Directory
The Indian market, in one page
66 brokers, news sites, analytics and backtesting tools, official sources and courses, plus a plain-English glossary of the terms traders use.
Listed alphabetically. No rankings, sponsorships or affiliate links, and inclusion is not a recommendation. Check a broker’s or adviser’s registration on SEBI’s register before you sign up.
Brokers
SEBI-registered stockbrokers with large retail client bases. Check a broker’s registration on the SEBI or exchange website before opening an account.
5paisa
5paisa.comDiscount broker with equity, F&O, currency and mutual funds, and a trading API.Alice Blue
aliceblueonline.comDiscount broker focused on active traders, with the ANT platform and a trading API.Angel One
angelone.inOne of the largest brokers by active clients. SmartAPI gives free programmatic trading access.Dhan
dhan.coTrader-focused platform with options tools, TradingView charts and the DhanHQ API.Fyers
fyers.inDiscount broker popular with technical traders, with charting tools and a trading API.Groww
groww.inLargest broker by active clients, started with mutual funds; stocks, F&O and a simple app.HDFC Securities
hdfcsec.comBank-backed full-service broker with research, 3-in-1 accounts and a trading API.ICICI Direct
icicidirect.comBank-backed full-service broker with research and the Breeze trading API.Kotak Securities
kotaksecurities.comBank-backed broker; the Kotak Neo app and API serve active traders.Motilal Oswal
motilaloswal.comFull-service broker known for equity research and advisory desks.Paytm Money
paytmmoney.comApp-first discount broker for stocks, F&O and mutual funds, with a trading API.Samco
samco.inDiscount broker with stock ratings, margin tools and a trading API.Shoonya (Finvasia)
shoonya.comDiscount broker by Finvasia with a free trading API used by many algo traders.Upstox
upstox.comLarge discount broker with a modern app and a well-documented trading and data API.Zerodha
zerodha.comIndia’s pioneering discount broker. Kite platform, Kite Connect API, Console reports and Varsity.
News
Business and market news. For anything that moves a stock, the primary source is the company’s filing on the NSE or BSE website.
Bloomberg
bloomberg.comGlobal markets coverage with strong reporting on India, FPI flows and the rupee.Business Standard
business-standard.comBusiness daily with market, economy and policy coverage.BusinessLine
thehindubusinessline.comThe Hindu’s business paper: markets, commodities and the economy.CNBC-TV18
cnbctv18.comBusiness TV channel and site with live market coverage and management interviews.ET Markets
economictimes.indiatimes.comThe Economic Times markets section: news, earnings, IPOs and market data.Financial Express
financialexpress.comBusiness daily covering markets, banking and the economy.Mint
livemint.comBusiness daily with market news, explainers and personal finance.Moneycontrol
moneycontrol.comThe most visited Indian market site: news, quotes, results, forums and portfolio tracking.NDTV Profit
ndtvprofit.comBusiness news channel and site (formerly BQ Prime) with market and earnings coverage.Reuters India
reuters.comWire-service reporting on Indian markets, policy and companies.Zee Business
zeebiz.comHindi and English business channel and site focused on retail traders.
Analytics & screeners
Fundamentals, screeners, charts and options analytics. Most have useful free tiers.
Chartink
chartink.comTechnical stock screener with custom scan conditions, widely shared among Indian traders.Investing.com India
in.investing.comQuotes, economic calendar and global market data with India coverage.Morningstar India
morningstar.inMutual fund ratings, portfolios and research.Opstra (Definedge)
opstra.definedge.comOptions analytics: strategy builder, payoff charts, IV and OI data.Quantsapp
quantsapp.comOptions analytics app: OI, IV, PCR and strategy tools.Screener.in
screener.inTen-plus years of financials for listed companies, with custom fundamental screens. A favourite of long-term investors.Sensibull
sensibull.comOptions trading platform: strategy builder, option chain, OI and FII data.StockEdge
web.stockedge.comScans, FII/DII data, deals and fundamentals in one app.Tickertape
tickertape.inStock and fund screener with clear company pages and portfolio analysis.TradingView
in.tradingview.comThe standard charting platform, with NSE and BSE data, Pine Script and a large idea community.Trendlyne
trendlyne.comFundamentals, analyst estimates, superstar portfolios, screeners and alerts.Value Research
valueresearchonline.comLong-running mutual fund data, ratings and personal finance research.
Backtesting & algo
Tools to test a trading idea on history before risking money. Whatever you use, check how it handles costs, fills and survivorship bias.
AlgoTest
algotest.inNo-code options backtesting on NIFTY and BANKNIFTY, with forward testing and execution.AmiBroker
amibroker.comFast desktop charting and backtesting software with its own AFL language; popular in India.backtesting.py
kernc.github.ioSmall, readable Python library for single-instrument strategy backtests.Backtrader
backtrader.comEvent-driven Python backtesting framework with broker integrations.DataPointX Ask
datapointx.comDescribe an idea in plain English; it writes and runs the backtest on ten years of NIFTY 50 minute data, net of Indian costs. (That’s us.)Streak
streak.techNo-code strategy builder, scanner and backtester integrated with several Indian brokers.TradingView strategy tester
in.tradingview.comBacktest Pine Script strategies on any chart. Easy to start; set commission and slippage yourself.Tradetron
tradetron.techAlgo strategy builder and marketplace with paper trading and broker execution.vectorbt
vectorbt.devVectorised Python backtesting on NumPy and pandas; fast enough for large parameter sweeps.
Exchanges & regulators
Primary sources: filings, official data and investor protection. When a news story and a filing disagree, trust the filing.
AMFI
amfiindia.comMutual fund industry body: NAVs, scheme data and monthly industry flows.BSE
bseindia.comAsia’s oldest exchange: Sensex, corporate filings, results and bulk deals.CDSL
cdslindia.comDepository holding demat shares. Use its easi/myeasi login to see holdings across brokers.MCX
mcxindia.comIndia’s main commodity derivatives exchange: gold, silver, crude oil and base metals.NSDL
nsdl.co.inDepository holding demat shares; also publishes daily FPI investment data.NSE
nseindia.comIndia’s largest exchange: quotes, option chains, filings, bhavcopy archives and FII/DII data.NSE Indices
niftyindices.comNIFTY index methodology, constituents, rebalancing notices and historical index data.RBI
rbi.org.inCentral bank: monetary policy, rates and the DBIE economic database.SEBI
sebi.gov.inSecurities regulator: circulars, rules, and the registers of brokers, advisers and research analysts.SEBI SCORES
scores.sebi.gov.inSEBI’s online complaints system for disputes with brokers, companies and intermediaries.
Learning
Free courses, certifications and books. Start with how markets and costs work before any strategy.
Advances in Financial Machine Learning
wiley.comMarcos López de Prado on backtest overfitting, labelling and validation. Dense but important.DataPointX: How we backtest
datapointx.comOur methodology: costs, fills, survivorship and why results are split into three periods. (That’s us.)Elearnmarkets
elearnmarkets.comCourses and webinars on technical analysis, options and investing, by the StockEdge team.Evidence-Based Technical Analysis
wiley.comDavid Aronson on testing trading rules with proper statistics and data-mining bias.NISM
nism.ac.inSEBI’s training institute. Its certifications (equity derivatives, research analyst, investment adviser) are the industry standard.NSE Academy
nseindia.comNSE’s own learning resources and paid certification courses.Quantitative Trading
wiley.comErnest Chan’s practical introduction to building and backtesting systematic strategies.SEBI Investor
investor.sebi.gov.inSEBI’s investor education site: basics, scam warnings and how to complain.Zerodha Varsity
zerodha.comFree, thorough modules from markets basics to options, technicals and trading systems, in several languages.
Glossary
The words you’ll meet on broker apps, in contract notes and in backtest reports, in plain English.
- ASM / GSM
- Additional and Graded Surveillance Measures: exchange lists of stocks with unusual price moves or weak fundamentals that get higher margins, trade-for-trade settlement or other restrictions.
- ATRAverage True Range
- The average size of a bar’s full range, including gaps from the previous close. Common for sizing stops relative to how much a stock normally moves.
- Back-adjusted prices
- Historical prices rescaled for splits and bonuses so a chart has no artificial jumps. Old prices on an adjusted chart are lower than what actually traded, which matters for per-share costs.
- Basis point (bp)
- One hundredth of a percent: 0.01%. A 6.5 bp round-trip cost on ₹5 lakh is ₹325.
- Bhavcopy
- The exchange’s end-of-day file with open, high, low, close, volume and (for F&O) open interest for every instrument. The standard free source of daily history.
- Bracket order / Cover order
- Intraday orders that attach a stop-loss (cover) or a stop-loss and a target (bracket) to an entry. Availability varies by broker.
- Bulk deal / Block deal
- A bulk deal is a trade (or set of trades) by one client in a day for more than 0.5% of a company’s shares; a block deal is a single large trade done in a special exchange window. Both are published daily.
- CAGRCompound annual growth rate
- The constant yearly return that would turn the starting value into the ending value over the period.
- Circuit limitPrice band
- The maximum a stock may move in a day (for example 2%, 5%, 10% or 20%). Stocks in F&O have dynamic bands instead. Index-wide circuit breakers halt the whole market on large index falls.
- CNC / MIS / NRML
- Broker product types. CNC is delivery (cash and carry); MIS is intraday, auto squared-off before close; NRML carries F&O positions overnight with full margin.
- Delivery
- Buying shares to hold beyond the day: they arrive in your demat account on settlement. Delivery trades pay higher STT than intraday trades.
- Demat account
- The account at a depository (NSDL or CDSL), opened through your broker, that holds your shares electronically.
- DP charges
- A flat fee per stock, per day, charged by the depository and broker when shares are debited from your demat account on a sale.
- Drawdown
- The fall from a previous peak in account value. Maximum drawdown is the worst such fall over the period, and the number that decides whether you could have stuck with a strategy.
- Expiry
- The day a futures or options contract settles. Index options have weekly expiries; stock F&O expire monthly. SEBI limits each exchange to one weekly-expiring benchmark index.
- F&OFutures and options
- Exchange-traded derivatives on indices and selected stocks, traded in fixed lot sizes. SEBI’s 2024 study found 93% of individual F&O traders lost money over FY22–FY24.
- FII / FPI / DII
- Foreign institutional (now foreign portfolio) investors and domestic institutional investors such as mutual funds and insurers. Their daily net buying is published by NSE and NSDL.
- Gap
- The difference between today’s open and yesterday’s close. Gap-up and gap-down strategies are among the most commonly taught intraday setups.
- GTTGood till triggered
- A standing order held by the broker that is sent to the exchange only when the price hits your trigger, often used for long-term stop-losses and targets.
- Implied volatility (IV)
- The volatility implied by an option’s market price. High IV means options are expensive; India VIX is a NIFTY-options-based IV index.
- Look-ahead bias
- Using information in a backtest that was not available at the moment of the decision, such as entering at a bar’s close using that same bar’s high. It makes almost anything look profitable.
- Lot size
- The fixed number of units in one F&O contract. Exchanges revise lot sizes periodically to keep contract values within SEBI’s limits.
- Margin
- The money the exchange requires to hold a position: SPAN plus exposure margin for F&O, and upfront margin for intraday equity. Peak-margin rules mean leverage is checked through the day, not just at close.
- Max pain
- The strike price at which option buyers would collectively lose the most at expiry. A popular but weak indicator.
- Open interest (OI)
- The number of open futures or options contracts. Rising price with rising OI is read as new longs; the reading is a heuristic, not a rule.
- Opening range
- The high and low of the first few minutes of the session (often 15). Opening range breakout (ORB) trades the first move beyond it.
- OverfittingCurve fitting
- Tuning a strategy so closely to past data that it captures noise rather than a repeatable effect. The more variants you try, the more likely your best one is overfit.
- PCRPut-call ratio
- Put open interest (or volume) divided by call open interest. Often read as a sentiment gauge.
- Pledge
- Using shares or mutual fund units you hold as collateral for F&O margin, after a haircut set by the clearing corporation.
- Pre-open session
- The 9:00–9:15 AM window in which orders are collected and a single equilibrium opening price is discovered for each stock.
- Sharpe ratio
- Average excess return divided by the volatility of returns, usually annualised. A rough measure of return per unit of risk.
- Slippage
- The difference between the price you expected and the price you got. In a backtest it is a cost you must assume; we use 1 bp per fill and stress-test with 3 bp more.
- Stamp duty
- A state levy collected centrally on the buy side of a trade: 0.003% for intraday and 0.015% for delivery equity.
- Stop-loss
- An exit at a preset loss. A stop-loss market order fills at whatever price is available; a stop-loss limit order may not fill at all in a fast move.
- STTSecurities transaction tax
- A tax on the value of exchange trades. For intraday equity it is 0.025% on the sell side; delivery, futures and options have their own rates.
- Survivorship bias
- Testing on today’s index members, which leaves out the companies that fell out of the index. It quietly adds years of winners to a backtest.
- T+1 settlement
- Indian equity trades settle one working day after the trade: shares and money move on T+1.
- VWAPVolume-weighted average price
- The average price of the day weighted by volume. Used as an intraday benchmark and as a level in many setups.
- Walk-forward testing
- Choosing parameters on one period and testing them on the next, unseen period, repeatedly. A guard against overfitting.
Heard about a strategy on one of these sites?
Test it on ten years of NIFTY 50 minute data, net of real Indian costs, before you trade it.
Nothing matches. Try a broader word, or suggest a site.