The term “league” is a lot to be used since past few years. Cricket league, kabaddi league… Our country has been witnessing a spree of leagues coming forth from the sports arena for the last couple of years which was initially started by Indian Premier League (IPL), elating the emotions and moneybag of our country. There was also ISL- Indian Soccer League.
And here comes ITL. One wouldn’t have expected similar kind of ‘play’ in the field of stock market, until Mr. Kapil Dev appeared in televisions welcoming Indians to put their money into a never-before contest named Indian Trading League(ITL).
So what exactly is Indian Trading League?
Has it got any connection with the leagues we have been seeing in our country?
Will ITL too be an extravagant sport to witness millions of money?
Can a common man be a part of it or is it just for the Shahrukhs & Sachins of our nation?
Indian Trading League is a contest conducted by a brokerage firm named Samco Securities Ltd. It is an initiative to promote their as a stock broker.
Unlike the older applied means of virtual money investment in the stock markets, those demo or mock trading platforms, this is a share trading platform where REAL money and REAL participants are involved and the winners will be selected based on the REAL returns they generate from the stocks they bet on in the contests.
You need to be at least 18 years old to participate and could win Rs.1 Crore and an opportunity to manage 1 million dollars of fund along with certificates of winning the contest.
To participate, you must first open an account with SAMCO, deposit rs.25000 (minimum capital) in your demat linked bank account and start trading. The contest will be open from 19th may, 2015 to 31st march, 2016. The account can be opened for free right now.
There are 4 formats or you can say Leagues for the contests, where separate winners will be selected. The types of leagues are Investor league, Traders’ league, Commodities league and Women’s league. However, the prize money of Rs.1 Crore will only be given to the winner of Investors’ league. Winners in other formats will be given prizes which values way less than 20% of the original prize.
In addition to the annual prize money, exciting weekly, monthly and quarterly winners are also selected applying the same criteria on the respective time frames.
Our nation has undoubtedly laid hold of this stock market euphoria. Proving this SAMCO boasts that the company’s client base as demat account holders which was around 10,000 before the contests, has now surged to 1 lakh and is expected to be doubled by the end of contests. One could now easily understand business objective for which this contest was propagated – as the marketing gimmick. This could be a risky bet for most of the investor or someone who is just starting to trade as there is a huge chance of loss of capital if you don’t understand the risk you are taking. This could be good only for some savvy traders who understand the risk and able to do trading based on risk-reward.
SAMCO Securities stands out among other broking firms in terms of their brokerage charges which is emphatically publicized as Rs.20 per order (no matter how bulk the order ) unlike other firms which charge a percent based on the volume of transactions. This is same as what other discount brokers like Zerodha, RKSV and TradeJini charges. So is it advisable to open account with them. Compared to Zerodha, SAMCO provide trading on only NEST platform while Zerodha provide free access to Zerodha Pi- there proprietary trading platform and Zerodha KITES, there browser based trading platform. So if you are looking for a robust trading platform, Zerodha is way ahead of SAMCO. Also Zerodha have been providing services from 2009 and is well know. So if you want to choose a broker for a long term and not just for taking part in ITL, I would suggest you to go with Zerodha.
A quick look at the financials of SAMCO SECURITIES LTD. would apprehend anyone about the viability of a company which has not got profit more than Rs.10 Lakhs since its inception declaring a huge prize money of Rs.1 Crore and much more. However, this can be seen as only a risky marketing strategy implemented by stock broking company to increase its reach in the nation. Compared to this, Zerodha made a profit of almost Rs 30 crores last year.
However, the “third umpire” of the game, SEBI have not been found commenting on the illegality of this type of contests in the Indian stock market while the major risk possessed in the play is rather the huge loss of money in case of bad decisions in picking up stocks. Investments in stocks has to be done based on fundamental and technical studies without which it would seem to be a sheer gambling which can cause great harm to the wealth of investors.
Considering the fact that India as a nation is at the back seat when it comes to stock market literacy, compared to other nations like Europe and America. This initiative will help thousands of new people to get to know about stock markets as this is without a doubt too luring opportunity. But at the same time, greed – that always pushes a trader to play risky at these types of unknown future jackpots will undoubtedly devour a lot of money and many families in India.
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