How does margin trading work, the risks, charges and tax treatment in India

Introduction 

Margin trading is very popular with traders and anybody who thinks they can make a fast buck. It allows them to trade (buy/sell) in much larger quantities of the same stock than would be possible normally with cash/stocks in hand. In this article, we will focus on margin trading in shares (and not futures and options which we will discuss another time), the tax treatment of profits and losses, how much you can profit from it after all charges and fees involved, is the dice loaded in your favor or not, and what is the strategy you should adopt to avoid large losses.

Everything you wanted to know about your PF/Pension - How does it work? Does it beat inflation? How is interest calculated?

Introduction

There is a sizable chunk of our salaries that each month gets deducted under the head - well PF (Provident Fund). While it may be called just PF, the actual contributions go into two different accounts. The entire employee contributions goto PF whereas the employer's contributions get split between PF and Pension Fund. For most people, PF is the single biggest and probably the only kind of retirement planning they ever do. Whether this is enough or not will be discussed in another article, but basically it would depend on your individual circumstances.