Our Story

Why I started

A few years ago, I read in a newspaper that a trader borrowed ₹50 lakhs and ventured into the share market. Within a few days he lost all his money and committed suicide. Subsequently, during the Covid spell, many employees lost their jobs and many self-employed people lost their income. A significant chunk turned to the share market, only to worsen their misfortune. These news reports and sad episodes really touched me, and I wanted to do something for the retail trading community.

I have heard that in the African savanna, anything being chased by a group of carnivores is a perfect lunch. This is true of novice traders too.

Most retail traders venture into the market based on advice from brokers and self-styled trading gurus. These quacks seldom talk about the dark side of trading, or about the importance of defensive techniques like stop-loss and hedging. I was once enticed by a friend to trade crude oil: he mentioned earning ₹7,000 daily on a capital of ₹1 lakh. That is just one example. In real life, most retail traders commence their journey as punters. In other words, by design, you have become a perfect lunch for the institutional carnivores.

The psychology is simple. You don't have a settled job, or you have been rendered obsolete by technology. The job market is very stiff, offering poor salaries or an onerous working environment. On the flip side, you have a trading guru who explains that you are sitting on a gold mine, and tells you how, over a period, his tips have been transformed into a huge fortune. If you are clever enough, you would ask for references and other proof. Alas! In most cases, novice traders simply get carried away. Blind faith is the driver that sucks them into the midst of hungry lions.

If you have read this far, you have demonstrated your intent, your seriousness, and the appetite to be a sensible trader.

What is the market reality?

The simple answer: a feint. A car at a signal flashes right but turns left. So does the share market, which signals opportunity to novices before preying on their wealth. This is why, whenever you open your trading platform for the first time in a day, you find a message along the lines of "90% of traders have lost their money. Trading is risky." (SEBI's data backs it up.) Yes, everything appears to be negatively skewed.