As in all other stock markets in the world, stock trading in India happens on an invisible market that handles the stocks of various companies from the public and private sectors. One can buy shares or sell one’s holdings based on the stock market quotes of these companies on any given trading day. Stocks trading in India used to take place on the basis of stock quotes give in the form of fractions. Those days are over now, and the decimal system has been introduced to make it easier to buy shares.

Stocks trading in India focus on stocks of various companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Real-time stock market quotes help investors to buy shares or offload their holdings by providing the last traded price of a company’s shares, as well as the ratio between percentage change and earnings. This is called the P/E ratio, and is the fuel that fires stocks trading in India.

The Bombay Stock Exchange at Dalal Street, Mumbai, is Asia’s oldest stock exchange. It is also a figurehead and symbol of pride for Stocks trading in India, since is lists over 4800 companies and is therefore the world’s biggest stock exchange in terms of listed companies. It is certainly South Asia’s largest stock exchange by any yardstick, and ranks tenth on the global size scale. The National Stock Exchange of India, also located at Mumbai, is the country’s largest stock exchange in terms of number of equity-based and derivative-based trades and overall daily turnover.

There are other venues of stocks trading in India, but the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange are by far the most significant. Together, they represent there are responsible for the highest number of share transactions in the country. And that is a truly momentous number, because more and more investors are now eager to buy shares and get involved in Stocks trading in India.

Apart from those who buy shares through brokers, the newer breed of Indian stock market investors’ use demat accounts. Demat accounts do not involve the pieces of paper called share certificates, but rather ‘dematerialized’ shares in electronic form. These ‘virtual’ shares exist only in a database and not in a physical repository. This facility helps people to buy shares and also sell them from the convenience of their own homes and offices (or even a phone call to your broker who holds your portfolio). Understandably, the coming of demat accounts has boosted stocks trading in India to a hitherto unheard-of degree.

This online avatar of the Indian Stock Market boom has naturally brought many online stock brokerages into the fray. Agencies like RK Global, Sharekhan, Reliance Money, 5 Paisa and Religare are all making it possible for everyday Indians to buy stocks and sell them again without actually having to visit the stock exchanges. The process they offer is simple and transparent, and the result is that anyone with a little surplus money can now benefit from the Indian economic boom via strategic stock market investments.