Retail investor

This one is not written up yet

The definition above is the short version. A full explanation — how it works, a worked example and the exam traps — is still being written. In the meantime the chapter below covers it in context.

Written up from the same chapter

• CustodianThe SEBI-registered entity that holds a fund's securities in accounts of its own and settles its trades, so the assets sit somewhere other than with the manager who decides what to buy.
• Depository participantThe SEBI-registered agent through whom an investor reaches a depository — NSDL and CDSL cannot open investor accounts themselves, so every demat account is opened and operated through a DP.
• Exchange Traded FundA mutual fund scheme whose units are listed and traded on a stock exchange like a share, so you transact at live prices through the day instead of at one end-of-day NAV.
• Interest Rate FuturesA standardised exchange-traded contract to buy or sell a notional government security, or an interest rate itself, at a price agreed today for settlement on a future date.
• Merchant bankerA SEBI-registered body corporate engaged in the business of issue management — arranging the selling, buying or subscribing of securities, or acting as manager, consultant or adviser in relation to an issue.
• Primary marketThe market where an issuer sells securities to investors for the first time and receives the money itself — the "new issue market", as against the secondary market where investors trade among themselves.