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Fellow traders & investors,

Has been a while since I wrote a post. Writing this to reiterate the lessons to learn while choosing a broker. I had written this post when Unicon securities went bankrupt a while back, saying how we should not go with any broker who seems willingly wanting to violate rules and regulations.

Orion broking had its primary website as : http://www.orionbroking.com/ offering brokerage services in both Equity and Commodity. The company which is based out of Coimbatore, the promoters are currently underground. Cops are investigating the case now, check this news article. 

Have interacted with the promoters a few times, and they for sure are definitely not crooks. Their business model was to entice clients with extreme amounts of leverage. Trade with Rs 2000 for 1 lot of Nifty and Rs 3000 for Bank nifty. In commodities they would give any leverage that you ask for, even let you trade the big gold contract with less than Rs 5000 in the account. The website doesn’t really talk about these leverages anywhere, but if you speak to any of their clients you will know.

On August 20th, Globe capital who is a clearing member of Orion squared off all their positions due to not being able to meet the MTM(marked to market) requirement. Standing now, after the positions were squared off, Orion owes over Rs 40 crores to Globe capital and the exchanges. This is after Orion broking’s personal and client funds which was already debited by the exchange/clearing member to meet obligations. Client funds would have anyways been debited, but what is shocking is that the promoters even liquidated stocks lying in the client demat accounts to meet exchange obligations. So currently all clients of Orion broking who had any money or stock with them are in a soup. Yes, there is Investor protection fund by the exchanges, but it will take its own sweet time.

*An update on Orion Broking Services – The active directors of Orion Broking Services have been arrested on 8th March 2016, on the grounds of the following as per the Indian Penal code –

1. Section 120B (punishment for criminal conspiracy)

2. Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent)

3. 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property)

Kindly go through this article to know more :- http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/prime-accused-in-stock-broking-scam-held/article8333481.ece. A further probe is now being instigated against them.

Lesson to Learn? 

This just goes to show that, chasing the broker who provides the highest margin may not be the best thing for you. Leverage is a double edged sword, it can not only wipe out your account in a hurry, but also the broker’s. Ensure that you choose a broker who is not over leveraging themselves and their clients

Fellow Traders & Investors,

To be very honest, the question of stamp duty is a mystery within the broking community itself. I had spent quite sometime researching on this for a client (brokerage). Will try to explain this in simple English and not use any jargon that our CAs/Lawyers tend to use to confuse us even more.

What is Stamp Duty? 

When we trade the markets a contract note is generated and sent to you by end of the day by the brokerage which shows all the transactions executed for that day. When the contract note is sent to you via courier it is signed physically, and when sent via email it is digitally signed by one of the bosses at the brokerage firm where you trade. When you receive a physical contract note, you will be signing on the courier POD and when you receive an email the log file is saved, both acting as a proof that you have acknowledged all the trades.

Like how you validate a rental agreement by taking signatures of all the parties involved on a stamp paper issued by the state government, similarly the contract note also has to be stamped. How much amount a particular contract note has to be stamped for is called as the “Stamp Duty”. Note that in this case the contract note is not actually stamped physically, but a fee is collected based on your turnover by the brokerage, which is then declared and paid to the relevant stamping authority (state government).

Million dollar question – Which Stamp Authority/State Government? 

This is where all the confusion exists,

The lawyers say: Stamp duty was originally a part of the Indian Service Tax Act, and as per that act a tax is applicable at the point of service. Today most brokerages are online and send contract notes from their servers located at their headoffice, and hence according to them the stamp duty has to be as per the state where their headoffice is. Some of them also say that the point of service should be where the trades happen (the exchanges themselves), which is in Mumbai and hence stamp duty should be collected and paid as per the Mumbai Stamp Act. But the thing about lawyers is that they have a vested interest in saying this, if tomorrow a state government sends a notice to the same brokerage, that will be new business for them.

The exchanges say: All the exchanges maintain silence on this except NCDEX, which has put up a short note on how to pay Stamp Duty on their website. NCDEX says that stamp duty has to be paid state-wise as per the clients’ correspondence address proof.

The state governments say: A few states don’t even have a clue on this, but most of them say that if the client has a residential address proof in their state, the stamp duty has to be paid to them. Lately, many of them have started sending out notices to brokerages who are not paying stamp duty of the clients’ who belong to their state. They cannot calculate what is the exact stamp duty due from a brokerage because they don’t get the state-wise turnover data of clients from the exchanges and have to go with what the brokerage declare, at least for now. Check this, a Google search result showing the letters sent by various state governments to the exchanges asking them to inform brokerages to pay stamp duty for all clients from their state.

State-wise Stamp Duty rates

I think it is just ridiculous that stamp duty rates for trading online are similar to buying property and goods, renting houses, etc. I hope our government wakes up and does something about it. For example, the Tamil Nadu Government today charges more stamp duty than what many of the discount brokerages charge you as a brokerage for offering their services. Some states have a cap on the maximum amount of stamp duty per contract note, and I think all states should be forced to follow this rule. Anyways, find following the stamp duty rates for various states