Hello everyone,
As you can see from my memberID I am a newbie to investing (as kids while playing, we used to call such players katcha papad, and give them batting twice, hence this nickname
) Not started yet, doing basic research and reading a lot of posts from this forum. I have gained some basic vocabulary inorder to be able to make my first post here.
I will be buying and holding shares, and sell them after some time. I guess my types are called delivery-based investing. My budget is not much. Right now I have around 50-75K to invest. We'll see on the basis of how it goes later. So I am definitely not a heavy trader. I'd also like to have a seamless online trading facility, including IPO and mutual funds. I've read some posts here which go into the nitty-gritty details of some trading terminals etc which I guess applies only to heavy traders dealing in lacs of rupees per day.
Now I am confused as to which demat service I should be choosing. I just spoke to a RelianceMoney representative (well a lukkha guy with no knowledge is more like it), and he was not v.clear with what charges they apply. Nevertheless after speaking to his boss on phone as I understand their charges are as follows:
1) Brokerage charge: 1 paise per transaction (as opposed to .75% of ICICI), irrespective of the transaction amount. Both for Buy & Sell. He said this 1 paise includes all Service Tax, Education cess etc. which generally comes out to 12.36% in ICICI.
2) 0.125% SEBI Security Transaction charges inorder to take delivery of (or hold) the shares. This he said is a SEBI charge common to all and there's no escaping it.
3) Apart from that they have a Rs 500 coupon valid for a year. For the first year they will waive it off for me, but for next year onwards it will be Rs500 per annum for trading account and Rs 50/ p.a. for demat account maintenance.
Please let me know/correct me if my understanding is correct. Are there any other hidden charges? There was another thread somewhere where some ppl were reporting 12Rs charges per stock per month. Which surprisingly the boss I spoke to decline but that is mentioned on their application form?! So I am not too sure if what he was saying is totally true or even he was misinformed. Surely their charges look too less. What is the catch? How can they afford brokerage of 1 paise only?
Now Reliance is the only guy I have spoken to. None of the others (sharekhan, ICICI) have contacted me back after I put in my contact details on their website, even after a week. I am wondering if they are so bad even at this stage, how will I be treated once I sign-up.
Which service should I sign up considering that I need everything online, not too heavy trader and I can tolerate a little bit of delay in their websites. Some basic reliability, customer service with as minimum brokerage/service charges as possible.
I guess I am looking for something which has reputation/reliability of as close to ICICI with lower fees. But you guys can suggest me anything else. From the Begineer pages, I also read
this thread but it's v.old from 2004. So I am looking for 2007 info or advice on the same lines.
There was also some confusion as to sharekhan not supportinjg BSE and IPOs. From their website I couldn't make out if that is true.
If I am mainly going to invest only in major stocks, does it matter whether its BSE or NSE? Also even if Reliance's service is a bit bad right now can I consider to sign up (based purely on their lowest charges) and just keep some long-term stocks/MFs in it? Is that a good strategy ? Since I won't be interacting much so their service hiccups won't hurt me much. And one last question: How many days does it take to have demat/online trading account ready so that I could be sure that I'll be able to catch ReliancePower IPO (rumored to be around 10thNov)?
Thanks in advance for all your help. Looking forward to learn and share in this forum and make $ome money
-katchaPapad.