Monday 6 April 2015

What is the difference between Intraday Trading and Delivery Trading?

When you buy and sell a stock within the same day, it is called Intraday Trading. When you purchase shares and hold them overnight, then you take delivery of the shares and hence, this is called Delivery Trading.
You can trade in two different ways in share markets. You can either do intraday trading or you can opt for delivery based trading (investment). Intraday trading is typically completed within a day – this means that you have to sell the shares that you have purchased on that day before the closing of markets. Even if you don’t sell the shares by yourself, they are automatically squared off before the closing. On the other hand, in delivery based investments, you are not required to buy and sell shares within a day and you can hold them for as long as you want.
Advantages
There are quite a few advantages of Intraday Trading, the biggest one being that you are allowed to buy shares without paying the full price of the shares (Paying only the margin money). The market makers allow you pay only a part of the price to hold the shares. So, you can gain more by investing less. But this means that your losses would be higher as well. Intraday trading also allows you to short sell the shares – selling shares even before buying them (but buying before market closes). This is one benefit that can give you profit even when the price of the share is sure to fall. 
The brokerage for intraday trading is always lower than that for delivery trading.

Friday 3 April 2015

Difference between options and futures

Option Markets
Options are standardized contracts that allow investors to trade an underlying asset at a specified price before a certain date (the expiry date for the options). There are two types of options: call and put options. Call options give the buyer a right (but not the obligation) to buy the underlying asset at a pre-determined price before the expiry date, while a put option gives the option-buyer the right to sell the security.
Options are attractive to hedgers because they protect against loss in value but do not require the hedger to sacrifice potential gains. Most exchanges that trade futures also trade options on futures. 
Futures Markets
Futures contracts are agreements to trade an underlying asset at a future date at a pre-determined price. Both the buyer and the seller are obligated to transact on that date. Futures are standardized contracts traded on an exchange where they can be bought and sold by investors.