0.2 Reading the screens

0.2.1The quote#

All numbers below are illustrative, for a hypothetical stock XYZ on NSE.

Field	Value	Meaning
LTP (last traded price)	₹1,250.10	Price of the most recent trade. Not a price you are guaranteed: you buy at the best ask and sell at the best bid.
Change	+₹12.35 (+1.00%)	LTP minus the previous close (₹1,237.75), and as a percentage of it.
Open / High / Low	₹1,240.00 / ₹1,256.40 / ₹1,236.10	The opening price (set by the pre-open call auction, M01 · 1.3) and today's range so far.
Prev. close	₹1,237.75	Yesterday's official closing price. Since Aug 2026 it comes from the closing auction session for F&O stocks (M01 · 1.2); earlier it was the volume-weighted price of the last half hour.
Volume	18,42,315	Shares traded today. Note the Indian digit grouping: 18 lakh 42 thousand.
ATP (average traded price)	₹1,247.62	Today's volume-weighted average price (VWAP) = total traded value ÷ volume. Institutions benchmark executions against it (M04A · 4A.3, M05 · 5.6).
52-week high / low	₹1,412.00 / ₹1,018.55	Extremes over the last year (usually on adjusted prices, 0.3.4).
Upper / lower circuit	₹1,361.50 / ₹1,114.00	The day's price band: orders outside it are rejected. Bands of 2%, 5%, 10% or 20% apply to most stocks; stocks with F&O have dynamic bands instead (M01 · 1.5). Here a 10% band around ₹1,237.75.

See it live: a real stock's current price and day's change on its page, e.g. https://oicharts.com/stocks/TITAN (replace TITAN with the NSE symbol you want). Read each number against the definitions above.

0.2.2Market depth#

The depth (the "order book" window) shows the best five price levels on each side.

Bid qty	Orders	Bid (₹)	Ask (₹)	Orders	Ask qty
350	6	1,249.90	1,250.10	4	420
1,200	9	1,249.85	1,250.20	7	900
800	5	1,249.80	1,250.30	11	1,600
2,500	14	1,249.70	1,250.50	3	700
5,000	2	1,249.50	1,250.80	9	3,000
Total buy qty 4,85,310					Total sell qty 3,12,640

• The spread is ₹1,250.10 − ₹1,249.90 = ₹0.20; the mid is ₹1,250.00; the spread is 1.6 basis points (bp; 1 bp = 0.01%) of the mid.
• A market buy walks the ask side. A market order for 2,000 shares takes 420 at ₹1,250.10, 900 at ₹1,250.20 and 680 at ₹1,250.30. Its average price is
  $$\bar p = \frac{420(1250.10) + 900(1250.20) + 680(1250.30)}{2000} = \text{₹}1{,}250.213,$$
  1.70 bp above the mid. A market buy of 5,000 shares would average ₹1,250.431, 3.45 bp above the mid. That gap is market impact, a cost that appears on no contract note (M05 · 5.5).
• Why the totals mislead. "Total buy quantity" sums every resting buy order at all prices, including orders far from the market that will never trade today; it is not demand at the current price. Orders can be cancelled in microseconds, and large participants hide size (iceberg orders show only part of their quantity, 0.2.4). A buy total larger than the sell total does not predict that the price will rise. Use the top levels to estimate the cost of your order; do not read the totals as a forecast.

0.2.3The order window: product types#

The product type tells the broker how to margin and settle the position.

Product	Segment	Meaning	Margin and risk
CNC (cash and carry, "delivery")	Equity cash	Buy to hold; shares come to your demat account. A CNC sell needs shares in your demat account.	Full value paid. No leverage.
MIS (margin intraday square-off)	Equity, F&O	Intraday position. The broker squares it off automatically shortly before the close (each broker sets its own cut-off time) if you have not closed it.	Exchange-specified margin (for liquid stocks typically 20% or more of the value, i.e. at most about 5× leverage). A short sale in the cash market must be MIS: you cannot deliver shares you do not own.
NRML (normal, carry-forward)	F&O, commodities	Positions you can hold overnight until expiry.	Full SPAN plus exposure margin (M07); daily mark-to-market.
MTF (margin trading facility)	Equity cash	Delivery purchase partly funded by the broker; the shares are pledged to the broker.	You pay part of the value and interest on the rest, daily, until you sell or pay up. Only eligible (Group I) stocks. Leverage on a long-term holding is a different risk from a cash purchase (M03).

0.2.4Order types and validity#

Order type	What you enter	What happens	Use
Market	Quantity	Executes immediately against the best opposite orders, walking the book if needed.	Small orders in liquid stocks when certainty of execution matters more than price. Avoid in illiquid stocks and options.
Limit	Quantity, limit price	Buys at the limit or lower (sells at the limit or higher); the unfilled part rests in the book.	The default.
SL (stop-loss limit)	Trigger price, limit price	Dormant until the LTP reaches the trigger; then becomes a limit order at the limit price.	Exits with a price cap. Risk: if the price gaps through both trigger and limit, it may not fill.
SL-M (stop-loss market)	Trigger price	Becomes a market order at the trigger.	Guarantees an exit attempt, not a price. Not allowed in index and stock options on NSE since 27 Sep 2021 (NSE circular FAOP/49677); several brokers block it more widely.

A worked case. You hold 100 shares bought at ₹500 and place a sell SL with trigger ₹480 and limit ₹478. Bad news arrives overnight; the stock opens at ₹470. The trigger is hit, the order becomes a sell limit at ₹478, and the market is below it: it does not fill. You are still long at ₹470 with a ₹3,000 open loss instead of the ≈₹2,200 you planned. An SL-M would have sold near ₹470. A stop is a plan, not insurance: gaps go through it (M04A · 4A.4 and 4A.6).

Validity DAY orders expire at the end of the session if not filled. IOC (immediate or cancel) orders fill what they can at once and cancel the rest.

Other order features

• AMO (after-market order): entered outside market hours and sent to the exchange at the next session's start (to the pre-open, or at 09:15, depending on the broker's settings).
• GTT (good till triggered): a broker-side instruction, stored at the broker for up to about a year, that places a limit order when the LTP crosses a trigger. An OCO GTT (one cancels other) holds a stop and a target together; when one triggers, the other is cancelled. The order reaches the exchange only when triggered, and the triggered order can still fail to fill (insufficient funds, price moved past the limit).
• Disclosed quantity and iceberg. A disclosed quantity shows only part of a large order in the depth. An iceberg order is split into slices that are sent one after another. Both reduce the information you leak, at the cost of time priority.
• Basket and bracket orders are broker features that place several orders together; their names and rules vary by broker.

0.2.5What happens after you press Buy#

1. App to broker. The broker's order-management system validates the order: funds or margin available, price within the band, quantity below the exchange's freeze limit, product rules (no CNC sale without shares).
2. Broker to exchange. The order enters the exchange's matching engine and gets an exchange order number and timestamp. It rests in the book under price–time priority (M01 · 1.4) if it does not match at once.
3. Trade. When it matches, the exchange reports a trade with its own trade number. One order may produce several trades at different prices (partial fills).
4. Confirmation. Your order book shows "complete" (or "open" for the unfilled remainder); the trade book lists each fill. The exchange sends an SMS/e-mail.
5. Contract note. The broker e-mails a digitally signed contract note, normally the same evening (SEBI requires it within 24 hours of the trade).
6. Settlement. T+1 as in 0.1.2. Holdings update.

0.2.6Reading a contract note#

A contract note is a legal record and the primary document for tax (0.7). Its main table lists, for each trade: order number and time, trade number and time, security name and ISIN, buy/sell, quantity, gross rate, brokerage per unit, net rate, net total. A charges block follows.

The charge stack (NSE, as of 6 Nov 2026) Two kinds of charge appear. Statutory and exchange charges are the same at every broker. Brokerage and the DP charge are set by your broker; below they are parameters with illustrative values of the kind a typical discount broker publishes. Replace them with the numbers on your own broker's charge sheet.

Charge	Equity delivery	Equity intraday	Futures	Options	Source
Brokerage (parameter)	illustrative ₹0	illustrative: lower of 0.03% and ₹20 per executed order	as intraday	illustrative ₹20 per executed order	your broker
STT (securities transaction tax)	0.1% on buy and on sell	0.025% on sell	0.05% on sell	0.15% of premium on sell; 0.15% of intrinsic value on exercise	Finance (No. 2) Act 2004, Ch. VII, as amended by the Finance Act 2026 from 1 Apr 2026; NSE circular NSE/FATAX/73524, 31 Mar 2026
Exchange transaction charge (NSE)	0.00307%	0.00307%	0.00183%	0.03553% of premium	NSE circular NSE/FA/73061, from 1 Mar 2026
SEBI turnover fee	₹10 per crore	₹10 per crore	₹10 per crore	₹10 per crore	SEBI (Payment of Fees) (Amendment) Regulations, 2019
Stamp duty (buy side only)	0.015%	0.003%	0.002%	0.003%	Indian Stamp Act 1899 as amended, collected by exchanges from 1 Jul 2020
GST	18% of (brokerage + exchange charge + SEBI fee)	same	same	same	GST law
DP charge (per scrip, per day of sale; parameter)	illustrative ₹15.34 incl. GST	–	–	–	your broker and depository

The same table, with the algebra of break-even moves, is in M01 · 1.7. Your own contract notes are the final check on every line.

0.2.7The other statements#

• Order book / trade book: today's orders and fills.
• Positions: open intraday and F&O positions with mark-to-market P&L. MIS positions vanish after square-off; NRML positions carry over.
• Holdings: delivery holdings with quantity, average cost, LTP, current value and unrealised P&L. Quantities may be split into free, pledged (for margin) and T1 (bought yesterday, not yet settled).
• Ledger: every debit and credit of money: pay-ins, withdrawals, charges, MTM settlements, interest.
• P&L statement / tax P&L: realised P&L by trade, and a tax view that separates short- and long-term capital gains on delivery, intraday (speculative) results and F&O (non-speculative) results with their turnover (0.7). The broker's tax P&L is a convenience; the contract notes are the record.

Cost of a round trip, current rates. Using the charge stack of 0.2.6 with its illustrative brokerage (M01 · 1.7 has the algebra and break-even formula):

Trade	Charges	As bp of value
Intraday, buy and sell ₹1,00,000 at the same price, brokerage ₹20 per order	₹82.68	8.3
Delivery, buy and sell ₹1,00,000, zero brokerage, plus illustrative DP charge	₹237.82	23.8
Nifty option, 1 lot of 65, bought at ₹100, sold at ₹120	₹65.11	5% of the ₹1,300 gross profit

Costs are the one part of a trade's outcome you know in advance. For an intraday trader they often exceed the edge; SEBI's FY23 study found that loss-making intraday traders paid costs equal to a further 57% of their trading losses (0.6).