a stock market or a stock exchange is the medium through which the common public invests in the operations of a company, where does one find a stock market? India has two major stock exchanges, National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) both of which come under the purview of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). With a total capitalization of over 1.41 Trillion US Dollars with NSE and 2 Trillion US Dollars with BSE, it's a lot of public money. So, how does all this trading take place practically? Funnily enough, trades in the olden times were conducted on the floor of the exchange building itself like a proper market, by shouting instructions or through telephones. In modern exchanges, however, it is not an actual market with hawkers and stalls, you cannot practically visit and buy shares. Stock markets are completely digitalised nowadays, the shares are maintained in a ‘dematerialised’ format and trades are conducted online, through brokers like Indiabulls, Zerodha, Sharekhan, etc.

In terms of trading, the stock market can be split into two main sections: the primary market and the secondary market. The primary market is where the new issues of a company are brought out via Initial Public Offers (IPOs), it is the market segment based on human trust. If you believe in the idea; the purpose of the foundation of the company; then you purchase the initial shares of the same. Usually, institutional investors take up a major portion of these shares. The opportunities to invest in an IPO are sparse and far apart, but if a well-known company launches an IPO feel free to invest for long term benefits and advise others to do the same too! The primary market is for the purpose of raising capital or debt, depending on the instrument put up for sale, for a business.

There is a secondary market as well, it is the derivative market, where subsequent trading of stock takes place. The company does not earn anything on subsequent trading of its stocks. This is the segment where people gamble. This is where your expertise of analysing the market is required. Millions of transactions take place between 9:55 am and 3:30 pm, Monday through Friday on both stock exchanges, all betting on the future movement of price of shares.

Here is a step by step breakdown of what is happening every day, around the globe. A trader opens a DEMAT account with a broker, where all his shares will be saved digitally. He purchases securities through the interface of the broker, the broker may or may not provide consultancy services. Let’s assume this trader is dealing on his own judgement so he has to decide to either buy, sell or hold the purchased securities. He does as he sees fit to earn a profit. You buy at ten and expect to sell at twenty the next day, simple. Simple, yet very dangerous, as prices on a stock market change every second. The possibility of an investment doubling overnight is virtually equal to its possibility of becoming worthless.

Thus, it is imperative to learn how the share market works before investing in it. The price of a share depends on a lot of factors- the company's net worth, its reputation, the inflation rate of the country, the performance of rival companies, to name a few. Fundamental and Technical analysis form the basis for market decision making.

Technical analysis is the study of trend and data over the years, to project the future prices of a share under given conditions. For example, if we take past twenty year’s data of a company and observe the share price has been increasing 2% every year, it can be estimated that it will do the same next year. Obviously, stocks are not this easily predictable and data analysts have to apply various techniques on large volumes of data to find some reasonable trend. Basic data analysis is taught in Strategic Financial Management subject and the Financial Services and Capital Markets elective subject of CA Final.

Fundamental analysis is the based on the study of the performance of the company, its future prospects and the sentiment of the market towards it. There are no hard and fast rules to fundamental analysis and is purely based on the judgement of an individual. For example, the announcement of the Neerav Modi scam made PNB’s share prices plummeted staggeringly but since the news of his arrest this March they have been slowly rising back.

Regardless of the mode and medium, the motivation behind stock market trading remains simple, hope and it is well known that hope is a dangerous thing. Once you enter articleship training, you will find your peers investing in stocks in various capacities. Before you get sucked into this tempting world of quick profits, remember risk and reward go hand in hand in the stock market; fortunes are made and broken every minute. I would advise for every young investor to pay heed to the following-

"Don't ever make the mistake of believing that market success has to come to you fast. Trade small, stay in the game, persist, and eventually, you'll reach a satisfying level of proficiency."

--- Yvan Byeajee, Paradigm Shift: How to cultivate equanimity in the face of market uncertainty

02-Jun-2020




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