An overview of investment options in the ICICI Direct trading platform

The platform ICICI Direct (included in the structure of ICICI Bank) can give you a diversity of options to trade on. It is a reliable broker through which you can invest money in various ways and earn extra income. Let us look below at how to trade online on ICICI using different instruments such as mutual funds (MF).

How to buy shares using ICICI Direct

If you want to start trading in shares and do not know how to do it, do not worry, you can buy them online via the website. The platform also has a mobile app.

Follow these steps to buy shares online on ICICI Direct:

1. Login to your account.
2. Click “Equity” on the left navigation bar followed by “Allocate funds/limit”.
3. Kindly add money to “Secondary Market Equity, ETF”, then click “Submit”.
4. Expand “Equity” and click “Place order”.
5. Provide the order’s details and confirm it.
6. Check the status by expanding “Equity” again and opening the “Order book”. Order status should be “Shares bought”.

Another way to place an order is using the cloud order feature available to all ICICI DIrect clients. It allows you to place quick orders in e-ATM, cash, margin, and margin plus investment products.

Note! You can also save orders at any time of your convenience.

Limit price

When placing an order in the ICICI Direct trading platform, you will need to set its limit price (minimum for a sell order and maximum for a buy order). This is an instruction for your broker to sell or buy stocks at a specified price, not above or below it. For example, you placed a limit order to buy at ₹100. It will only be executed if the stocks are placed at ₹100 or lower.

How to use candlestick charts

Candlesticks are a great guide to trading on ICICI. Using them, you can make trading decisions since they help forecast the short-term direction or movement of the stocks’ price. While bullish (green) candlesticks show that the stock price is likely to rise, bearish (red) patterns indicate otherwise.

What is Cash Sell in ICICI Direct?

Cash Sell or encash your shares with ICICIdirect eATM means that you sell a share, and you get a remittance within 5 minutes into your bank account. Receiving funds in this way has several more advantages:

• Applicable to over 600 shares.
• The daily limit is ₹50,000 (which can be increased).
• There are no additional costs.

How to sell shares in ICICI Direct:

1. Login to your account on the website or through the app.
2. Navigate to the “Equity” section, then find the Demat Allocation page.
3. Find the share you wish to sell, provide the necessary details, double-check, then click “Sell”.

Online investment plans from ICICI Direct

The trading platform offers its clients in India diverse investment plans, including the opportunity to:

1. Invest in IPO

An initial public offering (IPO) is when a company offers its equity shares to the open market for the first time. With IPO, you can become an investor in firms with great growth potential. This scheme is suitable both for receiving additional income in a short period and for increasing your capital in the long term.

To invest in IPO online in ICICI:

1. Log in, then click on the IPO icon.
2. Press the “Apply” button to subscribe for IPO.
3. Provide details, including quantity, price, etc.
4. Accept the T&Cs and confirm your order.
5. Assign funds for the IPO, then click “Submit”.
6. You will receive a confirmation regarding the success of the order submission.

2. Invest in ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund

Making an investment in ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund is another way you can benefit from the stock market. This is one of the open-ended schemes that seek to maximize long-term returns by allowing you to invest in equity and equity-related stocks of large-cap companies.

The advantage of this scheme is that it is well diversified. Therefore, an investor will not have a hard time selecting the market to trade in but choose the best among the leading Indian companies. These Blue Chip stocks are market leaders in their respective industries. They are more stable and have growth potential, hence reducing volatility.

How to invest in ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund online:

1. Visit the website www.icicipruamc.com and create an account by providing the required details.
2. Upload documents like Aadhaar and PAN Cards to complete the electronic verification process.
3. Enter your bank details that will aid SIP account creation to process the redemption once the units are redeemed.

3. Invest in ELSS Online

Equity Linked Saving Scheme (ELSS) is a mutual fund scheme that invests in equity markets and also comes with a tax-saving benefit. The fund allows deductions for investments of up to ₹1.5 lakhs in a financial year which is approximately ₹46.800 savings for that year.

The main advantages it offers are:

• The lowest lock of 3 years from allotment time.
• Potential for higher returns compared to traditional tax-saving investments.
• Zero taxation for income up to 1 lakh, and only 10% on amounts above.
• Two options: invest once or set up a monthly SIP for regular investments of ₹500 or more.

How to invest in ELSS online? Follow the ways below:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Navigate to Mutual funds.
3. Choose ELSS from the options availed or click iDirect investments, or select the Save Taxes basket.
4. Enter and confirm the investment details.
5. Check proof of your investment on the online platform and also on your email.

4. Invest in NPS

The National Pension System (NPS) allows you to make voluntary and defined investments that will facilitate a regular income flow after your retirement. NPS is controlled by the Government of India, the Pension Fund Regulatory & Development Authority (PFRDA)

All Indian citizens between 18 and 70 years are eligible to invest money in NPS. On ICICI Direct, you can choose from two types of NPS accounts with a minimum сontribution at the opening time of ₹500 or ₹1000.

You can apply for NPS by:

1. Logging in to online banking.
2. Navigate to the service request section to apply for NPS.
3. Confirm your details, including PAN.
4. Authenticate with the Aadhaar OTP you receive and upload your signature.
5. An SR will be generated, and your NPS account will be activated the following day.
6. ICICI Bank and NSDL will also send you the PRAN details via SMS.

5. Trade Gold

Gold is one of the most liquid assets on the market. It has a long-term growth trend and contributes to portfolio diversification.

However, owning physical gold comes with many challenges, such as:

• Secure environment to store such as safe deposit box that requires fairly high rent.
• It may be rare to get legit physical gold from most dealers.
• You can feel insecure if one suspects that you own it.

That is why ICICI Direct offers the opportunity to trade gold online by choosing one of the following ways:

• ETF, for example, ICICI Prudential Gold ETF.
• Mutual Funds, such as ICICI Prudential Regular Gold Savings Fund.
• Sovereign Gold Bonds (SGB).
• Trading it as commodity futures.

The online process comes with the following benefits:

• It only requires a few mouse clicks.
• You can buy the product in smaller denominations.
• You will incur lesser transactional expenses compared to buying it physically.
• You can track the real-time basis price for gold ETF.

6. BTST trade

Another option you can invest in ICICI Direct is the BTST standing for Buy Today, Sell Tomorrow. With it, you can sell shares without them being credited to your Demat account.

Usually, shares are credited to your ICICI Demat account after T+2 days, which is approximately 3 or 4 days since T represents the day of trading. Hence, you cannot sell the shares since they are not in your account.

It is standard with trading for stock prices to increase in the short run after you have bought the shares. Hence, you may not benefit since you must wait for the shares to be delivered before online trading. Now that is where BTST comes in handy since it allows you to sell the shares before they get credited to your Demat account. You will also not incur losses when stock prices are going down.

ICICI Direct Prime Plan

You can also take advantage of the brokerage plans the ICICI Direct offers, and one of them is the Prime Plan. Some of the benefits it provides when you trade online include:

• Access to exclusive research.
• You can buy stocks today and pay later with a low-interest rate of 7.9% p.a.
• Low margin rates of ₹20 per order flat.
• Lower rates of up to 0.1% (exact percentage can be found using the ICICI brokerage calculator).

To access the Prime Plan benefits:

1. Login to the ICICI Direct platform.
2. Go to “Settings”.
3. Select the “My Brokerage plan” section. Followed by a “Prime Plan”.
4. Submit your request.

Note! If, for some reason, you are unable to choose an ICICI Direct Prime Plan, please call Customer Service for an up-to-date link to the enrollment page.

Alternative options in ICICI Bank

If you are not yet ready to open an account on the ICICI Direct trading platform, there are several ways to get additional funds online with ICICI Bank.

Invest in PPF

The Public Provident Fund (PPF) is ICICI bank’s initiative backed up by the Indian government. It is a saving scheme with tax-free returns and the possibility of partial withdrawal after a certain time.

Any Indian resident can create a PPF account online or at one of the ICICI Bank or post office branches after filling out the form and completing the KYC process. The minimum investment to open an account is ₹500. You will then need to deposit a maximum of ₹1.5 lakh per year.

Get a loan based on MCLR

Understanding the Marginal Cost of Funds Based Lending Rate (MCLR) is important if you want to get a loan from ICICI Bank or another bank in India.

MCLR is the minimum interest rate set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which banks cannot lend below. It was introduced to solve problems that came along with the base rate regime. When base rates were in operation, borrowers that took loans from financial institutions were disadvantaged since some customers could get the loans at 7% or lower while other clients at 10% or even higher.

Another disadvantage was the amount of time taken by financial institutions to pass the lower rates to customers even after their implementation. You can now check the сurrent MCLR rate of ICICI Bank online.

General

Most of the online investment options above, including gold ETFs and ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund, are long-term and hence fit investors with no need for immediate liquidity.

Kindly visit the ICICI Direct official website to see all the plans the broker offers. It is also vital that you settle and study them to know what they are before investing since trading is risky and may involve losing your investments. Carefully analyze the market before each transaction.