A very good morning to everyone.
Being new to the entire Trading experience, I decided to catalogue my journey. This will also help me go down memory lane once in a while and may also help another newbie who wishes to go down this road.
So after a lot of thought and self doubt, I finally mustered the courage to trade. A couple of things, I am not good with Money and Math.
I started looking on the net for Information and came across this site which has of course been of great help. Some of the articles ("Beginners Guide" and "Teach a man to fish") gave me direction and helped the learning curve.
As a beginner and knowing very little about the Stock Market, I went looking for a book to get some basics in. What I was looking for was something by an Indian author and I picked up "Shares For Investment & Wealth by Raghu Palat (ISBN 9788189074067)". This book was pretty simple covered a wide range of topics, and generally gave a low down of everything to do with the stock market, including topics like Fundamental Analysis, Tech Analysis, Money Management etc and I believe would be a good book for a beginner.
Another book I picked up was "Trading Tips by Tom Dorsey (ISBN: 8170944805)". After reading Raghu Palat, I started on this and promptly put it down after the first ten pages or so. I realized that I needed to research a lot more and then this would make more sense.
In the meantime, after a lot of searching on the web, I finally decided to go with ShareKhan as my broker, mainly because that was a name I was used to seeing, thanks to their marketing campaigns in the early days. Was pretty impressed with their website and the Trade Tiger demo looked pretty impressive. Another Name that I had heard of was ICICI Direct, but I would like to avoid anything to do with that name as much as possible for personal reasons.
So after checking on the ShareKhan website, and registering to get a call from their representative I waited. it was not a long wait, I received a call a couple of days later. The representative was helpful and provide information on the classic account. Sounded pretty good, 0.07% Intraday and 0.70% delivery seemed like a steal. I decided to check with a friend of mine which was a very good idea. According to him, though the rates offered were good, they could be better. He asked me to call up some others and try negiotiating with them. So I called up a few others and was introduced to something called a prepaid account with lower brokerage. A point on brokerage, they are negiotiable provided you are good at negotiating and will be trading in volumes, if not I believe 5 paisa and 50 paisa is a good price. Went back to the Sharekhan fellows and said 7 paisa is too much, then they tell me that they too have prepaid accounts, and why didnt you tell me that before? Though that put me off a bit, I was still contemplating on going with ShareKhan because the reviews were good.
I was in no rush, it was the last week of June and the Money situation was a little tight. The Sharekhan account needed an amount of 6000 rs. So i decided to wait, and then I saw the sign. "Angel Broking".
Now I have seen this name before and always wondered what kind of a name is Angel broking. My thoughts were that I would never do business with a company that called themselves Angel Broking. That was before when the thought of trading had never even crossed my mind and never in my wildest dreams did I think I would trade.
So I looked them up, checked some of the reviews and was pleasantly surprised that there were very few complaints. I went ahead and registered and received a call from them the next day. Im a internet freak. The agent who called asked me if I had an email address, I did. he said he would mail me some details and then give me a call back. He mailed me details on the different accounts, their charges etc and half an hour later called me up to see if I had any questions. I was Impressed, and that was when I made up my mind to go with "Angel Broking".
The next day had the agent come over, filled in the forms, everything was going well, too well infact. It did not take long for them to set up the account. In three days I received a mail from the agent giving me the client ID. That was pretty quick.
And that was that, then started the problems. I went to their website and tried downloading the Angel Deit software, It would not install, saying the screen resolution was not right. I asked them to switch to Angel Anywhere, they switched me to Angel Trade which is browser based. Anyways, that too did not work. So after a few mails they finally switched me to Angel Anywhere which loaded fine but would refuse to connect.
Angel Broking, has chat, phone and email support. The chat and phone support is prompt. The email response comes after a day, which is good. However dont expect much from the chat support, all they can do is tell you if your account is active or not and put in a request to have the phone support guys call you up. The Phone support is good, and goes through levels. So first there is a level 1 agent who tries to help and if not successful he escalates. This is standard procedure and you need to have patience.
In the meantime, I was told that you cannot do a fund transfer from Citibank to Angel, and so that had me start my search for a bank. Still have to find one. Have tried HDFC and was not very happy.
I did also purchase some more books, "Swing Trading by Marc Rivalland (ISBN: 8170946662)". "Elliott Wave Explained by Robert C Beckman(ISBN: 8170945321)" and "Candlestick Charting Explained by Morris G L(ISBN: 8170942403)". They do make for a heavy reading at first, but once you get used to it, it all starts to fall into place.
So back to the software problem. I thought that it probably was my Laptop, and wanted to confirm. Borrowed a machine from friend and tried installing Angel Anywhere, and it would not load on the desktop. Received an annoying Java error. Spent about eight hours with the tech support guys and still no resolution.
But I was not at all angry. I knew there would be problems, and all thorugh the month the agent who setup the account used to call and check to see if the issue had been resolved. That is what mattered. Knowing that someone from the company side is keeping tabs.
The tech support guys were finally able to get me connected on the laptop. Yesterday I finally was able to get the Angel Anywhere software to load on the Desktop.
I tried transfering some money into the trading account and am waiting for that to come through. The money transfer seems to be a bit slow, I think it will be a day or two before it actually reflects. Lets hope for the best.
So finally everything looks good. Its fun to see the stocks ticking, theres so much of information. I think it will take some time for me just to get used to looking at all the numbers flashing. But I have the time, it will still be about a month before I actually start trading and in that time I do hope to read some more and understand some more. Will try and follow this up a month later and hopefully by then I should be ready to trade.
Being new to the entire Trading experience, I decided to catalogue my journey. This will also help me go down memory lane once in a while and may also help another newbie who wishes to go down this road.
So after a lot of thought and self doubt, I finally mustered the courage to trade. A couple of things, I am not good with Money and Math.
I started looking on the net for Information and came across this site which has of course been of great help. Some of the articles ("Beginners Guide" and "Teach a man to fish") gave me direction and helped the learning curve.
As a beginner and knowing very little about the Stock Market, I went looking for a book to get some basics in. What I was looking for was something by an Indian author and I picked up "Shares For Investment & Wealth by Raghu Palat (ISBN 9788189074067)". This book was pretty simple covered a wide range of topics, and generally gave a low down of everything to do with the stock market, including topics like Fundamental Analysis, Tech Analysis, Money Management etc and I believe would be a good book for a beginner.
Another book I picked up was "Trading Tips by Tom Dorsey (ISBN: 8170944805)". After reading Raghu Palat, I started on this and promptly put it down after the first ten pages or so. I realized that I needed to research a lot more and then this would make more sense.
In the meantime, after a lot of searching on the web, I finally decided to go with ShareKhan as my broker, mainly because that was a name I was used to seeing, thanks to their marketing campaigns in the early days. Was pretty impressed with their website and the Trade Tiger demo looked pretty impressive. Another Name that I had heard of was ICICI Direct, but I would like to avoid anything to do with that name as much as possible for personal reasons.
So after checking on the ShareKhan website, and registering to get a call from their representative I waited. it was not a long wait, I received a call a couple of days later. The representative was helpful and provide information on the classic account. Sounded pretty good, 0.07% Intraday and 0.70% delivery seemed like a steal. I decided to check with a friend of mine which was a very good idea. According to him, though the rates offered were good, they could be better. He asked me to call up some others and try negiotiating with them. So I called up a few others and was introduced to something called a prepaid account with lower brokerage. A point on brokerage, they are negiotiable provided you are good at negotiating and will be trading in volumes, if not I believe 5 paisa and 50 paisa is a good price. Went back to the Sharekhan fellows and said 7 paisa is too much, then they tell me that they too have prepaid accounts, and why didnt you tell me that before? Though that put me off a bit, I was still contemplating on going with ShareKhan because the reviews were good.
I was in no rush, it was the last week of June and the Money situation was a little tight. The Sharekhan account needed an amount of 6000 rs. So i decided to wait, and then I saw the sign. "Angel Broking".
Now I have seen this name before and always wondered what kind of a name is Angel broking. My thoughts were that I would never do business with a company that called themselves Angel Broking. That was before when the thought of trading had never even crossed my mind and never in my wildest dreams did I think I would trade.
So I looked them up, checked some of the reviews and was pleasantly surprised that there were very few complaints. I went ahead and registered and received a call from them the next day. Im a internet freak. The agent who called asked me if I had an email address, I did. he said he would mail me some details and then give me a call back. He mailed me details on the different accounts, their charges etc and half an hour later called me up to see if I had any questions. I was Impressed, and that was when I made up my mind to go with "Angel Broking".
The next day had the agent come over, filled in the forms, everything was going well, too well infact. It did not take long for them to set up the account. In three days I received a mail from the agent giving me the client ID. That was pretty quick.
And that was that, then started the problems. I went to their website and tried downloading the Angel Deit software, It would not install, saying the screen resolution was not right. I asked them to switch to Angel Anywhere, they switched me to Angel Trade which is browser based. Anyways, that too did not work. So after a few mails they finally switched me to Angel Anywhere which loaded fine but would refuse to connect.
Angel Broking, has chat, phone and email support. The chat and phone support is prompt. The email response comes after a day, which is good. However dont expect much from the chat support, all they can do is tell you if your account is active or not and put in a request to have the phone support guys call you up. The Phone support is good, and goes through levels. So first there is a level 1 agent who tries to help and if not successful he escalates. This is standard procedure and you need to have patience.
In the meantime, I was told that you cannot do a fund transfer from Citibank to Angel, and so that had me start my search for a bank. Still have to find one. Have tried HDFC and was not very happy.
I did also purchase some more books, "Swing Trading by Marc Rivalland (ISBN: 8170946662)". "Elliott Wave Explained by Robert C Beckman(ISBN: 8170945321)" and "Candlestick Charting Explained by Morris G L(ISBN: 8170942403)". They do make for a heavy reading at first, but once you get used to it, it all starts to fall into place.
So back to the software problem. I thought that it probably was my Laptop, and wanted to confirm. Borrowed a machine from friend and tried installing Angel Anywhere, and it would not load on the desktop. Received an annoying Java error. Spent about eight hours with the tech support guys and still no resolution.
But I was not at all angry. I knew there would be problems, and all thorugh the month the agent who setup the account used to call and check to see if the issue had been resolved. That is what mattered. Knowing that someone from the company side is keeping tabs.
The tech support guys were finally able to get me connected on the laptop. Yesterday I finally was able to get the Angel Anywhere software to load on the Desktop.
I tried transfering some money into the trading account and am waiting for that to come through. The money transfer seems to be a bit slow, I think it will be a day or two before it actually reflects. Lets hope for the best.
So finally everything looks good. Its fun to see the stocks ticking, theres so much of information. I think it will take some time for me just to get used to looking at all the numbers flashing. But I have the time, it will still be about a month before I actually start trading and in that time I do hope to read some more and understand some more. Will try and follow this up a month later and hopefully by then I should be ready to trade.
