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Shares are the smallest unit of any company’s capital. They are basically small financial assets offered in the stock market in order to raise capital for a company. When you buy shares of a company, you become the owner of that company proportional to the value of shares. Also, you will get the benefits of voting, bonus shares, and dividends.

Types of Shares
Shares are basically of two types:
Equity Shares
Preference Shares

What are Debentures?
Debentures are the borrowed capital or debt instruments of the company. They are generally a long-term debt or unsecured loan that a company has taken from the public, which needs to be paid back with interest in due time.
If you invest in debentures, you will receive a timely interest payment on your investment irrespective of the company’s profit or loss.

Types of Debentures
Debentures can be classified based on a lot of factors, mentioning a few important ones:
Secured Debentures
Unsecured Debentures
Convertible Debenture
Non-Convertible Debentures
Registered Debentures
Bearer Debentures

How to buy shares and debentures?
You can buy shares when company comes out with IPO (Initial Public Offer) or you can trade in shares in the secondary market after the company gets listed on the exchange. Similar to shares, you can buy debentures when they are issued for the first time or can buy them in secondary market. You need a demat and trading account to buy shares and debentures.

​Debentures vs Shares
The following are the major differences between Shares and Debentures:

The holder of shares is known as a shareholder while the holder of debentures is known as debenture holder.

Share is the capital of the company, but Debenture is the debt of the company.

The shares represent ownership of the shareholders in the company. On the other hand, debentures represent indebtedness of the company.

The income earned on shares is the dividend, but the income earned on debentures is interest.

The payment of dividend can be made only out of current profits of the business and not otherwise. Unlike the interest on debentures which has to be paid by the company to debenture holders, no matter company has earned profit or not.

Dividend is not a business expense and so is not allowed as deduction. On the contrary, interest on debentures is a expense and so allowed as a deduction.

In the event of winding up, debentures get priority of repayment over shares.

Shares cannot be converted as opposed to debentures are convertible.

There is no security charge created for payment of shares. Conversely, security charge is created for the payment of debentures.

A trust deed is not executed in case of shares whereas trust deed is executed when the debentures are issued to the public.

Unlike debenture holders, shareholders have voting rights.

Shares are issued at a discount subject to some legal compliance. Debentures can be issued at a discount without any legal compliance.

We have categorized online trading into 3 types:

Quick Trades: Scalping and Intraday Trading
Positional Trades
Investing: Share Investing and Mutual Funds Investing

Quick Trades
Scalping

In scalping, the trades are taken only for several seconds to minutes, this strategy is mainly used in high volatile stocks to make the most of price movements. It is often referred to as micro-trading. Traders involved in scalping execute hundreds of trades in a day.

Scalping falls in a very high risk category and requires a good amount of experience and expertise in the stock markets. You can do scalping with a small amount of money via leverages.

Intraday trading

As the name suggests, intraday trading is basically buying and selling of shares on the same day. It is also known as day trading. The holding time in intraday trading can vary from a minute to hours. Usually, intraday trading is done based on technical analysis and news or events.

Intraday Trading also falls in a very high risk category and requires some expertise in the stock market. You can do intraday with a small amount of money via leverages.

Learn everything about Intraday Trading here.

Positional Trades
Positional Trading

If you hold a stock for more than a day it is known as positional trading. It is based on the idea that the value of the stock will appreciate in several days to months. Here the traders follow a trend and wait for it to peak.

Positional Trading can further be categorized into swing trading, which is again a trend following strategy but is popularly said to have a holding period of several weeks.

Positional Trading falls in the medium risk category and requires a higher amount of capital as you need to pay the full amount for the shares you buy.

Investing
When you buy shares to hold them for several months or years, it is called investing. Investing can be done in shares or mutual funds.

While Investing in shares falls in the medium-risk category, mutual funds are considered to be low-risk instruments.

Best Company Offering Online Trading in India
There are two types of brokers, a discount broker, and a full-service broker.

A discount broker provides you trading and investing services at the lowest possible cost and a full-service broker provides full-blown services like investing tips, hand-holding, trading reports, etc. but all these services come with a higher cost.

Well, Aliceblue is an Exception! We provide the services of a full-service broker but at a cost of a discount broker. Meaning, we charge the lowest brokerage yet provide full-blown services like a full-service broker.

Check out What is Online Trading and learn more about online trading and how to trade in online