What is debt?

I heard on Bloomberg UTV, "Trade in Debt, Invest in Equities" Not sure if it was the other way round. Anyways, what does debt mean? How can we trade in it? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

Debt and equity are two forms of capital.

Debt refers to bonds issued by the companies as a part of their capital, which will be used for the purpose of setting up/running the business

Bond holders will receive a fixed interest and will not have any controlling say in the affairs of the company, unlike the equity holders.

Bonds/Debentures are called debt. The benefit of holding debt instead of equity "of the same company" is that if the company goes bankrupt the debt holders have legal claim on the assets of the company, which means once the debt holders are paid off the rest is divided among the shareholders. - This means lower risk.

However profit is also distributed in the same manner - first the debt holders are paid as per the coupon rate and the rest of the profits are shared among the shareholders. - This means lower return as well.

You can use debt to achieve the desired risk/reward ratio for your portfolio. But since the debt market in India is not that developed. Maybe you can look at debt funds, they are a lot less complicated than trading in bonds directly. Something like mutual funds.

Thanks vijayvaliya and lazytrader

Can you guys give the name of some debt securities, with some links to their prices and code. Also can I buy them from my broker like sharekhan/indiainfoline cause I am not able to find any such securites to add to my market watch.

debt securities market is mainly traded by banks, (GILT) and corporate bonds. Corporate bonds are listed on stock exchanges like NSE and BSE. You can go through eod file and find the securities
here are some samples with BSE codes

934790 LNTF 2010AI F D
934781 LTFINNCDI F D
934782 LTFINNCDII F D
934784 LTFINNCDIV F D
934793 STF NCD1 RE F D
934799 STF NCD3 RE F D
934785 STFC NCDI F D
934786 STFC NCDII F D
934787 STFC NCDIII F D
934789 STFC NCDV F D

similarly you can find them in NSE too

For goverment securities you have to go though CCIL site

Many fund houses (that manage Mutual funds e.g, SBI, Kotak etc) also have such funds. Take a look at the available funds on their sites.

A debt market is a financial market in which investors buy and sell debt securities. This trade is mostly in
the form of bonds. In a developing economy like India debt markets are an important source of funds.
The debt market in India is considered to be one of the largest in Asia. It is also considered to be a useful
substitute to banking channels for finance.

The debt instruments of the Indian debt market are distinguished by the fact that their return is fixed.
This makes the returns almost risk free for investors.

The Indian debt market can broadly be classified into two major categories- Government Securities
Market (G-Sec Market) and Bond Market.