1. BY: SUHASI HANEEF

2. SHAREKHAN BACKGROUNDSHAREKHAN BACKGROUND Sharekhan is one of the leading retail brokerage firms in the country. It is the retail broking arm of the Mumbai-based SSKI Group, which has years of experience in the stock broking business. SSKI owns 37.21% in Sharekhan, balance ownership is HSBC, Intel Pacific, and General Atlantic. Sharekhan offers its customers a wide range of equity related services including trade execution on BSE, NSE, Derivatives, depository services, online trading, investment advice etc.

3. Contd.. The firm’s online trading and investment site www.Sharekhan.com-was launched on Feb 8, 2000.The site gives access to superior content and transaction facility to retail customers across the country. It has one of the largest networks in the country with 704+ share shops in 280 cities, of which 100 are fully-owned branches. While online trading currently accounts for just over 1 per cent of the daily trading in stocks in India, Sharekhan alone accounts for 22 per cent of the volumes traded online.

4. Contd… MISSION: TO EMPOWER THE INVESTOR TO MAKE BETTER INVESTMENT DECISIONS THROUGH QUALITY SERVICE AND SUPERIOR ADVICE. VISION: TO BE THE BEST RETAIL BROKING BRAND IN THE INDIAN EQUTIES MARKET.

5. Sharekhan Services

6. MAIN THEME OF THE PROJECT

7. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY To study the investors behavior in equity market. To identify the preferred sources of information influencing investment decisions. To understand the risk appetite of the investors. To study the dependence/independences of the demographic factors (Gender and Age) of the investor and his/her risk tolerance level. To assess the customer satisfaction level for investing in equity market.

8. FINDINGS OF THE STUDY The study reveals that male investors dominate the equity market in India. Most of the investors are engaged in other activities than any occupations. Most of the investors read two or more sources of information to make investment decisions. The investors’ decisions are based on their initiative. The investment habit was noted in majority of the people who participated in the study. Most of the investors are taking medium and low risk. Investors use speculation as a tool of investing in the equity market.

9. Contd… Investors are satisfied by their current investment portfolio. Most of the investors get their information related to investment through electronic media (TV) next to print media (News paper/ Business news paper/ Magazines). Gender and risk tolerance level of the investor are independent attributes of the investor. Increase in age decrease the risk tolerance level.

10. CONCLUSION This study confirms the earlier findings with regard to the relationship between gender and age, the risk appetite level of individual investors. The Present study has important implications for investment managers as it has come out with certain interesting facets of an individual investor. The individual investor still prefers to invest in financial products which give risk free returns. This confirms that Indian investors even if they are of high income, well educated, salaried, independent are conservative investors prefer to play safe. The investment product designers can design products which can cater to the investors who are low risk tolerant and use TV as a marketing media as they seem to spend long time watching TVs.