Introduction:The securities market has two independent and inseparable segments, the new issues (primary) market and the stock (secondary) market. The equity market also known as the stock market is where the listed securities are traded in the secondary market.

1) What is an ‘Equity’ / Share? Total equity capital of a company is divided into equal units of small denominations,

each called a share.2) What is meant by secondary market? Secondary market refers to a market where securities are traded after being initially

offered to the public in the primary market and/or listed on the stock exchange. Secondary markets comprises of equity markets and the debt markets.

3) What is the role of the secondary market? For the general investor, the secondary market provides an efficient platform for

trading of securities. For the management of the company, Secondary equity markets serve as a monitoring and control conduit- by facilitating value enhancing control activities, enabling implementation of incentive based management contracts, and aggregating information (via price discovery that guides management decissions.

4) What is the difference between the primary and secondary market? In the primary market, securities are offered to public for subscription for the purpose

of raising capital or fund. Secondary market is an equity trading venue in which already existing or pre-issued securities are traded among investors. Secondary market could be either auction or dealer market. While stock market is part of an auction market; Over-the-counter (OTC) is a part of the dealer marketer.

5) What is NEAT? NSE is the first exchange in the world to use satellite communication technology for

trading. Its trading system, called National Exchange of automated trading (NEAT), is a state of-the-art client server based application.

6) What are the products dealt in the Secondary Market? Following are the main financial products dealt in the Secondary market which may be

divided broadly into: Shares and Bonds: Shares:• Equity Shares• Right issue/ Right Shares• Bonus Shares• Preference Shares• Cumulative preference Shares• Cumulative convertible preference shares

Bonds:Bond is a negotiable certificate evidencing indebtedness. It is normally unsecured.The various types of bonds are as follows:• Zero Coupon Bond• Convertible Bond• Treasury Bills

7) What has been the average return on Equities in India? If we take the Nifty index returns for the past fifteen years, Indian stock market has

returned about 16% to investors on an average in terms of increase in share prices or capital appreciation annually. Besides that on average stocks paid 1.5% dividend annually. Dividend is the percentage of face value of a share that a company returns to its share holders from its annual profits.

Compared to most of the other forms of investments, Investing in equity shares offers the highest rate of return, if invested over a long duration.