What do I need to start trading in the NSE (National Stock Exchange)?
To start trading at a minimum you need 3 things; Bank Account: This again is not must, but most preferred to transact. Quite a few broker would insist on this. Demat Account: This is must as all shares on NSE are held electronically. The custodians are CSDL or NSDL both Government entities. These don't offer services directly to customer, but via other financial institutions like Banks and Large Brokers. Broker Account: This is required to buy or sell securities. If you are only buying in IPO, this is not required as one can directly participate in IPO and Broker is not involved. However if you want to buy and sell on NSE you would need a broker account. Quite a few financial institutes offer all 3 services or 2 services [Demat/Broker]. The fee structure and online service etc are differentiators. You can take a look at options and decide the best one to use. Yes Absolutely! You will need to provide Sharekhan with a cancelled cheque from OBC which has your account number and name on it. They will link that to your DMAT account, and any settlements/dividends paid will directly be deposited into your OBC bank account.  Any time you need to deposit money into your DMAT account, you will need to provide Sharekhan with a checque from OBC and they will credit the amount and you can buy anything you like. Cheers. Yes, you can open a Trading Account at one place and a Demat Account at another place. Therefore you can open Trading Account at Sharekhan and Demat Account at OBC. However, it would be more convenient for you if both the accounts are opened at the same place which would reduce unnecessary work after every transaction.
Vanguard has just recently started listing its funds in London but it doesn't look like the High Dividend Yield ETF is available yet. You'll need to either get a broker who can trade on the U.S. markets (there might be tax and exchange rate complications), or wait until Vanguard lists this stock on the London exchange. "Currencies that are pegged or fixed require that foreign currencies are held by the central issuer at a proportional amount. This is analogous to having a portfolio of currencies that the central bank issues shares from - in the form of its own currency. We will continue with this analogy, if the central bank says these ""shares"" are worth $1, but the underlying components of the portfolio are worth $0.80 and decreasing, then it is expensive for the central bank to maintain its peg, and eventually they will have to disregard the peg as people start questioning the central bank's solvency. (People will know the $1 they hold is not really worth what the central bank says it is, because of the price changes people experience in buying goods and services, especially when it comes to imports. Shadow economies will also trade using a currency more reflective of labor, which happens no matter what the government's punishments are for doing so). Swiss National Bank (central bank) did this in early 2015, as it experienced volatility in the Euro which it had previously been trying to keep it's currency pegged to. It became too expensive for it to keep this peg on its own. The central bank can devalue its currency by adjusting the proportions of the reserve, such as selling a lot of foreign currency X, buying more of currency Y. They can and do take losses doing this. (Swiss National Bank is maintaining a large loss) They can also flood their economy with more of their currency, diluting the value of each individual 1 dollar equivalent. This is done by issuing bonds or monetizing goods and services from the private sector in exchange for bonds. People colloquially call this ""printing money"" but it is a misnomer in this day and age where printers are not relevant tools. The good and service goes onto the central bank's balance book, and the company/entity that provided the service now has a bond on its book which can be immediately sold to someone else for cash (another reading is that the bond is as good as cash). The bond didn't previously exist until the central bank said it did, and central banks can infinitely exchange goods and services for bonds. Bond monetization (also called Quantitative Easing) is practiced by the Federal Reserve in the United States, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank and now the Central Bank of the Republic of China" "&gt; I've been working with blockchain implementation since before you became an armchair investor.  Really what implementation? Let's see it! You have anything to show for the bullshit you're babbling? I've been involved with Bitcoin since 2011.What bitcoin implementation do you program from?  &gt;bitcoin's incentive is the mother of all pyrimid schemes  Yet another person that doesn't even understand what a pyramid scheme is. Google a pyramid scheme.  &gt; The security comes from the immutability of the chain that is generated which is what everyone subscribed to the chain gains  And you're proposing that this security is to be handled by some host of nodes on an internal network? Kinda like ..... a database with rolling backups ? lets walk through your example...  &gt;a company has several partners who it coordinates exchange rates with  exchange rates for what? currency? They set the value and they want to share that with their partners? So like they're in a trading group and they're agreeing to sell shares at a specific rate? I don't really get this thus far.   Your partners trust each other not to trade at differing values right?   &gt; no amount of hacking a centralized system could change the confirmed blocks,  Unless he hacked the central node which other nodes subscribe to and surreptitiously modified future values  &gt; in the fact that bitcoin HAD no value except as a currency before people started hacking contracts and the like into it.  I LOVE how you use the term ""fact"" for something that is provably incorrect. Bitcoin had already hit a value of ~$250 before ""people started hacking contracts and the like into it"".... They're not even the same protocol.   can you give me an **ACTUAL** example of a functional permissioned/private ledger that *needs* a blockchain?" "First of all, never is too late to develop good habits. So, you know what you want to do and you are going about the how now... First, you should pay off any consumer debt except from mortgage which should be planned for. Prioritize your consumer debt (credit cards, consumer loans, etc) according to the interest rates, starting with the one with the highest interest and going to the one with the lowest one. Because you should make quite the investments to pay off this interest debt and still make a profit. Second, you should start saving some money. The 10% rule of thumb is a good one and for starters having aside the money you need to get by for at least 3 months is quite okay. As they say, cash is king. Now, that you actually realize the amount you can spare each month to start investing (assuming you had to do something of the aforementioned) it's time to see the risk you are comfortable taking. Different risk-taking views lead to different investing routes. So, assuming once again that you are risk averse (having a newborn baby and all) and that you want something more than just a savings account, you can start looking for things that don't require much attention (even more so if you are going on you own about it) such as low risk mutual funds, ETF (Exchange Traded Funds) and index funds to track indexes like FTSE and S&P500 (you could get an average annual return of 10-12%, just google ""top safe etfs"" for example and you could take a quick look at credible sites like forbes etc). Also, you can take a look at fixed income options such as government bonds. Last but not least, you can always get your pick at some value companies stocks (usually big companies that have proven track record, check warren buffet on this). You should look for stocks that pay dividends since you are in for the long run and not just to make a quick buck.  I hope I helped a bit and as always be cautious about investing since they have some inherent risks. If you don't feel comfortable with making your own investment choices you should contact a specialist like a financial planner or advisor. No matter what the case may be on this, you should still educate yourself on this... just to get a grasp on this." In any case you need a CA. Please consult one. I am selling a plot of land that I own in India. This would be treated as capital gains event and you would owe taxes on the gains. I would like to purchase an apartment in India for my parents use. Yes you can. You maybe able to offset some gains on land sale against the apartment.  Would like to gift part the money (about INR 20 lakhs) towards my US born son's college education in the US. As you are NRI; Under FEMA, you can transfer funds from your NRO account to US. A form 15CAB and 15CB need to be submitted to the bank to enable transer. thanks for the reply.  I just graduated and I'm having a lot of difficulty getting any solid job.  I guess I will pick firms in the area like MS, trowe, and see what would be best.  My contact who told me to do this said it's very important to be passionate about it though...perhaps even if I pick a more targeted stock it won't be too valuable given my inexperience? When you start to buy stock, don't buy too little of it! Stocks come at a cost (you pay a commission), and you need to maintain a deposit, you have to take these costs into account when buying to calculate your break even point for selling. Don't buy stock for less than 1.500€ Also, diversify. Buy stock from different sectors and from different geographies. Spread your risks. Start buying 'defensive' stocks (food, pharma, energy), then move to more dynamic sectors (telecom, informatics), lastly buy stock from risky sectors that are not mature markets (Internet businesses). Lastly, look for high dividend. That's always nice at the end of the year. Just to clarify Short Team Goals & Long Term Goals... Long Term goals are for something in future, your retirement fund, Children’s education etc. Short Term goals are something in the near future, your down payment for car, house, and holiday being planned. First have both the long and short terms goals defined. Of Couse you would need to review both these goals on a ongoing basis... To meet the short term goals you would need to make short term investments. Having arrived at a short term goal value, you would now need to make a decision as to how much risk you are willing [also how much is required to take] to take in order to meet your goal. For example if you goal is to save Rs 100,000 by yearend for the car, and you can easily set aside Rs 8,000 every month, you don't really need to take a risk. A simple Term / Fixed Deposit would suffice you to meet your goal. On the other hand if you can only save Rs 6,000 a year, then you would need to invest this into something that would return you around 35%. You would now need to take a risk. Stocks market is one option, there are multiple types of trades [day trades, shorts, options, regular trades] that one can do ... however the risk can wipe out even your capital. As you don't know these types of investments, suggest you start with dummy investing using quite a few free websites, MoneyControl is one such site, you get pseudo money and can buy sell and see how things actually move. This should teach you something about making quick gains or losses without actually gaining or loosing real money. Once you reach some confidence level, you can start trading using real money by opening a trading account almost every other bank in India offers online trading linked to bank account. Never lose sight of risk appetite, and revise if every now and then. When you don't have dependents, you can easily risk money for potential bumper, however after you have other commitments, you may want to tone down...  Edit: http://moneybhai.moneycontrol.com/moneybhai-rules.html is one such site, there are quite a few others as well that offer you to trade on virtual money. Try this for few months and you will understand whether you are making right decissions or not.