To buy and sell stocks in the Indian stock market, you will need a demat and trading account. A stockbroker is necessary to trade stocks because the broker will provide the trading account through which you will place your trades.
Stock trading is merely buying and selling stocks in order to gain from the difference. Stock trading requires a Demat account from which you will place the buy and sell orders. Trading involves a wide range of techniques such as swing trading, intraday trading, options trading, futures trading, etc. Different traders use a mixture of these trading techniques to reduce the risks. For example, an investor can hedge his holdings with the use of an options contract. Similarly, swing traders purchase a particular stock for a couple of trading sessions and sell it to gain from the underlying.
In short Yes, a stockbroker is needed to trade in stocks. To buy and sell a stock, you need to have a 'Trading' and 'Demat Account'. A stockbroker provides the necessary accounts with which you could place your trades. Therefore, to go long or short in any stock, you need to have a demat account.
In India, you will have to open an account with a stockbroker or a bank-based broker to get a demat and trading account. Once you get a demat account, you will be eligible to trade stocks and derivatives
1. Bank Account
2. Mandatory documents like PAN Card
3. Proof of identity and proof of address
4. Recent photograph and signature (offline or online)
Once you fulfill these criteria, you can easily open a demat account and trade in stocks, derivatives, bonds, etc.
Alternative options
There is another way through which you can buy and sell shares without a stockbroker. You can do so with Mutual Funds. Mutual funds won’t let you pick particular stocks, but you can buy and sell a group of stocks as picked by the fund. You can trade in mutual funds without a stockbroker and without a demat account. The AMC (Asset Management Company) will take care of all your deposits and withdrawals. Through certain mutual funds, you can bet on a particular sector or the overall economy and profit out of it.
Discount brokers have gained a lot of popularity in the past couple of years. Zerodha is currently India's largest and most trusted discount broker which is also the best option for beginners. It has all the necessary qualities required for a good broker like low commissions, low-maintenance charges, high-quality trading terminal, etc.
One person can open multiple trading accounts with one PAN card in India. But you cannot open more than one trading account with the same broker using the same PAN card.
To login Zerodha Kite, you have to enter your Login ID and password. Before that, you must have a demat and trading account with Zerodha to have complete access to its stock trading platform.
If you're looking for a straightforward and comprehensive take on options trading, then Sensibull should do the job perfectly. However, if you're and expert and want more complex trading tools, then Opstra is the one to choose.
I was just going through some stock broker reviews. So, I thought of sharing my opinion, A side by side Comparison of two popular stock brokers: Sharekhan vs. Zerodha.
In this current day and age, options trading has become the new cool thing that everyone wants to try. There are many option trading platforms out there that provide various Option trading tools. Sensibull and Opstra Definege are 2 of the most prominent names in the industry.
Both of them provide all the necessary tools like OI (Open Interest) Charts, PCR (Put-call Ratio), IV (Implied Volatility) chart, etc. But the main question lies, which one of them is a better platform for Options trading. Let's find the answer to that question.
When talking about the best stock broker in India, we cannot rule out Zerodha. It is the market leader in bargain stockbroking, is premised in Bengaluru, and accounts for more than 15% of total retail trading activity in the country. Mr. Nitin Kamath formed the leading brokerage firm in 2010 Kamath, and it now has a customer base of over 6 million.
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You can download the account closure form the given link - Demat Account Closure Form and post it to the address mentioned in the form.
Yes, individuals can trade US options from India. There are many platforms as well which allows the individuals to trade internationally, it just depends on them what they are comfortable the most with and prefer trading from.