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Stock Market Basics
108 courses
Portfolio Management & Asset Allocation for Indian Investors
The flagship course on running a whole portfolio instead of collecting individual stocks and funds. Built for salaried professionals, HNI investors, those nearing retirement and fresh graduates starting their first SIP, it replaces the accidental portfolio most Indian households hold with a written process. You will price your goals in rupees, separate risk capacity from risk appetite, compare the real long-run behaviour of Indian equity, debt, gold, REITs and cash, and choose an allocation framework you can actually stick to. From there you will build a core-satellite equity sleeve, rebalance with STCG, LTCG and costs in view, set drawdown rules in advance, and follow a complete worked portfolio for a 35-year-old salaried investor from first SIP to retirement glide path. It is the companion course to The Capital Gains model portfolios.
- Diagnose an existing portfolio for fund overlap, orphan holdings and hidden concentration
- Convert life goals into inflation-adjusted rupee targets with clear horizons
- Distinguish risk capacity, risk tolerance and required return, and account for EPF, PPF, NPS and physical gold
Advanced Bond Valuation: Credit Spreads and the Yield Curve
An advanced, India-first course on the two things a single yield to maturity hides: the term structure of interest rates and the credit spread. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs who can already price a bond and compute duration, and now want to bootstrap a zero-coupon curve from G-Sec prices, extract forward rates, read curve shapes and curve trades, decompose a corporate bond's spread into default, recovery, liquidity, and tax components, and value any bond cash flow by cash flow off the curve plus a spread. Uses FBIL and CCIL data, NSE and BSE corporate bond quotes, RBI Retail Direct, debt fund factsheets, and real Indian credit events including IL&FS, DHFL, and the 2020 credit risk fund episode, with every calculation worked in INR.
- Bootstrap a zero-coupon spot curve from G-Sec prices and explain why YTM is a blunt average that spot rates sharpen
- Compute implied forward rates and read what the curve is pricing about future RBI repo decisions
- Identify normal, flat, inverted, and humped curves and express a curve view using gilt, constant maturity, and target maturity funds
Advanced Portfolio Construction: Factor Investing and Smart Beta
A practitioner's course on factor investing for experienced Indian investors who already run a portfolio and want a more deliberate way to construct it. Covers what a factor actually is, how value, momentum, quality, low volatility, size, and dividend yield have behaved on the NSE, how to read the methodology of every major Nifty smart beta index and the funds that track them, and how to combine factors into a multi-factor portfolio around a Nifty 50 core. Closes with the operational realities: turnover, transaction costs on Indian brokers, capital gains tax drag, rebalancing discipline, and regression-based monitoring of your own factor exposure. Built on Screener.in screens, NSE index data, and real Indian fund examples throughout.
- Separate market beta, factor exposure, and genuine alpha in any portfolio, including your own
- Build value, momentum, quality, and low volatility screens on Screener.in that match how NSE factor indices are actually constructed
- Read a Nifty smart beta index methodology document and judge whether the fund tracking it is worth owning
Advanced Screener.in: Building Custom Financial Screens
For investors who already know how to run a basic Screener.in query and want to build screens that actually find good businesses. Learn how the query engine really evaluates a screen, which historical and quarterly variables to use, and how to create custom ratios and column sets that answer one clear question. Then build complete strategy screens for quality compounders, value, growth at a reasonable price and turnarounds, plus forensic screens that flag weak cash conversion, promoter pledging and working capital stress. Covers why banks, NBFCs and cyclicals break generic filters, the testing traps that make a screen look smarter than it is, and a repeatable monthly routine for turning a screen into a shortlist. Built on real NSE and BSE listed companies, written for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors moving into direct equity, and salaried professionals who want a disciplined, time-efficient research process.
Advanced Screener.in: Custom Formulas and Forensic Screens
For investors who already write basic Screener.in queries and want screens that hold up. The first half is about writing formulas properly: handling nulls, zero denominators and negative values, building composite scores in one query, and testing multi-year consistency. The second half turns those skills into forensic screens: cash conversion, accruals, other income dependence, capitalisation creep, receivable and inventory build-ups, the cash-and-debt paradox, Piotroski and Beneish style scoring, and promoter pledge and dilution filters. It closes by testing screens against real Indian collapses such as DHFL, Manpasand and Yes Bank, and by building a quarterly review routine that separates genuine red flags from false positives.
- Write Screener.in queries that handle nulls, zero denominators and negative values without silently dropping companies
- Combine several conditions into a single composite score inside one query
- Screen for poor earnings quality using cumulative cash conversion, accruals and other income dependence
Building Automated Excel Models Linked to Live Market Data
An advanced build course for investors and active traders who already live in Excel and are tired of copy-pasting prices. You will design models in three layers (raw data, calculation engine, output), then feed them from real sources: Excel Stock Data Types and STOCKHISTORY, Power Query pulls of NSE bhavcopy, AMFI NAVs and RBI rates, and real-time broker feeds from Zerodha Kite Connect through Python. On top of that data you will build five working models: a live peer valuation sheet, a reverse DCF that recalculates implied growth as the price moves, a Nifty options chain with Black-Scholes Greeks, a rolling portfolio risk dashboard, and a position sizing calculator. Finally you will automate refreshes, snapshots and alerts with VBA, Office Scripts and Python, and harden the whole thing with audit checks, performance tuning and a maintenance playbook for corporate actions and index changes.
- Design live models in three layers so a broken feed never corrupts your calculations
- Choose between Stock Data Types, Power Query, RTD and broker APIs based on latency, cost and reliability
- Pull NSE bhavcopy, AMFI NAVs and RBI rates with parameterised Power Query that refreshes on a schedule
Building Watchlists and Screens on Screener.in
A hands-on guide to using Screener.in to build watchlists, run pre-built screens, and write your own custom queries to filter Indian-listed companies by the metrics that matter to you.
- Navigate Screener.in and read a company's ratio page correctly
- Build and organize watchlists to track companies you're interested in
- Use Screener.in's pre-built screens to shortlist stocks fast
Building a Concentrated High Conviction Portfolio
A rigorous guide to building and running a concentrated equity portfolio in Indian markets, built for experienced investors who have outgrown a 40-stock spread and want their best ideas to actually matter. Learn why diversification stops adding much beyond 15 to 20 stocks, what the Kelly criterion and its practical half-Kelly version say about position sizing, and the temperament and capital tests that decide whether concentration is right for you at all. Go deep on how conviction is actually built: writing a one-page thesis, identifying your variant perception versus the Nifty consensus, and setting kill criteria before you buy. Then construct the book itself: how many stocks, sizing by conviction tiers, spotting correlation traps where ten NSE stocks behave like three, and staggered versus lump-sum entry. Finish with the discipline that keeps a concentrated portfolio alive: quarterly thesis reviews, rules for trimming and adding, and the real tax and cost drag of churn under Indian LTCG and STCG rules.
- Size positions using conviction tiers and a half-Kelly framework instead of equal weights
- Write a one-page thesis with explicit kill criteria before committing capital
- Spot correlation traps and run a quarterly review process that avoids overtrading
Building a Dividend Income Portfolio
A practical guide to building a portfolio of Indian dividend-paying stocks for steady income, aimed at investors who already understand the basics of equity investing and want a structured approach to income investing. Covers how to read dividend yield and payout ratio correctly, how to screen for quality dividend payers on Screener.in, which NSE and BSE sectors have a genuine track record of consistent payouts, how to diversify and rebalance an income-focused portfolio, and how dividend income is actually taxed in India after the abolition of DDT. Uses real Indian companies and screener workflows throughout.
- Learn dividend investing fundamentals and what drives dividend income
- Screen for quality dividend stocks and build a portfolio
- Understand how dividend income gets taxed in India
Building a Personal Research Dashboard Using Python and Free APIs
A build course for investors and active traders who already write basic Python and are tired of stitching research together from screener.in, NSE, BSE, AMFI and a dozen broker screens. You will design and build one private research dashboard on free data: NSE bhavcopy and delivery data, yfinance prices, AMFI and mfapi.in NAVs, BSE and NSE corporate filings, and RBI macro series. You will store it all in a local DuckDB database, adjust for splits and bonuses, and run data quality checks that catch silent errors. On top of that data you will build valuation bands, relative strength versus the Nifty 50, portfolio XIRR and drawdown, and a transparent watchlist score. Then you will ship it as a Streamlit app with Plotly charts, schedule daily refreshes, send Telegram alerts on filings and price triggers, and keep the whole system running when free sources change. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders and HNI investors who want a research process they own end to end.
- How to decide what a research dashboard should answer before writing a single line of code
- Which free Indian market data sources are reliable, what each one cannot tell you, and how to use them within their terms
- How to build a fetch, store, compute, display architecture that survives source outages and format changes
Building a Portfolio Tracker Using Google Sheets and APIs
A hands-on build course for investors who have outgrown broker dashboards and scattered app screens. You will design and build one Google Sheets tracker that holds your entire portfolio: NSE and BSE stocks priced live with GOOGLEFINANCE, mutual fund NAVs pulled from AMFI and mfapi.in, and FDs, PPF, EPF and SGBs tracked alongside. You will build a clean transaction ledger from your Zerodha tradebook and CAMS or KFintech CAS, compute FIFO cost, realised and unrealised P&L, and XIRR the right way, then benchmark against the Nifty 50 TRI. Finally you will automate it with Google Apps Script: daily snapshots, API calls, alerts, and a dashboard with allocation, STCG and LTCG views and rebalancing flags. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors and salaried professionals who want a tracker they fully understand and control.
- Design a tracker around a transaction ledger instead of a static holdings list
- Pull live NSE and BSE prices, index levels and history with GOOGLEFINANCE and handle its limits
- Fetch mutual fund NAVs from AMFI and mfapi.in and track FDs, PPF, EPF and SGBs in the same sheet
Case Study: Bajaj Finance, Evaluating a High Growth NBFC
Bajaj Finance grew from a captive two-wheeler financier into one of the largest and most richly valued lenders on the NSE, compounding its loan book at a pace few Indian financial companies have matched. This case study takes the business apart: how an NBFC borrows, lends and earns a spread, how zero-cost EMIs at consumer durable counters built a customer franchise of tens of millions, and how that franchise was turned into a cross-sell machine across personal loans, mortgages, SME and gold loans. Then it reads the numbers the way a lender should be read: AUM growth, cost of funds, NIM, Stage 2 and Stage 3 assets, credit cost, ROA, ROE and leverage. It walks through the shocks the company absorbed, from demonetisation and the IL&FS liquidity crisis to COVID and the 2023 RBI action on its digital lending products, and closes with how to value a lender on price to book and a checklist you can apply to any high-growth NBFC using annual reports and screener.in.
- How an NBFC makes money, and how it differs from a bank in funding, regulation and risk
- How zero-cost EMI financing built Bajaj Finance's customer franchise and cross-sell engine
- How to read AUM growth, cost of funds, NIM and operating expenses for a lender
Case Study: Bhushan Steel, Insolvency and Resolution Under IBC
Bhushan Steel borrowed its way into becoming one of India's largest secondary steel producers, then collapsed under more than 56,000 crore rupees of claims and became one of the twelve accounts RBI ordered banks to drag to the National Company Law Tribunal in 2017. Within a year, Tata Steel had bought it through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, lenders had recovered roughly 63 percent of their admitted claims, and the promoters had been locked out by the new Section 29A. This case study rebuilds the whole arc: the balance sheet red flags that were visible years in advance, the broken recovery system IBC replaced, the CIRP process step by step, the bidding war with JSW Steel, what actually happened to lenders, operational creditors and public shareholders, and the fraud investigation that followed. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders and HNIs who want to read insolvency situations on NSE and BSE with clear eyes instead of chasing them.
- Spot the balance sheet warning signs in Bhushan Steel's annual reports years before default: interest cover, capital work in progress, debt to EBITDA and related party flows
- Explain why SICA, BIFR, DRTs, SARFAESI and CDR failed to resolve bad loans, and what RBI's Asset Quality Review and the dirty dozen list changed
- Walk through the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process from NCLT admission to plan approval, including the moratorium, the resolution professional and Committee of Creditors voting
Case Study: DHFL, Forensic Red Flags Before the Collapse
A forensic case study of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation, the AAA-rated housing finance company that went from a ₹690 stock and a ₹1 lakh crore loan book in 2018 to default, RBI supersession, and the first financial firm ever resolved under the IBC. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs who want to learn how to see the next DHFL before the rating agencies do. Works through the annual reports, quarterly disclosures, shareholding patterns, auditor reports, bond yields, and mutual fund holdings that were public before the collapse, and shows which red flags were visible, which were hidden, and what each one should have made you do. Covers the asset liability mismatch, developer loans dressed up as retail, shell company lending, related party and circular funding, the fictitious Bandra branch, auditor and rating agency lag, the September 2018 crash, the June 2019 default, and the Piramal resolution. Ends with a reusable NBFC and HFC forensic checklist applied to a live-style example using Screener.in and exchange filings.
Case Study: DMart's IPO and Consistent Compounding Story
Avenue Supermarts (DMart) is one of the few Indian IPOs that lived up to the hype and kept compounding for years after. This case study walks through the business before it listed, how the IPO was priced and why it popped on debut, what actually made the growth sustainable, and what a retail investor can realistically take away from the story without falling for hindsight bias.
- How DMart's supermarket business model actually made money
- How the DMart IPO was priced and why it was oversubscribed
- What a large listing-day pop does and doesn't tell you as an investor
Case Study: Dr Reddy's Labs, Navigating Regulatory Risk in Pharma
Indian pharma stocks can look cheap and steady for years, then lose a fifth of their value on a single regulatory announcement. Dr Reddy's Laboratories is the clearest case study of that risk on NSE. This course starts with how a Hyderabad generic drug maker built a business spanning APIs, US generics and branded emerging markets, and how the USFDA inspection system of Form 483s, warning letters and import alerts works. It then walks through the November 2015 warning letter covering three plants, the share price reaction and the multi-year remediation. From there it widens the lens to patent litigation and at-risk launches, anti-corruption compliance, and the revenue concentration created by a single blockbuster generic. The final chapters turn all of this into a practical investor toolkit: where regulatory signals hide in an annual report, how to value a pharma stock using scenarios instead of a single number, and a checklist you can run on screener.in before buying any Indian pharma company.
- How an Indian generic pharma company earns money across APIs, US generics and branded markets
- What Form 483s, warning letters, import alerts and EIRs mean, and how serious each one is
- How the 2015 warning letter hit Dr Reddy's plants, earnings and share price, and how the recovery played out
Case Study: Future Group's Debt Spiral and Governance Failures
An advanced case study that reconstructs the collapse of Kishore Biyani's Future Group from the investor's chair. You will trace how a retail empire built on Big Bazaar and Pantaloons was financed with escalating debt, promoter pledges and a web of listed group companies, why the Amazon and Reliance transactions of 2019 to 2022 turned into a courtroom war, and how the default, the failed one-time restructuring and the insolvency process wiped out equity holders. Every chapter converts the story into tools: leverage ratios that lease accounting hides, pledge disclosures on NSE and BSE, related party tests, and a governance checklist you can run on any promoter-led company on screener.in today.
- How Future Group grew from one Pantaloons store to over 1,500 outlets and why that growth was financed almost entirely with borrowed money
- How to compute true leverage for a retailer once Ind AS 116 lease liabilities, group guarantees and asset-holding companies are put back on the balance sheet
- How promoter share pledges work, where to find them in NSE and BSE disclosures, and why pledge invocations in 2019 and 2020 marked the point of no return
Case Study: HDFC Bank Bulk Deal Activity Around Key Events
An event-by-event study of how large money moved in and out of HDFC Bank, India's most widely held private bank and one of the heaviest weights in the Nifty 50. Start with SEBI's rules for bulk and block deals and discover why the 0.5% bulk deal threshold almost never triggers for a stock this large, so the real footprints sit in block deal windows, FII and DII flow data and quarterly shareholding patterns. Then walk through the HDFC merger, the January 2024 results sell-off, LIC's approval to go up to 9.99% and MSCI's foreign inclusion factor changes, reading the NSE and BSE disclosures around each one. Finish with a repeatable playbook and checklist for studying large-deal activity around events in any Indian large cap.
- Tell bulk deals, block deals and ordinary large trades apart using SEBI's definitions and disclosure rules
- Explain why mega caps like HDFC Bank rarely appear in bulk deal data and where their large trades show up instead
- Pull and read bulk deal, block deal, FII/DII and shareholding data from NSE, BSE and screener.in
Case Study: HDFC Bank, A Blue Chip Balance Sheet Breakdown
HDFC Bank is the stock every Indian investor is told to own, but few can explain what its balance sheet is actually telling them. This case study takes HDFC Bank as a working example and walks through what makes a stock a genuine blue chip, where to pull real financials from (annual report, screener.in, NSE filings), why a bank's balance sheet reads nothing like a manufacturing company's, and how to judge asset quality, profitability, and efficiency using the bank's own reported numbers. Built for anyone who has HDFC Bank in their portfolio, or is considering it, and wants to move past the brand name to the numbers underneath.
- Why HDFC Bank counts as a blue chip, and what that label actually requires
- Where to pull a bank's real financials from: annual report, screener.in, and NSE filings
- Why a bank's balance sheet reads nothing like a manufacturing company's
Case Study: HDFC Twins Merger, Understanding Deal Structuring
In April 2022, HDFC Ltd announced it would merge into HDFC Bank, the lender it had founded and still part-owned. Fifteen months and a long list of approvals later, the combined entity became one of the heaviest stocks on the Nifty 50. This case study takes the deal apart the way an investor should: why a profitable mortgage lender chose to give up its independence, how the two-step amalgamation and the 42 for 25 share swap were structured, what happened to the cross holding and to HDFC Life, HDFC AMC and HDFC Ergo, and which regulatory costs (CRR, SLR, priority sector lending) came attached. Then it looks at the market's verdict: index weight changes, passive flows, the post-merger credit-deposit ratio problem and the stock's performance. Built for investors who hold either stock in a portfolio or a mutual fund and want a framework to judge any Indian merger with real numbers.
- Why a large, profitable NBFC would choose to merge into a bank, and the regulatory forces behind that choice
- How a two-step amalgamation works and why the subsidiaries were merged first
- How to read and sanity check a share swap ratio like 42 HDFC Bank shares for every 25 HDFC Ltd shares
Case Study: IL&FS Crisis and Its Systemic Ripple Effects
A forensic walkthrough of the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services collapse of 2018, the default that turned a single lender's balance sheet problem into a system-wide credit freeze. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders and HNIs, the course dissects how a company owned by LIC, SBI, HDFC and ORIX grew into a web of more than 300 entities, funded long-gestation infrastructure projects with short-term borrowing, and kept a AAA rating until weeks before it defaulted. It then traces the contagion: the commercial paper market seizing up, debt mutual funds marking down holdings, the DHFL sell-off on NSE, and the second-order damage that ran through Reliance Capital and the Franklin Templeton wind-up. It closes with the regulatory response from RBI, SEBI and the government, and practical frameworks for stress-testing NBFC stocks and debt funds in your own portfolio.
- Explain how IL&FS's ownership, group structure and funding model created a hidden asset-liability mismatch
- Read the warning signs in IL&FS's own annual reports and rating rationales that were visible before the 2018 defaults
- Trace how one default spread through the commercial paper market, debt mutual funds and listed NBFC stocks
Case Study: Jet Airways, Reading Warning Signs of Bankruptcy
Jet Airways grounded its fleet in April 2019 and was ordered into liquidation by the Supreme Court in November 2024, leaving shareholders with nothing. This case study traces the airline from its rise under Naresh Goyal through the Air Sahara deal, the Etihad stake, years of negative net worth, deferred results, salary delays and rating downgrades, to the failed lender rescue and the IBC process. It then turns every warning sign into a practical toolkit, including the Altman Z-Score, a Screener.in distress screen and a red-flag checklist you can run on any turnaround story on NSE or BSE.
- Why airline economics make carriers structurally prone to distress
- How to read negative net worth, weak interest coverage and cash burn in an annual report
- What deferred results, salary delays and rating downgrades signal about solvency
Case Study: Nykaa IPO and New Age Company Valuations
Nykaa's 2021 IPO was one of the loudest listings in Indian market history, and one of the hardest for retail investors to value using the rules that work for a bank or an FMCG company. This case study walks through the IPO itself, why traditional valuation metrics broke down for a company built on GMV and take rate instead of steady profit, and what that means for how you read any new-age listing that comes next.
- What Nykaa's business model actually is, and why it listed the way it did
- Why P/E and other traditional ratios don't work for loss-making or thin-margin new-age companies
- How to read GMV, take rate, and unit economics like an investor instead of a headline reader
Case Study: PVR Inox Merger, Consolidation in a Struggling Sector
An India-first case study of the 2022 to 2023 merger of PVR and INOX Leisure into PVR INOX Ltd, the country's largest multiplex operator. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who want to judge a listed company going through a merger. Covers multiplex unit economics, the COVID shutdown that forced the deal, the all-stock swap ratio, the approval path through SEBI, the exchanges and NCLT, Ind AS 116 lease accounting, promised versus delivered synergies, content-driven revenue swings, screen rationalisation, and the OTT threat. Ends with a reusable checklist for mergers in struggling sectors and a hands-on analysis of the PVR INOX stock on screener.in.
- Break down how a multiplex earns money from tickets, food and beverages, and advertising, and read ATP, SPH and occupancy
- Explain why a near-zero revenue year pushed two rivals with different playbooks into a merger
- Work out what a 3:10 share swap means for a shareholder of each company
Case Study: Paytm's Listing Day Crash and Valuation Lessons
Paytm's November 2021 listing remains the sharpest lesson Indian retail investors have had in what happens when hype outruns valuation. This case study walks through the IPO, the crash, and the year that followed, then uses that real sequence of events to teach you how to evaluate any IPO on its numbers instead of its narrative.
- What actually happened to Paytm's stock on listing day and in the months after, in sequence
- How Paytm was valued going into the IPO, and why that valuation was hard to defend against Indian financial peers
- How to read the risk factors and financials in a red herring prospectus instead of skimming the summary
Case Study: Suzlon Energy, A Cautionary Tale for Retail Investors
Suzlon Energy went from India's most hyped wind energy IPO to a textbook case of shareholder wealth destruction. This course walks through exactly what happened, chapter by chapter: the debt-fuelled global expansion, the promoter pledging, the repeated equity dilution, and the governance signals that were visible all along. You will learn to read the same balance sheet ratios, pledging disclosures and auditor notes that flagged trouble years before the stock collapsed, so you can spot the same pattern in any stock before you invest in it.
- How to read debt-to-equity and interest coverage ratios like a skeptic, not a cheerleader
- What promoter share pledging signals about a company's real financial health
- How repeated FCCB conversions and rights issues dilute retail shareholders over time
Case Study: Tata Motors DVR vs Ordinary Shares
A real Indian case study in owning the same company through two different share classes. Tata Motors traded both ordinary shares and DVR (Differential Voting Rights) shares on the NSE and BSE for over a decade, at a persistent price gap, until a 2023 scheme of arrangement folded DVR shares into ordinary equity for good. This course walks through why DVR shares existed, what investors actually gave up and gained by holding them, why the discount never closed, and what the eventual merger teaches about pricing minority rights in a listed company.
- What Differential Voting Rights (DVR) shares are and why companies issue them
- Why Tata Motors issued DVR shares in 2008 and what holders received in exchange for reduced voting rights
- Why Tata Motors DVR shares traded at a persistent discount to ordinary shares, and why voting rights alone don't explain it
Case Study: The IRCTC IPO and Listing Day Pop
IRCTC's October 2019 IPO listed at more than double its issue price and became the textbook example every Indian retail investor references when they talk about IPO pops. This case study walks through how IPOs actually work, what made IRCTC's specific IPO so oversubscribed, what happened on listing day, and the decisions retail investors had to make in the hours and weeks after. It is built to leave you able to evaluate the next hyped IPO on your own terms instead of on hype.
- How an IPO is priced, subscribed, and allotted in India, from price band to listing
- Why IRCTC's IPO specifically attracted such heavy retail and QIB demand
- What actually happened on IRCTC's listing day, and why the stock moved the way it did
Case Study: Valuing a Real Indian Corporate Bond Using Yield to Maturity
A hands-on case study that takes one real, exchange-listed Indian corporate bond and values it end to end. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs who know what YTM is and now want to apply it to an actual NCD: reading the term sheet, finding the bond on NSE and BSE, building the exact cash flow schedule with SEBI's day count rules, solving for YTM from the market price in Excel, and judging whether the yield is fair against G-Secs, FDs, and debt funds after tax. Every step is worked in INR with a reusable worksheet at the end.
- Read an NCD's shelf prospectus and term sheet and pull out every number that drives valuation
- Locate a listed bond on NSE and BSE by ISIN and judge whether its quote is tradeable
- Build the bond's exact cash flow schedule using record dates and SEBI's actual/actual day count
Case Study: Vodafone Idea, Investing in a Distressed Stock
Vodafone Idea went from a market-leading merger to India's most-watched distressed stock, an AGR bill in the tens of thousands of crores, a government-owned stake, and a share price that retail investors keep buying anyway. This case study walks through what actually happened to Vi and uses it to teach a repeatable framework for evaluating any distressed stock, so you can tell a genuine turnaround candidate from a story that just feels cheap.
- How the Idea Cellular-Vodafone India merger set up Vi's current crisis
- What the AGR dues judgment actually did to Vi's balance sheet
- How to read debt, equity dilution and government stakes as distress signals
Case Study: Yes Bank Crisis, What Retail Investors Should Have Seen
Yes Bank went from a Nifty favourite to a boardroom-ordered moratorium in under four years, wiping out retail shareholders and AT1 bondholders along the way. This case study walks through what the bank actually was, the governance and asset-quality warning signs that were visible years before the collapse, how the RBI-led rescue actually worked, and what any retail investor can apply from this story to their own portfolio decisions today.
- Why Yes Bank was a retail investor favourite before its collapse
- How to read an RBI divergence report and why it matters
- How promoter share pledging signals financial stress
Case Study: Zee Entertainment, Governance Failure and Investor Impact
An intermediate case study that follows Zee Entertainment Enterprises from India's first private Hindi entertainment network to one of the NSE's most closely watched governance failures. You will trace how Essel Group's infrastructure debt was financed against ZEEL shares, why the stock fell sharply in January 2019, how the promoter stake shrank from over 40 percent to low single digits, what the Yes Bank letter of comfort and related party flows revealed, how Invesco's revolt, SEBI's 2023 interim order and Sony's January 2024 exit played out, and what all of it cost shareholders and mutual fund investors. Every chapter ends in a tool you can apply to any promoter-led company using NSE and BSE filings and screener.in.
- How Zee's advertising and subscription model generated cash, and how that cash became exposed to the wider Essel Group
- How promoter share pledges work, where to find them in NSE and BSE disclosures, and why the January 2019 fall followed from them
- How a letter of comfort, related party transactions and independent director resignations signal money leaving a listed company
Case Study: Zomato IPO, Evaluating a Loss Making Business
A worked case study on Zomato's 2021 IPO: why a loss-making company could list at a premium, how to read its financials without a P/E ratio to lean on, how the market valued it, and what happened to the stock afterward. Built for a first-time investor deciding how to evaluate the next new-age IPO that comes along.
- Why Zomato's IPO was controversial and what made it different from a traditional listing
- How IPO mechanics work in India, from DRHP to listing day
- How to read a loss-making company's P&L and unit economics instead of just its bottom line
Circuit Breakers, Price Bands, and Market Safeguards
A beginner-friendly, India-specific guide to the safety mechanisms that stop the stock market, and individual stocks, from free-falling or spiking out of control. Built for first-time demat holders, college students, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who have seen a red 'lower circuit' banner on their Zerodha screen and wondered what it actually means. Covers market-wide circuit breakers on the Nifty and Sensex, stock-specific price bands, real Indian episodes like the March 2020 halt, and SEBI's additional surveillance frameworks (ASM and GSM), with practical guidance on how to check circuit limits on Zerodha and Screener.in and avoid getting stuck on the wrong side of one.
- Understand why markets use circuit breakers and price bands
- Learn how market-wide breakers and stock-specific bands work
- Trade smart around circuit halts and price limits
Contract Notes, Settlement Cycles, and KYC Essentials
A beginner-friendly, India-specific guide to the paperwork and plumbing behind every trade you place. Built for first-time demat holders, college students, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who have opened a Zerodha or Groww account, received a contract note by email, and never quite understood what it says or when their shares and money actually arrive. Covers SEBI's KYC rules and how to keep your record valid, how to read a contract note line by line and check every charge from brokerage to STT and stamp duty, how T+1 settlement moves shares between the exchange, the clearing corporation, and your CDSL or NSDL demat account, and what to do when a delivery is short, a ledger looks wrong, or a broker will not respond.
Equity Basics: Shares, Dividends, Splits, and Corporate Actions
A ground-up, India-specific guide to what actually happens when you buy a share and hold it. Built for college students, first-time demat holders, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who have opened a Zerodha or similar trading account but never had anyone explain what a share really represents, where it physically lives, why a dividend lands in your bank account on some random Tuesday, or why your holding suddenly shows double the shares at half the price overnight. Covers ownership and share types, NSDL and CDSL depositories, reading your demat and contract note, how dividends are declared and taxed, and how stock splits and bonus issues actually work, using real NSE and BSE examples, screener.in data, and SEBI rules throughout.
- What actually happens, legally and financially, when you buy and hold a share
- How dividends, bonus issues, and stock splits affect what you actually hold
- How to read your own demat statement and shareholding pattern like an analyst
Getting Started with Zerodha Kite: Account Setup to First Trade
A practical, no-jargon walkthrough for anyone opening their first demat and trading account with Zerodha. Covers why you need an account, KYC and documents, setting up Kite, navigating the platform, and placing and exiting your first trade, with the common beginner mistakes to avoid along the way.
- Why you need a demat and trading account, and how Zerodha fits in
- How to complete KYC and open a Zerodha account without errors
- How to link your bank account and fund your trading account
Getting Started: Demat, Trading Accounts, and Broker Infrastructure
A practical, ground-up walkthrough of the account infrastructure that sits behind every trade you place: how your demat, trading, and bank accounts actually connect, how to choose and verify a broker, and how account types, KYC, and authorizations work in practice. Built for first-time demat holders, students, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who want more than a surface-level comparison before they open an account.
- How your demat, trading, and bank accounts link together to settle a trade
- What a Depository Participant does, and how CDSL and NSDL actually hold your shares
- The real difference between full-service and discount brokers, beyond the brokerage number
Groww App Walkthrough: Investing in Stocks and Mutual Funds
A practical, screen-by-screen guide to using Groww as your first stockbroker and mutual fund platform. Covers opening and verifying your account, finding your way around the app, placing your first stock trade, and starting your first SIP, so nothing on the platform feels unfamiliar.
- How to open and verify a Groww demat and trading account, including KYC
- How to navigate the Groww app and web dashboard without getting lost
- How to add funds and link your bank account correctly
Investor Psychology and Behavioral Finance Foundations
A beginner-friendly, India-specific guide to the mental traps that quietly cost retail investors money. Built for first-time demat holders, college students, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees, this course explains why smart, well-informed people still buy high, sell low, chase WhatsApp tips, and panic during a crash. Covers the core biases behind bad investing decisions, how they show up specifically in the Indian market (IPO frenzy, SIP discipline, Diwali bonus spending, the 2020 Covid crash), and practical, rules-based ways to protect yourself from your own brain.
- Discover why the brain struggles with investing decisions
- Recognize biases and behavioral traps in Indian markets
- Build discipline across life stages to debias decisions
Learning Dividend Investing Through ITC's History
Dividend investing is easiest to understand through a real company's real history, not abstract formulas. This course walks through ITC's decades-long dividend record, from what a dividend actually is, to why ITC's stock price stagnated for years even as its dividends kept growing, to how you can apply the same evaluation checklist to any dividend stock on the NSE or BSE.
- What a dividend is, and how it differs from a capital gain
- How to read a company's dividend history and compute yield and payout ratio
- Why a stock's price can stagnate even while its dividends keep rising
Market Cycles: Bull Markets, Bear Markets, and Corrections
A beginner-friendly, India-specific guide to how stock markets actually move over time: the recurring rhythm of bull runs, corrections, and bear markets. Built for first-time demat holders, college students, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who have watched the Nifty and Sensex swing wildly and want to understand what a bull market, a correction, and a bear market actually mean, how to tell them apart, and what history (2008, 2020, and other real Indian episodes) teaches about staying invested through the cycle instead of panicking at the wrong moment. Uses real NSE and BSE index data, Indian case studies, and practical guidance for a Zerodha-era retail investor throughout.
- Define what a market cycle actually looks like
- Spot the anatomy and traps of bull markets
- Recognize bear markets and corrections as they unfold
Masterclass: Behavioral Edge, How Top Investors Manage Emotion
A masterclass for serious Indian investors who already know the list of biases and now want to beat them in practice. Instead of cataloguing errors, this course studies how top investors actually manage emotion: how they hold conviction through deep drawdowns, trim or ride winners, admit mistakes quickly, and stay still when every screen is flashing red. It draws on Buffett, Munger, Howard Marks, Soros, Druckenmiller, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Radhakishan Damani, and Parag Parikh, then converts their habits into a working behavioral operating system: decision journals, pre-mortems, written kill criteria, position sizing as emotional risk control, and a disciplined information diet. Indian crisis case studies from 2008, the 2018 small-cap collapse, March 2020, and the F&O and SME IPO mania stress-test the framework, and the final chapter covers managing family, client, and institutional emotion. Closes with a behavioral audit of your own tradebook.
- Measure the behavior gap between what your investments earned and what you actually earned
- Judge decisions by process quality rather than outcomes, and stop learning the wrong lessons from luck
- Hold, trim, add, or exit a position using pre-written rules instead of in-the-moment emotion
Masterclass: Building a Family Office Style Portfolio
A complete family office playbook for serious independent investors, HNI families and portfolio managers in training. You will learn how single, multi and virtual family offices in India think about capital, write an Investment Policy Statement, map the full family balance sheet, and set allocations using the three-bucket framework. The course covers building a public market core across direct equity, mutual funds, PMS, bonds and global funds under LRS, adding a satellite of AIFs, private credit, unlisted shares, REITs, InvITs and gold, and managing family-level risks such as promoter concentration and liquidity crunches. It closes with holding structures (HUF, private trusts, LLPs), asset location, succession planning, manager due diligence, performance reporting, family governance, and two end-to-end case studies at INR 50 crore and INR 5 crore.
Masterclass: Institutional Grade Risk Management for Individual Investors
A process-first masterclass that brings the risk discipline of fund houses and trading desks to the individual Indian investor. Built for serious independent investors, HNIs, and portfolio managers in training, it covers how institutions define and measure risk, how to write an Investment Policy Statement, set a risk budget, size positions and enforce concentration limits, manage liquidity, leverage, and counterparty risk, stress test a portfolio against real Indian crises like 2008, the 2013 taper tantrum, and the 2020 COVID crash, hedge with Nifty options, gold, and government bonds, and run a written risk governance process with a personal dashboard and breach protocol. Every concept is applied to NSE and BSE portfolios in INR, with real Indian case studies including Karvy and Franklin Templeton.
Masterclass: Reading Between the Lines of Annual Reports Like a Fund Manager
A deep, document-first masterclass on reading an Indian annual report the way a fund manager does. Learn how the report is built under the Companies Act 2013 and SEBI LODR, why professionals read it back to front, and how a 90-minute triage decides whether the other 300 pages deserve your time. Treat the chairman's letter and MD&A as data by scoring five years of promises and diffing the language year on year. Go deep into the notes to accounts: accounting policy changes, Ind AS 115 revenue recognition, recurring one-offs, capital work in progress, Ind AS 116 leases, provisions and contingent liabilities. Decode the auditor's pages, including key audit matters and CARO 2020, then map money flowing through related parties, subsidiaries in Form AOC-1, and loans and guarantees. Read the directors' report, the corporate governance report, remuneration disclosures and the BRSR for what they reveal by accident. Run capital allocation forensics across five years of reports, then finish with a 30-point annual report scorecard, two full case study reads and a template for turning an annual report into an investment memo.
- Triage any Indian annual report in 90 minutes and know exactly which pages, notes and schedules deserve a deep read
- Extract hidden risks from the notes to accounts, auditor's report, CARO remarks and related party disclosures before they show up in the share price
- Compare five years of annual reports to score management promises, capital allocation and governance, and turn the findings into an investment memo
Masterclass: Sector Specialization, Becoming an Expert in One Industry
A masterclass for serious independent investors, HNIs and portfolio managers in training who want to stop being generalists and build real expertise in one Indian industry. Learn how to choose a sector that fits your circle of competence and temperament, then map it properly: the value chain, the profit pools, the unit economics and the handful of KPIs that explain every company in it. Build a 90-day immersion plan using annual reports, DRHPs, concall transcripts and India's official sector data from SIAM, DGCA, TRAI, CEA and the RBI. Go beyond the desk with scuttlebutt through dealers, distributors and customers, while staying firmly on the right side of SEBI's insider trading rules. Then build driver-based sector models, use the valuation metrics specialists actually rely on, normalise for the cycle, and rank a peer set on screener.in. Finish with two full worked case studies in Indian cement and specialty chemicals, and a system for keeping your edge sharp quarter after quarter.
- Choose a sector deliberately and map its value chain, profit pools and core KPIs
- Run a structured immersion using Indian sector data, filings and concalls, plus compliant primary research
- Build driver-based models and sector-specific valuations that expose where consensus is wrong
Mastering Zerodha Console for Portfolio Tracking
A hands-on walkthrough of Zerodha Console, the reporting and portfolio-tracking dashboard that sits behind every Zerodha demat account. Written for first-time demat holders, salaried professionals, homemakers, retirees, and students who already have a Zerodha account and want to actually understand what Console is showing them, rather than just glancing at a profit or loss number. Covers reading Holdings correctly, the difference between Positions and Holdings, tracking mutual funds through Coin, how corporate actions like bonuses and splits show up in your reports, and using the Tax P&L report at return-filing time. No prior trading or accounting background assumed.
- Navigate Console's dashboard and find the report you need without hunting around
- Read Holdings correctly: invested value, current value, day change, and overall returns
- Tell Positions and Holdings apart, and know which one to check for what
Order Types and Trade Execution for Beginners
A ground-up guide to placing orders that do what you intend. Covers how exchanges match trades, the difference between market and limit orders, stop-loss mechanics, bracket and cover orders, and the validity rules that decide whether your order survives the day.
- How the exchange order book matches buyers and sellers by price-time priority
- How to read the 5-level market depth window before placing an order
- When to use a market order versus a limit order, and what each risks
Portfolio Rebalancing: When and How to Do It
A practical, India-specific guide to portfolio rebalancing for investors who already hold a mix of equity, mutual funds, and other assets. Covers why portfolios drift from their target allocation, how to set calendar-based and threshold-based rebalancing rules, and how to actually execute a rebalance while accounting for STCG, LTCG, and exit loads on Indian mutual funds and stocks. Uses real Indian examples and walks through rebalancing on Zerodha Coin and Console.
- Understand portfolio drift and why rebalancing matters
- Build trigger rules for when to rebalance
- Learn rebalancing mechanics and costs in Indian markets
Practice Drills: Analyzing Cash Flow Quality Across Quarters
A practice-first companion to Reading Cash Flow Statements in Depth. You already know what operating, investing, and financing cash flows are; this course makes you use them. Working with NSE and BSE results filings, Screener.in data, and a tracker you build yourself, you will drill cash conversion ratios, working capital swings, and free cash flow period by period, learn to separate normal seasonality from genuine deterioration, and catch the one-off tricks that make a single period's cash flow look better than the business really is. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who want a repeatable way to judge earnings quality before they buy, or before they trust a fund that does.
- Pull half-yearly and annual cash flow data from NSE, BSE and Screener.in filings, and derive the periods companies do not report directly
- Calculate and track CFO to EBITDA, CFO to PAT, and free cash flow across consecutive periods
- Read receivable, inventory and payable day swings between half-years and explain what moved cash
Practice Drills: Analyzing Promoter Pledge Disclosures
A practice-first course built around the actual documents. You already know what promoter pledging is and why it can go wrong; here you work the filings themselves. You pull every pledge related disclosure for a stock from NSE, BSE and screener.in, then decode SAST Regulation 31 encumbrance disclosures, release and invocation filings, the encumbrance columns of the quarterly shareholding pattern, the reasons-for-encumbrance disclosure and non-disposal undertakings. Then you do the numbers: aggregate pledges across promoter group entities, build a quarterly pledge trend, estimate the share price at which lenders start calling margin, and test whether the market could absorb a forced sale. The final chapter trains judgment: reconciling numbers that disagree across filings, classifying sample disclosures as routine or distress, and a capstone review of one sample company end to end. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders and HNI investors who hold mid and small caps where pledge risk actually bites.
- Locate every pledge, release, invocation and encumbrance filing for a listed Indian company on NSE, BSE and screener.in
- Read a SAST Regulation 31 encumbrance disclosure field by field and tell creation, release and invocation apart
- Extract pledged and encumbered holdings from the quarterly shareholding pattern and reconcile them with event disclosures
Practice Drills: Backtesting a Contrarian Sector Rotation Strategy
An advanced hands-on drill for building, stress-testing, and implementing a contrarian sector rotation strategy on Nifty sectoral indices. You will write a precise rulebook, assemble clean TRI data from niftyindices.com, code a monthly rotation backtest in Python without lookahead bias, net out Indian costs and capital gains tax, and then try hard to break your own result before a single rupee goes in.
- How mean reversion across Nifty sectoral indices can be turned into a testable contrarian rule
- How to source and clean sectoral TRI data while handling launch dates and survivorship
- How to rank sectors and generate monthly signals in Python without lookahead bias
Practice Drills: Building a Factor Based Stock Screen
A practice-first course for investors who already know what factors are and now want to build a working multi-factor screen. You will define a clean NSE universe, turn raw ratios into comparable factor scores, build value, quality, momentum and low-volatility scores one drill at a time, combine them into a composite rank, and pressure-test the result against NSE factor indices, turnover and Indian transaction costs and taxes.
- How to define a tradeable NSE universe free of liquidity and survivorship traps
- How to convert raw ratios into percentile ranks and z-scores so factors can be compared
- How to build value, quality, momentum and low-volatility scores step by step
Practice Drills: Building a Sample Diversified Portfolio
A practice-first course for anyone who has read about diversification but never actually built a portfolio. Working through a sample investor profile, you will run the same drills a first-time investor should run before putting real money to work: setting a risk and goal profile, splitting money across equity, debt, and gold, choosing funds and stocks without overlap, sizing positions so no single bet can hurt too much, and stress-testing the mix against a market correction. Every drill uses Indian tools and context: NSE, BSE, Nifty 50 weights, screener.in-style research, and Zerodha-style demat statements. Built for college students, first-time demat account holders, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who want a repeatable checklist, not just theory.
- Define a sample investor profile by goal, time horizon, and risk appetite before allocating a single rupee
- Split a portfolio across equity, debt, and gold using a simple allocation framework
- Pick large cap, mid cap, and small cap mutual funds and check them for overlap before buying
Practice Drills: Building a Sector Comparison Scorecard
A drill course for investors who already know that a bank, an IT exporter and a cement maker cannot be judged on the same yardstick, and now want a repeatable way to compare companies inside one sector. You will pick a fair peer set, choose the metrics that actually drive each sector, pull and clean the data from screener.in and annual reports, convert raw numbers into scores, weight them honestly, and then build full scorecards for Indian IT services, private sector banks, FMCG and cement. The course closes by stress-testing your weights and turning the final scores into a research watchlist, not a buy list.
- Build a fair peer set for any NSE-listed sector and defend every inclusion and exclusion
- Choose the handful of metrics that genuinely drive returns in IT, banking, FMCG and cement
- Pull, clean and normalise peer data from screener.in and annual reports
Practice Drills: Calculating Capital Gains Tax on Sample Trades
A hands-on practice course for investors who already know the basic rules of capital gains tax and want to get fast and accurate at applying them. Each lesson works through sample trades drawn from real NSE and BSE scenarios, building from single delivery trades to netting gains and losses across a full financial year.
- How to classify a trade as short-term or long-term and apply the correct tax rate
- How to compute cost basis correctly, including STT and brokerage adjustments
- How the grandfathering clause changes the taxable gain on pre-2018 holdings
Practice Drills: Calculating P/E, P/B, and Dividend Yield
A practice-first companion to the stock market basics track. Instead of re-explaining what P/E, P/B, and dividend yield mean, this course puts you through real calculation drills using actual Indian company numbers, so you can compute and sanity-check these ratios yourself instead of just reading them off screener.in.
- Calculate trailing and forward P/E from a company's EPS
- Work out book value per share and the P/B ratio
- Calculate dividend yield and spot when a high yield is a trap
Practice Drills: Calculating Yield to Maturity and Duration on Sample Bonds
A drill-first course for experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs who already know the theory of bond pricing and now want to compute yield to maturity and duration quickly and correctly. Every drill uses sample bonds modelled on real Indian instruments: G-Secs and T-Bills from RBI Retail Direct, SDLs, and listed corporate bonds on NSE and BSE. You work each problem by hand first, then check it in Excel or Google Sheets, then apply it to a real decision such as choosing between two bonds before an RBI policy meeting or stress-testing a portfolio against a rate shock.
- Price a fixed-coupon bond from its cash flows and split the dirty price into clean price and accrued interest
- Solve for YTM by trial and error, by the approximation formula, and with the YIELD and RATE functions in a spreadsheet
- Compute yield to call and yield to worst on callable corporate bonds and pick the right one to quote
Practice Drills: Constructing a Concentrated High Conviction Portfolio
A hands-on drill course for experienced investors who already understand the case for concentration and now need to execute it without blowing up. You will measure how much diversification your current portfolio actually buys, size positions with a half-Kelly framework using realistic win and loss estimates, and run the temperament and capital tests honestly. Then build conviction the hard way: write a one-page thesis on an NSE stock, reverse-engineer what the current price already assumes, and set measurable kill criteria before you buy. Construct a 12-stock book by conviction tiers, hunt down correlation traps and hidden factor bets, and plan a staggered entry. Finish by running a quarterly thesis review, making trim, add and exit decisions on a drifted portfolio, pricing the LTCG, STCG and cost drag of churn, stress-testing the book against March 2020 and 2008, and building a Rs 25 lakh concentrated portfolio end to end. Every drill uses Indian companies, NSE and BSE data, and INR figures.
- Measure the effective number of stocks in a portfolio and see how much diversification you really hold
- Size positions with half-Kelly and conviction tiers instead of equal weights
- Write a one-page thesis, run a reverse DCF and set measurable kill criteria before buying
Practice Drills: Constructing a Dividend Income Portfolio
A hands-on drill course for investors who already understand dividend yield, payout ratio and dividend traps, and now need to build an income portfolio end to end. You will convert a monthly income goal into a required corpus and yield, run a dividend screen on Screener.in, stress-test each candidate's payout against free cash flow, debt and earnings, size positions under sector and single-stock caps, calculate post-tax income at your slab rate after TDS, and practise the annual review that decides what to trim, top up or exit. Every drill uses Indian companies, NSE and BSE data, and INR figures.
- Convert a monthly income target into the corpus and portfolio yield you actually need, after tax
- Build and refine a dividend screen on Screener.in and cut a raw list down to a shortlist
- Test whether a dividend is sustainable using payout ratio, free cash flow cover and debt
Practice Drills: Evaluating a Merger or Demerger Announcement
A practice-first companion to Understanding Mergers, Acquisitions, and Demergers. You already know what a scheme of arrangement, a swap ratio, and an open offer are; this course makes you work them. Starting from the actual exchange filings on BSE and NSE, you will drill swap ratio conversions, merger arbitrage spreads, EPS accretion and dilution, open offer acceptance ratios, demerger entitlements, and cost of acquisition splits, then learn to read valuation reports and spot deals that quietly shortchange minority shareholders. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who hold stocks that show up in deal headlines and want a repeatable way to evaluate the announcement before the market does it for them.
- Find the board outcome, scheme document, valuation report, and fairness opinion for any deal on BSE and NSE
- Convert your holding through a swap ratio, including fractional entitlements, and compare swap value with market price
- Calculate a merger arbitrage spread and the market's implied probability of the deal closing
Practice Drills: Interpreting Quarterly Results Announcements
A practice-first companion to How to Read Financial Statements. Instead of more theory, this course puts real quarterly results releases from NSE-listed companies in front of you and drills you through them: revenue, profit, margins, YoY vs QoQ comparisons, and the one-off items that trip up first-time readers, until spotting what actually matters becomes automatic.
- Find a company's quarterly results release on NSE, BSE and screener.in
- Read revenue, net profit and EPS line by line on a real results release
- Tell YoY and QoQ comparisons apart and know which one matters for a given number
Practice Drills: Peer Reviewing an Investment Memo Like a Fund Committee
A hands-on drill course for serious investors who want to judge an investment idea as hard as a fund's investment committee would, whether the memo came from a colleague, an advisor, a newsletter or your own notebook. You will learn what a committee is actually for, build a ten-question review scorecard and triage a memo in ten minutes by finding the one claim the whole thesis rests on. Then stress-test the thesis: separate facts from estimates and hopes, test whether the variant perception is real, and verify every number against annual reports, exchange filings and screener.in. Attack the valuation with a DCF audit, a reverse DCF and a peer-multiple check for cherry-picking. Hunt the risks the memo left out, from promoter pledges to related party transactions, write the bear case it should have written, and test whether the position size fits the conviction and the liquidity. Finish by writing structured review feedback, running a mock committee vote on two competing memos, and peer reviewing a full memo on an NSE midcap end to end. Every drill uses Indian companies, NSE and BSE data, SEBI disclosures and INR figures.
- Review an investment memo with a repeatable ten-question committee scorecard
- Find the load-bearing claim in a thesis and test it first
- Separate verified facts from estimates and hopes, and check every number against primary filings
Practice Drills: Placing Mock Orders, Market vs Limit
A hands-on, drill-based course for anyone who has opened a demat account but never actually placed an order. Walks through the real difference between market and limit orders, how order validity types like Day, IOC, and GTT work, and a step-by-step guided walkthrough of placing both order types on Zerodha Kite. Ends with the mistakes new investors make most often and practice drills to test your judgment on which order type fits a given situation. Built for college students, first-time demat holders, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who want to place their first order with confidence, not guesswork.
- The real difference between a market order and a limit order, and when each one protects you
- How order validity types like Day, IOC, and GTT change what happens to your order
- How to place a market order and a limit order step by step on a broker platform like Zerodha Kite
Practice Drills: Reading Balance Sheets Line by Line
A practice-first companion to How to Read Financial Statements. Instead of more theory, this course puts real balance sheets from NSE-listed companies in front of you and drills you line by line: current assets, fixed assets, current liabilities, borrowings and equity, until spotting what belongs where becomes automatic.
- Sort any balance sheet line into assets, liabilities or equity without hesitating
- Read current assets and current liabilities line by line on a real filing
- Tell current items apart from non-current ones on sight
Practice Drills: Reading Contract Notes and Verifying Charges
A hands-on, India-specific drill set for actually reading the contract note your broker sends you and checking whether every charge on it is correct. Built for first-time demat holders, college students, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who have opened a Zerodha or Groww contract note PDF, seen a wall of numbers, and had no idea what to check. Walks through every row and charge line, brokerage, STT, exchange transaction charges, stamp duty, GST, and SEBI turnover fees, then puts that knowledge to work verifying real equity delivery, intraday, and full-day contract notes against the broker's own tariff sheet.
Practice Drills: Reading IBC Resolution Filings for Investment Signals
A practice-first companion to the Bhushan Steel IBC case study. You already know how the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process works; this course makes you read the paperwork it produces and act on it. Working with NSE and BSE Regulation 30 disclosures, NCLT orders, IBBI records, resolution professionals' public announcements and CoC-approved plan filings, you will drill what each document reveals about recovery, timeline risk and, above all, what happens to the listed equity. You will learn to separate a stock that is cheap from a stock that is about to be written down to zero, read signals for the acquirer and the lending banks, and avoid the low-float traps that follow a resolution. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders and HNIs who want a repeatable method for reading insolvency situations instead of gambling on them.
- Locate every IBC filing that matters for a listed company across NSE, BSE, NCLT and IBBI, and log it in a case tracker you build yourself
- Read Section 7, 9 and 10 admission orders and pull out the default amount, the petitioner and the signals hidden in the order's reasoning
- Use the public announcement and the list of creditors to size admitted claims against what the business could realistically be worth
Practice Drills: Reading and Summarizing Earnings Call Transcripts
A practice-first companion to Reading Management Commentary and Earnings Call Transcripts. Instead of more theory, this course puts concall transcripts of NSE-listed companies in front of you and drills you through them: pulling every number from the opening remarks, separating firm guidance from mood, tagging analyst questions, scoring management answers, and compressing the whole call into a one-page summary you can compare quarter after quarter.
- Pull a concall transcript from BSE, NSE or screener.in and skim it in ten minutes
- Extract every number and guidance statement from management's opening remarks
- Separate firm guidance from soft commentary and hedge language
Practice Drills: Rebalancing a Sample Portfolio Based on Targets
A hands-on drill course for investors who already hold a mix of equity, debt and gold and want to keep it on target. Every lesson hands you a sample portfolio in INR, a target allocation and a market move, and you work out the exact trades: how much to sell, how much to buy, and whether fresh SIP money can do the job without selling at all. Covers calendar vs threshold triggers, tolerance bands, multi-asset and market-cap sub-allocation, international funds, and the tax, exit load and lot-selection rules that decide whether a rebalance is worth doing. Uses Nifty-linked scenarios, Indian mutual funds, SGBs and Gold ETFs, and execution on Zerodha Coin and Kite.
- Measure how far a portfolio has drifted from its target and turn the gap into exact rupee trades
- Choose between calendar, threshold and hybrid rebalancing rules and apply tolerance bands
- Rebalance with fresh SIP money and redirected inflows before selling anything
Practice Drills: Screening Stocks Using Basic Fundamental Filters
A practice-first course for learners who already understand basic financial statements and ratios. Instead of teaching new theory, this course drills the habit of screening: choosing the right fundamental filters, building queries on screener.in, and running guided screens against real NSE-listed stocks to separate quality names from red flags.
- Which fundamental filters (P/E, ROE, debt-to-equity, sales growth, promoter holding) actually matter and why
- How to build and combine filter queries on screener.in
- How to save, export and iterate on a screen as your criteria change
Practice Drills: Simulating a Family Office Asset Allocation Decision
A simulation course for investors who already know how family offices think and now want to make the call themselves. You are handed the brief for a fictional Indian business family that has just sold part of its company and holds a large, lopsided balance sheet: a concentrated promoter stake, real estate, a pile of new liquidity and three generations with different needs. Working as the family's CIO, you rebuild the total balance sheet, convert family goals into liabilities and cash-flow buckets, and write the Investment Policy Statement. You then measure risk capacity, adjust for the promoter stake and human capital, set liquidity floors and map tax and holding-structure constraints. Next you build capital market assumptions for Indian asset classes on a post-tax, post-fee basis, construct and stress-test candidate portfolios against real Indian drawdowns, size alternatives and global exposure, choose vehicles, plan deployment and write rebalancing and governance rules. You finish by resolving a family disagreement, presenting to the family council and running a full allocation decision on a new brief. All family figures are illustrative; the frameworks are real.
- Rebuild a family's total balance sheet, including promoter stakes, real estate and human capital
- Translate family goals into liabilities, cash-flow buckets and a written Investment Policy Statement
- Separate risk capacity from risk tolerance and set liquidity floors and drawdown limits
Practice Drills: Spotting Red Flags in Annual Reports
A practice-drill course for retail investors who can already read a balance sheet, P&L, and cash flow statement and want to build the sharper skill of spotting trouble in them. You will work through real Indian annual report excerpts and case-style scenarios to catch rising debtors against flat sales, related-party loans, profit that never turns into cash, and auditor notes that quietly say more than they seem to. Built for first-time demat holders, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who want a repeatable checklist, not just theory.
- Spot revenue quality problems like rising debtors against flat or falling sales
- Recognize related-party transactions and promoter loans that should worry you
- Tell the difference between accounting profit and real cash profit
Practice Drills: Spotting Working Capital Red Flags
A practice-first companion to Understanding Working Capital and Its Impact on Business Health. You already know what debtor days, inventory days, payable days and the cash conversion cycle mean; this course makes you apply them to real Indian filings. Working with Screener.in data, NSE and BSE annual reports, and the notes to accounts most investors skip, you will drill receivable ageing, related-party balances, inventory build-ups, stretched payables, supply chain finance and customer advances, then pull it all together into a red flag scorecard you can run on any listed company. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who want to spot a working capital problem before it becomes a cash crunch.
- Pull receivables, inventory, payables and their ageing notes from Screener.in and annual reports, standalone and consolidated
- Test whether debtor days and inventory days are rising faster than sales can justify
- Read receivable ageing schedules, provisions, unbilled revenue and inventory mix for early warning signs
Practice Drills: Tracking and Interpreting Bulk and Block Deals
A practice-first companion to Understanding Insider Trading Regulations and Bulk Deal Data. Instead of more theory, you work the raw data: pull bulk and block deals from the NSE and BSE large deals pages, classify each trade against SEBI's rules, and log it in a Google Sheets tracker. Then you learn to read the counterparty, size the deal against equity, free float and average volume, price it against VWAP and the previous close, and connect it to shareholding pattern and SAST disclosures. You drill the recurring patterns (promoter sales, PE exits, fund accumulation, well-known investor buys and small-cap pump-and-dump setups), measure what happened next with an event window and abnormal returns against the Nifty, and finish by tracking and interpreting a full month of deals on your own.
- Pull, clean and classify bulk and block deals from NSE and BSE into a working Google Sheets tracker
- Identify who is really on each side of a deal and separate conviction buying from arbitrage and churn
- Size a deal against total equity, free float and average daily volume, and price it against VWAP and the previous close
Practice Drills: Writing an Institutional Grade Investment Thesis
A hands-on drill course for serious independent investors, HNIs and portfolio managers in training who want to write a thesis the way a buy-side fund does. Most retail theses are a list of reasons to like a stock. An institutional thesis states what you believe that the market does not, proves it from primary sources, prices it in scenarios, names the catalysts and dates, and defines in advance the facts that would make you sell. You pick one live NSE stock and build that document drill by drill: dissect a broker initiation report, frame a variant perception, build a primary-source evidence log from BSE and NSE filings and concall transcripts, reverse-engineer the expectations already in the price, and translate the thesis into measurable value drivers. Then build probability-weighted bear, base and bull cases, derive a target price with a cross-check, run a pre-mortem, write kill criteria, steelman the bear case, and finish with a full memo you defend against the ten hardest investment committee questions. Every drill uses Indian companies, NSE and BSE disclosures, screener.in data and INR figures.
- Tell the difference between a sell-side initiation report and a buy-side investment memo, and write the second
- State a variant perception in one falsifiable sentence and test whether it is genuinely non-consensus
- Build a primary-source evidence log from annual reports, concall transcripts and NSE and BSE disclosures
Reading Annual Reports Using the BSE and NSE Filing Systems
An annual report is one filing among hundreds a listed company sends to BSE and NSE every year. Read it alone and you miss the AGM resolutions, the quarterly shareholding and pledge data, the related party disclosures, the auditor resignation letter, and the credit rating downgrade that landed three months after the report went out. This course treats the exchange filing systems as your research tool: where the annual report sits in the SEBI LODR calendar, how to pull it and its archives from both exchanges, which companion filings complete it, which event filings change how you read it, and how to build a repeatable, filing-driven routine for every stock you own. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who already know their way around the exchange websites and want to turn them into a proper research workflow.
- Place the annual report in the SEBI LODR filing calendar and know which filing is due when
- Pull current and archived annual reports from both BSE and NSE, and handle missing or revised copies
- Read the AGM notice, Regulation 33 results, and XBRL data alongside the annual report
Reading Cash Flow Statements in Depth
A line-by-line guide to reading and interpreting cash flow statements for Indian listed companies, built for retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who are already comfortable with a profit and loss statement and want to go deeper. Learn to reconcile net profit to cash profit, break down operating, investing, and financing activities, calculate free cash flow, and spot the manipulation tricks that let profit grow while cash quietly disappears, using real filings and Screener.in data throughout.
- Break down cash flow from operating activities line by line
- Connect investing and financing activities to free cash flow
- Spot manipulation red flags across sectors and funds
Reading Company Fundamentals on Screener.in
Screener.in puts a decade of any listed Indian company's financials in front of you for free, but a blank screen full of numbers is only useful once you know what you're looking at. This course walks you through the platform itself, then through the Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow pages, and finally through the ratios Screener calculates automatically, so you can open any company page on the NSE or BSE and form your own view in minutes.
- Navigate a Screener.in company page and know where every number comes from
- Read the Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow statements without a finance degree
- Tell standalone numbers apart from consolidated ones and know which to trust for a given question
Reading Credit Rating Reports and Their Relevance to Equity Investors
A practical guide for experienced retail investors who track stocks but have never actually opened a CRISIL or ICRA rating rationale. Most equity investors treat credit ratings as something only bond buyers need to care about, then get blindsided when a debt downgrade drags down the stock they hold, as happened with IL&FS, DHFL, and Yes Bank. This course teaches you to read an Indian rating report the way an analyst does: what the rating scale actually measures, how to work through a rating rationale section by section, which leverage, coverage, and liquidity ratios agencies track, and how to connect a company's rating trajectory to its equity story before the market reacts. Built around real CRISIL, ICRA, CARE, and India Ratings reports, and grounded in NSE and BSE case studies throughout.
- See why credit ratings matter to an equity investor
- Break down the anatomy of a rating report
- Connect the numbers behind a rating to a stock call
Reading Management Commentary and Earnings Call Transcripts
A practical, transcript-first course on decoding what management actually says on Indian earnings calls, in investor presentations, and in the MD&A section of annual reports. Learn where to find real transcripts on BSE, NSE, and screener.in, how to read the structure of a concall, and how to spot hedge language, guidance shifts, and tone changes before they show up in the numbers.
- Build the skill of reading management commentary closely
- Learn the anatomy of a typical earnings call
- Decode the language management uses on calls
Reading Reliance Industries' Annual Report: A Beginner's Walkthrough
Most first-time investors never open the annual report of a company they own. This course fixes that using Reliance Industries, India's largest listed company, as the worked example. You will learn to read the Chairman's statement, understand RIL's four businesses, and walk through its actual balance sheet and profit and loss statement line by line, so you can do the same for any company you hold.
- Why the annual report matters more than the quarterly result or the share price
- How to find and navigate a company's annual report on its website and on NSE/BSE
- How to read a Chairman's statement and MD&A without getting lost in jargon
Risk, Return, and Portfolio Construction Basics
A ground-up, India-specific guide to the two ideas every investing decision actually rests on: risk and return. Built for college students, first-time demat holders, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who can quote a stock's return but have never been taught what risk really means, why a 15% FD-beating return can still be a bad outcome, or why one hot stock tip is not a portfolio. Covers the real difference between risk and volatility, the main types of investment risk, CAGR versus absolute returns, real versus nominal returns after inflation, post-tax returns under India's current STCG and LTCG rules, and the basics of asset allocation and diversification, using real NSE and BSE examples, screener.in data, Zerodha statements, and SEBI-relevant rules throughout.
- Learn what risk actually means when investing
- Understand return properly, beyond just the headline number
- Build your first diversified portfolio with confidence
Sectoral Analysis: Understanding How Different Industries Behave
A sector-by-sector guide to how Indian industries actually make money, what drives their earnings, and why the same ratio means completely different things in a bank, an IT services firm, and a cement maker. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who already know the basics of reading financial statements and want to analyse stocks and sector funds with an industry lens. Covers NSE sectoral indices, cyclical vs defensive behaviour, sector-specific KPIs and valuation multiples, and sector rotation, using real Nifty sector data, Screener.in, and listed Indian companies throughout.
Setting Up Price and News Alerts Across Platforms
Most investors either have no alerts at all or have forty of them firing every day, and both end the same way: the one move that mattered gets missed. This course treats alerts as a system, not a feature. You will design an alert register that ties every holding to a specific trigger and a specific action, then build it across the platforms Indian investors actually use: price alerts and Alert Triggers Order on Zerodha Kite, GTT orders, alerts on Groww and Upstox, chart and indicator alerts on TradingView, corporate filing alerts from NSE and BSE, result and announcement tracking on Screener.in, news alerts that filter out market chatter, and mutual fund alerts for NAV moves and portfolio disclosures. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who cannot watch a screen all day and need their portfolio to tap them on the shoulder only when it matters.
- Design an alert register that maps every holding to a trigger, a platform, and a pre-decided action
- Set price alerts and Alert Triggers Order on Zerodha Kite, and know when a GTT order is the better tool
- Build crossing, channel, percentage-move and indicator alerts on TradingView without hitting plan limits blindly
Setting Up and Using a Personal Portfolio Tracker in Excel
A practical, step by step course on building your own portfolio tracker in Excel or Google Sheets. You will learn to log every transaction correctly, pull live prices, calculate true annualized returns with XIRR, track dividends and corporate actions, and keep a tracker that survives tax season instead of falling apart by March.
- Set up a Holdings, Transactions, and Dashboard sheet structure that scales as your portfolio grows
- Log buy and sell transactions so average price and realized gains are always correct
- Pull live prices into your sheet with GOOGLEFINANCE or Excel Stock Data Types
Understanding Bond Pricing: Yield to Maturity, Duration, and Convexity
A rigorous, India-first course on how bonds are actually priced and how their risk is measured. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs who already know what a bond is and now want to price one, compute its yield to maturity, and size its interest rate risk using Macaulay duration, modified duration, PV01, and convexity. Uses G-Secs, SDLs, and corporate bonds traded on NSE, BSE, and RBI Retail Direct, debt fund factsheets, and real RBI rate cycles throughout, with every formula worked in INR.
- Price any fixed-coupon bond by discounting its cash flows, and separate clean price from accrued interest
- Compute yield to maturity by hand and in Excel, and understand the reinvestment assumption behind it
- Evaluate callable bonds using yield to call and yield to worst
Understanding Bonus Shares Through the Case of Infosys
Bonus shares are one of the most misunderstood corporate actions on the Indian market. Using Infosys, one of NSE's most bonus-active large caps, as a running example, this course walks through what a bonus issue is, what it does and does not do to your wealth, and how to read one like an analyst instead of just cheering the headline.
- What a bonus share issue is and why companies choose to do it
- How bonus ratios, record dates, and ex-dates change what you hold and what it's worth
- Infosys's full bonus history and what each issue meant for a long-term holder
Understanding CDSL Easi and NSDL Speed-e for Demat Statements
Your broker's app is not your demat account. CDSL and NSDL, India's two depositories, hold the real record of what you own, and every investor should know how to log in directly, read a Consolidated Account Statement, and spot a discrepancy before it becomes a problem. This course walks you through registering on CDSL Easi and NSDL Speed-e, reading your holdings and CAS, and protecting your demat login from fraud.
- Why your demat account sits with a depository, not your broker, and what that means for you
- The practical differences between CDSL and NSDL and how to tell which one holds your holdings
- How to register for and navigate CDSL Easi and Easiest
Understanding Consolidated vs Standalone Financial Statements
Every listed Indian company with subsidiaries publishes two sets of numbers, and picking the wrong one can make a stock look cheap, safe, or profitable when it is none of those. This course shows you exactly how consolidation works under Ind AS, where the two versions live on BSE, NSE and screener.in, how to read the gap between them, and how groups like Tata Motors, Reliance, Bajaj Finserv and Adani use subsidiary structures. You finish with a practical checklist for deciding which statement to trust for every ratio you run.
- Why Indian companies report standalone and consolidated numbers, and which laws and SEBI rules require it
- How to pull both versions from annual reports, BSE and NSE result filings, and screener.in without mixing them up
- How consolidation works: control, line-by-line addition, intra-group eliminations, non-controlling interest and goodwill
Understanding Cyclical vs Defensive Stocks
A deep guide to the two behaviours that shape every Indian portfolio: stocks whose earnings rise and fall with the economy, and stocks whose earnings hold steady through it. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who want to know what they actually own and how it will behave in the next downturn. Covers how to classify and measure cyclicality on Screener.in, the economics of commodity, demand, and rate cyclicals, why defensives command a premium and when it stops paying, valuing stocks across the cycle with normalised earnings and price to book, tracking Indian leading indicators and RBI rate cycles, and building a balanced portfolio through direct stocks, sector funds, and ETFs, using real NSE companies and Nifty sector index history throughout.
Understanding Cyclicality in Commodity and Capital Goods Stocks
A practitioner's framework for investing in the most unforgiving corners of the Indian market: steel, aluminium, cement, oil and gas, and the capital goods names that build the country. Learn why these stocks swing far more than the Nifty, how to tell where a cycle is using order books, capacity utilisation, LME prices and margin data, why P/E is a trap for cyclicals and what to use instead, and how to size, time and exit positions. Built around real NSE and BSE case studies including Tata Steel, Hindalco, L&T and BHEL across full boom-to-bust cycles.
Understanding ESG Investing in the Indian Context
A practical course on ESG investing for Indian investors who want substance over slogans. Learn what environmental, social and governance risks mean for returns, how to read SEBI's BRSR disclosures, why ESG ratings disagree, how ESG mutual funds and indices are actually built, and how to fold material ESG factors into your own analysis of NSE and BSE listed stocks without falling for greenwashing.
- Why ESG factors are financial risks, and where the evidence on ESG and returns is strong or weak
- How ESG investing differs in India, from coal dependence to promoter-driven governance
- How to find and read a company's BRSR filing and the BRSR Core metrics that get assured
Understanding Insider Trading Regulations and Bulk Deal Data
An advanced, India-specific course for experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs who want to use the same disclosure data that institutions watch every evening. It covers the SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations 2015 in practical terms: what counts as unpublished price sensitive information, who is an insider or connected person, trading window closures, and the disclosure filings that land on NSE and BSE every day. It then moves to bulk deal and block deal data, the 0.5% reporting rule, the block deal window, and how to tell genuine promoter or institutional accumulation from operator-driven distribution. The course closes with SEBI's enforcement machinery, landmark Indian cases, the SAST takeover thresholds that sit alongside insider rules, and the lines a retail investor must never cross when acting on tips, Telegram channels, or a friend inside a listed company.
- Define unpublished price sensitive information, insider, and connected person exactly as SEBI does, and apply the definitions to real situations
- Locate and read insider trading disclosures, pledge data, and trading window closure notices on the NSE and BSE websites
- Explain the 0.5% bulk deal rule, the block deal window, and the difference between the two data sets
Understanding Market Microstructure and Liquidity
An advanced, India-specific course on how orders actually become trades on NSE and BSE, and why liquidity, not just price, decides what you really pay. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders and HNI portfolios who have moved beyond stock picking and now need to understand the order book, price-time priority, pre-open and closing auctions, impact cost, slippage, and the hidden footprint of algos, FIIs and block deals. Covers how to read market depth on Zerodha, measure liquidity with NSE impact cost and delivery data, execute large orders without moving the price, and build a liquidity-aware plan for smallcaps and volatile sessions.
Understanding Mergers, Acquisitions, and Demergers
An investor's guide to what really happens to your shares when an Indian listed company merges, gets acquired, or splits itself apart. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who hold stocks that show up in deal headlines and want to understand the mechanics instead of reacting to them. Learn why companies do deals, how schemes of arrangement move through NCLT and shareholder votes, how swap ratios convert your holding, how SEBI's Takeover Code and open offers protect minority shareholders, and how delistings work. Then look at deals through an investor's lens with EPS accretion and dilution, merger arbitrage spreads, and the warning signs of value-destroying acquisitions, before decoding demergers, cost of acquisition splits, and the tax treatment of every event. Uses real NSE and BSE cases like HDFC and HDFC Bank, Reliance and Jio Financial Services, and ITC Hotels, with screener.in and exchange filings throughout.
Understanding NSE and BSE Websites for Company Filings and Announcements
A practical, hands-on guide to the two places every piece of official company information actually lives: the NSE and BSE websites. Learn why companies are legally required to disclose results, corporate actions and material events on the exchanges before anywhere else, and how to find that information yourself instead of relying on news headlines or social media screenshots. Walk through the real layout of nseindia.com and bseindia.com, use their corporate announcements and company search tools, pull up a company's full filing history, and read dividend, bonus, split and buyback notices directly from the source. Built for first-time demat account holders, salaried professionals and retirees who want to check facts themselves before acting on a stock.
Understanding Promoter Pledging and Its Risks
Promoter pledging is one of the most under-read risk signals in Indian equities. This course explains what happens when a promoter borrows against their own shares, how lenders set loan-to-value limits and margin calls, and why a falling stock price can trigger a spiral of forced selling that ends with the promoter losing control. You will learn to read pledge and encumbrance disclosures on NSE, BSE and screener.in, distinguish healthy pledging from distress, and interpret ratios like pledged shares as a percentage of promoter holding versus total equity. Indian case studies including Zee Entertainment, Coffee Day Enterprises, the Anil Ambani group companies and Yes Bank show how pledge risk played out in real portfolios. The course closes with a practical scorecard, exit triggers and a monitoring routine you can apply to any stock you hold.
- Explain how promoter share pledging works, from loan-to-value ratios to top-ups and invocation
- Read pledge and encumbrance disclosures on NSE, BSE and screener.in and interpret the key ratios
- Separate legitimate pledging from distress signals using trend, lender type and group context
Understanding Sector Rotation and Business Cycles
A practical, India-specific guide to the business cycle and the sector rotation it drives. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who already understand sectors and basic macro, and now want to judge where the Indian economy sits in its cycle, which sectors tend to lead and lag in each phase, and whether the textbook rotation model actually holds on NSE. Covers leading indicators like PMI, GST collections, credit growth, and auto sales, the RBI rate cycle, Nifty sectoral index performance across real Indian cycles from 2003 to today, relative strength analysis, and how to implement tactical sector tilts through index funds, ETFs, and business cycle funds without wrecking returns through overtrading and tax drag.
- Identify the four phases of the business cycle and why the stock market typically turns before the economy does
- Read India's cycle dashboard: PMI, GST collections, IIP, bank credit growth, capacity utilisation, and the yield curve
- Map which Indian sectors historically lead in early, mid, and late cycle phases and which hold up in a slowdown
Understanding Stock Exchange Listing Norms and IPO Process
A ground-up guide to how companies list on the NSE and BSE and how the IPO process actually works in India. Covers SEBI's listing eligibility norms under the ICDR Regulations, the role of merchant bankers and registrars, how to read a DRHP and RHP, book building versus fixed price issues, investor categories (QIB, NII, retail), and the practical mechanics of applying via ASBA and UPI. Ends with how to read a prospectus for red flags before you invest. Built for first-time demat holders and retail investors who want to understand an IPO beyond the subscription number on financial news.
- Why and how a company lists on the NSE and BSE
- SEBI's eligibility norms for an IPO under the ICDR Regulations
- How to read a DRHP and RHP without being a lawyer
Understanding Stock Splits Through the Case of MRF vs Divis Labs
A short case-study course on stock splits, built around two contrasting real examples: MRF, which has never split its shares and trades above ₹1 lakh, and Divis Labs, which has. You'll learn what a split mechanically does and doesn't do to a company's value, why companies choose to split (or not), and how to read a split announcement without assuming it means anything about the business.
- What actually happens to your shares, price, and holding value in a stock split
- Why a stock split does not change a company's market capitalization or your investment's worth
- Why MRF has never split its stock despite trading above ₹1 lakh per share
Understanding Working Capital and Its Impact on Business Health
A practical, investor-side guide to working capital, built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who already know how to read a balance sheet and want to know what the receivables, inventory, and payables lines are actually telling them. Learn to locate working capital on a balance sheet, calculate and interpret DSO, DIO, DPO, and the cash conversion cycle, read liquidity ratios as trend signals rather than pass or fail tests, and see why FMCG, IT, and capital goods companies carry completely different working capital profiles. Covers negative working capital businesses, the red flags that show up before a cash crunch does, and how to carry this lens into stock screening on Screener.in and into evaluating a mutual fund's underlying holdings, using real NSE and BSE listed companies throughout.
Upstox Platform Guide for New Investors
A practical, screen-by-screen guide to using Upstox as your first stockbroker. Covers opening and verifying your account, finding your way around the app and web platform, placing your first trade, and reading your holdings, contract notes, and funds so nothing on the platform feels unfamiliar.
- How to open and verify a Upstox demat and trading account, including KYC
- How to navigate the Upstox app and web platform without getting lost
- How to add funds and read your trading balance correctly
Using Google Finance and Yahoo Finance for Market Data
A practical, tool-first course for anyone who wants Indian market data on their own screen, not just on a broker app. Built for college students, first-time demat holders, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who want to track prices, build a simple watchlist, and pull a company's numbers without paying for a data terminal. Covers reading and pulling live NSE and BSE quotes on Google Finance, using the GOOGLEFINANCE function in Google Sheets to build a live watchlist and portfolio tracker, and navigating Yahoo Finance for historical price downloads and company financials, using real Indian tickers throughout.
- How to read a live stock quote correctly on Google Finance, including NSE versus BSE pricing differences
- How to use the GOOGLEFINANCE function to pull live and historical prices into Google Sheets
- How to build your own watchlist and portfolio tracker in a spreadsheet you control
Using Income Tax Portal for Capital Gains Reporting Basics
A practical, step-by-step walkthrough of reporting capital gains from stocks and mutual funds on India's income tax e-filing portal, from reading your broker's capital gains statement to filing Schedule CG correctly.
- How to read your broker's capital gains statement and separate short-term from long-term gains
- How to reconcile your capital gains data against your AIS and Form 26AS before filing
- How to choose between ITR-2 and ITR-3 based on your income sources
Using the SEBI SCORES Portal for Investor Grievances
A practical, step-by-step walkthrough of SCORES (SEBI Complaints Redress System), the official portal for filing grievances against brokers, listed companies, mutual funds, RTAs, and other SEBI-regulated intermediaries. Covers what counts as a valid grievance, how to register and file a complaint with the right evidence and category, how to track it through resolution, and what to do when a complaint goes unresolved, including escalation to the SEBI Ombudsman and the ODR portal. Written for first-time demat account holders, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who may never have filed a regulatory complaint before.
- What SCORES is, who it covers, and what kinds of complaints it can and cannot resolve
- How to register on SCORES and file a complaint with the correct category and evidence
- How to track your complaint status and understand SEBI's resolution timelines
How to Read Financial Statements
A practical guide to reading a company's profit and loss statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement through an investor's lens. Shows how these three statements fit together, so you can build a clear picture of any company's financial health before you invest.
- Read the P&L statement to see how a company earns
- Analyze the balance sheet and cash flow statement together
- Put all three financial statements together for a full picture
Stock Market from Zero
A ground-up guide to the Indian stock market for complete beginners, covering what the market actually is, how to open a demat and trading account, and how buying and selling really works. Explains how the Sensex and Nifty indices work and gives first-time investors a simple framework for making their first investment.
- Learn what the stock market is and why it exists
- Open a demat and trading account step by step
- See how buying, selling, Sensex and Nifty actually work
Value Investing
34 courses
Fundamental Analysis Masterclass: Analysing Any Indian Stock End to End
The complete analyst workflow for Indian equities, built for salaried professionals, self-taught investors and finance students who want to stop buying on tips and start buying on evidence. You will learn to understand a business before its numbers, read the three statements the way a buy-side analyst does, run ratio and earnings-quality checks on screener.in, judge management and capital allocation from annual reports and concalls, and value a company with relative multiples, DCF and reverse DCF. Every chapter ends in a concrete output, and the course closes with a one-page thesis template, a position sizing method, an exit rule and two full worked case studies on NSE-listed companies.
- Follow a repeatable eight-step workflow that takes any Indian stock from name to documented decision
- Assess industry structure and moats in the Indian context before touching the numbers
- Read the P&L, balance sheet and cash flow statement together, including notes, segments and consolidated accounts
Advanced Credit Analysis for Equity Investors
A practical credit analysis framework built for equity investors, not bond investors. Teaches experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs to read debt structure, credit ratings, and leverage the way a credit analyst would, so that deteriorating credit quality is spotted well before it shows up in the stock price. Uses real Indian blowups, including IL&FS, DHFL, Yes Bank, and Reliance Capital, alongside CRISIL and ICRA rating rationales, Screener.in data, and annual report disclosures throughout.
- Analyze a company's debt structure the way credit analysts do
- Use core credit metrics and rating actions to gauge risk
- Build a practical screening framework from real credit case studies
Advanced Ratio Analysis for Stock Selection
A practical, ratio-by-ratio framework for selecting stocks, built for investors who already know how to read a P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statement and want to go further. Goes beyond textbook definitions into comparability, sector-relative benchmarking, and the traps that make a ratio look good on paper while the underlying business deteriorates. Uses real NSE and BSE listed companies, Screener.in data, and full worked case studies throughout, and closes with a chapter on applying the same framework to evaluate mutual fund holdings.
- See how context shapes profitability, return and valuation ratios
- Assess leverage, liquidity and balance sheet health beyond P/E
- Build a ratio-based screening framework for stocks and funds
Advanced Valuation: Sum of the Parts and Special Situations
A hands-on course on valuing businesses that a single P/E or DCF cannot handle: conglomerates, holding companies, and companies going through demergers, buybacks, open offers, delistings, and mergers. Teaches experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs to build a sum-of-the-parts valuation segment by segment, apply and defend a holding company discount, and work out the arbitrage math in Indian special situations. Built entirely on real NSE and BSE cases including Reliance Industries, Grasim, Bajaj Holdings, ITC Hotels, Jio Financial Services, and the HDFC merger, using segment reporting under Ind AS 108, SEBI regulations, Screener.in, and exchange filings throughout.
Case Study: Asian Paints, Understanding a Two Decade Compounder
Asian Paints compounded shareholder wealth for the better part of two decades while trading at a valuation most investors called too expensive every single year. This case study takes the business apart: how a decorative paint company actually makes money, the dealer network, tinting and supply chain edge that kept competitors at bay, and the ROCE, working capital and cash flow numbers that powered the compounding. Then it asks the harder questions. How much of the return came from earnings growth versus a rising P/E, why the premium multiple persisted, and what the entry of Birla Opus and other deep-pocketed rivals means for a moat that looked unbreakable. Built for investors who already hold, or are considering, a quality compounder and want a framework to judge one using real numbers from annual reports and screener.in.
- How a decorative paint business makes money, and why distribution matters more than chemistry
- The specific pieces of Asian Paints' moat: dealer network, tinting, demand forecasting and pricing power
- How to read two decades of revenue, margin, ROCE and cash flow data on screener.in
Case Study: Avenue Supermarts vs Future Retail, Two Retail Strategies
A head-to-head case study of two Indian retailers that chased the same middle-class grocery shopper and ended up at opposite ends of the market. Avenue Supermarts (DMart) owned its stores, kept prices low every day, paid suppliers fast and funded growth from its own cash. Future Retail (Big Bazaar) leased aggressively, ran mega sales, stretched working capital and funded expansion with debt and promoter pledges. This course puts the two models side by side, metric by metric: store economics, pricing, inventory turns, working capital, capital allocation and return on capital employed, then shows how each handled demonetisation, GST and Covid. You finish with a reusable comparative scorecard you can run on screener.in against any listed Indian retailer. Written for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors and salaried professionals who want to judge business quality, not just stock price.
- How ownership versus leasing of stores shapes a retailer's costs, flexibility and risk
- Why everyday low pricing and mega-sale pricing produce very different cash flows
- How to compare sales per square foot, inventory turns and working capital cycles across two companies
Case Study: Britannia's Margin Expansion Story, A Forensic Read
Between FY2013 and FY2025 Britannia Industries roughly tripled its operating margin while the stock re-rated from a mid-twenties P/E to over fifty times earnings. This advanced case study rebuilds that margin expansion line by line from the annual reports, then runs the forensic checks an experienced investor should run on any margin story: cash conversion, working capital, related-party lending to the Wadia group, bonus debentures, capex and depreciation policy, fiscal incentives and advertising cuts. You will benchmark Britannia against Nestle India, Hindustan Unilever and ITC, stress-test the story through the FY2022 inflation dip and the FY2024 rebound, and leave with a reusable scorecard for separating durable margin gains from borrowed ones.
- How to build a margin bridge from published annual reports and attribute every percentage point of expansion to a named driver
- Which cost lines (raw material, advertising, employee, logistics, wastage) drove Britannia's expansion and how durable each one is
- How to test whether reported EBITDA is backed by operating cash flow, and what negative working capital does to that test
Case Study: Coal India, Dividend Yield Investing in a PSU
Coal India has spent most of its listed life as the stock income investors love to screen for: a dominant market share, a strong balance sheet and a dividend yield that routinely beat a bank fixed deposit. It has also spent long stretches going nowhere, as a government owner, wage revisions, offer-for-sale overhangs and the energy transition weighed on the price. This case study takes the business apart: how Coal India earns money from fuel supply agreements and e-auctions, how to test whether a dividend is sustainable using payout ratio, free cash flow and cash on the books, and how the majority shareholder's priorities shape everything from capex to payouts. Then it follows the actual returns across two very different periods and asks what a high yield on a business with a contested long-term future is really worth. Built for investors who hold, or are tempted by, high-yield PSU stocks and want a framework grounded in real numbers from annual reports and screener.in.
- How Coal India makes money, and why notified prices and e-auction premiums drive its earnings
- How to calculate dividend yield correctly and spot the common traps in a high trailing yield
- How to test dividend sustainability using payout ratio, free cash flow and cash reserves
Case Study: IRFC, Understanding PSU Valuation Re Rating
Indian Railway Finance Corporation listed in January 2021 as a low-risk, low-return government lender and spent two years trading below its book value. Then, in the 2023-24 PSU rally, the stock multiplied several times over and its price to book ratio expanded far beyond anything its business model had ever justified. This case study takes that rally apart. You will learn how IRFC's cost-plus leasing model with the Ministry of Railways actually earns money, why that model caps its return on equity, and how the price to book and ROE relationship should anchor the valuation of any lender. You will then break the rally into earnings growth versus multiple expansion, work backwards from the peak price to see what it implied, compare IRFC with PFC, REC and HUDCO, and study the drawdown that followed. The course closes with a screener.in workflow and a repeatable framework for judging whether the next PSU re-rating is grounded in fundamentals or in flows.
- Explain how IRFC's cost-plus leasing arrangement with the Ministry of Railways generates earnings and why it limits both risk and return
- Use the price to book and ROE relationship to judge what multiple a lender like IRFC can justify
- Break a stock's rally into earnings growth and multiple expansion, and tell which one drove IRFC's move
Case Study: IndiGo, Analyzing a Capital Intensive Business
Indian aviation is a graveyard: Kingfisher, Jet Airways and Go First all collapsed while passenger traffic kept growing. IndiGo went the other way and became the dominant domestic carrier. This case study takes InterGlobe Aviation apart to show how a capital intensive, cyclical, commodity-exposed business can still create shareholder value, and where it can go wrong. You will learn the airline vocabulary (ASK, load factor, yield, RASK, CASK), how sale and leaseback funds the fleet, what Ind AS 116 did to the balance sheet, why fuel prices and the rupee matter so much, and how shocks like COVID and engine groundings hit the numbers. Then you will value it the way analysts do and walk away with a checklist you can apply to any capital heavy business on NSE, using annual reports and screener.in.
- Why airlines as an industry tend to destroy capital, and what IndiGo did differently
- How to read airline unit economics: ASK, RPK, load factor, yield, RASK and CASK
- How sale and leaseback financing works and why it shaped IndiGo's growth
Case Study: L&T's Order Book, Understanding Infrastructure Valuation
Larsen & Toubro is the closest thing India has to a listed proxy for the country's capex cycle: roads, metros, power, water, defence, hydrocarbons and more, plus a stable of listed subsidiaries. That breadth also makes it one of the harder Nifty 50 stocks to value. This case study teaches you to analyse L&T the way infrastructure analysts do. Start with the order book: how order inflow, order backlog and revenue connect, what book-to-bill and order book cover tell you about visibility, and how to judge the quality of what sits in the backlog, including the recent surge in Middle East orders. Then follow orders into cash: percentage of completion revenue under Ind AS 115, contract assets, retention money, mobilisation advances and the execution risks hidden in fixed-price contracts. Finally, value the company with a sum of the parts that separates core engineering and construction from LTIMindtree, L&T Technology Services and L&T Finance, and finish with a checklist you can apply to any order-book-driven company on NSE, using annual reports, investor presentations and screener.in.
- How order inflow, order book and revenue connect, and why the order book is a leading indicator for EPC companies
- How to measure revenue visibility with book-to-bill and order book cover, and judge the quality of a backlog
- How percentage of completion revenue works under Ind AS 115 and what it does to reported profits
Case Study: Page Industries, Valuing a Premium Consumer Brand
Page Industries does not own the Jockey brand. It holds the licence to make and sell it in India and a handful of neighbouring markets, and on the back of that licence it built one of the most richly valued consumer stocks on the NSE. This case study takes the business apart: how the licensing model works, why premium innerwear in India turned out to be such a good market to dominate, and the manufacturing, distribution and return-on-capital numbers that made investors happy to pay 60 to 80 times earnings. Then it does the valuation work properly. What a premium P/E actually assumes, how to run a reverse DCF on a stock like this, how to compare it fairly with other consumer names, and how to price the risk of a business built on someone else's brand. Finally it looks at the slowdown that began in 2022, the inventory reset that followed, and what the de-rating teaches about paying up for quality. Built for investors who hold, or are tempted by, expensive consumer stocks and want a repeatable way to judge whether the premium is earned.
- How a brand licensing business makes money, and what it gives up by not owning the brand
- Why premiumisation in Indian innerwear created room for a dominant, high-margin player
- How manufacturing control and exclusive distribution translated into high ROCE and strong cash flow
Case Study: Pidilite Industries, Pricing Power in a Niche Market
Pidilite sells a product most people buy once a year and never think about. Yet Fevicol, Fevikwik, M-seal and Dr. Fixit have given it the kind of pricing power that consumer giants many times its size would envy. This case study takes the business apart: how Pidilite splits into Consumer and Bazaar and B2B, why the carpenter and contractor network is the real moat, and why adhesives are an almost ideal pricing power product, a tiny share of the job cost with a huge cost of failure. Then it tests the claim against the numbers: gross margins through VAM and crude oil cycles, the FY22 raw material shock, ROCE, working capital and cash flow read straight off screener.in. Finally it asks what a premium multiple already prices in, where the next leg of growth could come from, and what could break the moat. Built for investors who want a repeatable way to judge pricing power in any stock they own.
- How Pidilite makes money across Consumer and Bazaar and B2B, and why the mix matters
- Why the carpenter and contractor influencer network is harder to copy than a factory or a brand
- The economics that make adhesives and sealants an ideal pricing power product
Case Study: Titan Company, Diversification and Brand Value
Titan started as a watch joint venture between the Tata group and the Tamil Nadu government and became one of the great wealth creators on the NSE, mostly by selling gold jewellery through Tanishq. This case study takes the company apart business by business: how trust became a moat in a largely unorganised jewellery market, how Titan funds gold inventory without drowning in working capital, and which of its diversification bets (watches, eyewear, CaratLane, Taneira and others) actually earned their capital. Then it turns to the numbers and the valuation. What Titan's segment reporting reveals, why the market has paid a premium multiple for years, how much of the return came from earnings growth versus re-rating, and which risks (gold prices, customs duty, competition) could break the story. Built for investors who hold or are considering consumer brand stocks and want a repeatable way to judge brand value and diversification using annual reports and screener.in.
- How Titan makes money, and why jewellery dominates its revenue and profit
- How Tanishq turned trust into a competitive advantage in an unorganised market
- How gold on lease and customer schemes shape jewellery working capital and risk
Contrarian Investing: Identifying Value in Out of Favor Sectors
An advanced course on buying what the market has abandoned, without catching falling knives. Learn to separate cyclical troughs from structural decline, apply the capital cycle to Indian sectors, value businesses on normalised earnings and replacement cost, run balance sheet survival tests, identify the catalysts that end a bear phase, and size contrarian positions so that being early does not mean being wrong. Built around real NSE and BSE sector cycles: PSU banks, real estate, telecom, pharma, capital goods and IT.
- Why out-of-favor sectors have historically delivered the best forward returns on the NSE, and why most investors still cannot buy them
- How to diagnose whether a sector is in a cyclical trough, a regulatory overhang or a permanent structural decline
- How to apply the capital cycle framework to Indian sectors like cement, steel, telecom and real estate
Masterclass: Howard Marks on Cycles and Risk
A deep, practitioner-level study of Howard Marks's thinking on risk and market cycles, rebuilt for Indian markets and aimed at serious independent investors, portfolio managers in training and HNI investors. You will learn second-level thinking and the gap between price and value, redefine risk as the probability of permanent loss rather than volatility, and understand why risk is highest precisely when it feels lowest. The course then takes apart the economic, profit, credit, psychology, real estate and distressed debt cycles and shows how they feed one another, before turning theory into practice with an Indian market temperature checklist built on Nifty valuations, credit conditions, IPO activity, SIP flows and F&O data. Two full case studies, India 2007 to 2009 and the smallcap cycles of recent years, test the framework, and the closing chapters cover portfolio posture, disciplined contrarianism, patient opportunism and a personal cycle and risk playbook you can actually run.
- Apply second-level thinking to separate a good company from a good investment
- Define and measure risk as permanent loss, not just price volatility
- Recognise when markets are pricing risk too cheaply and why that feels safest at the worst moment
Masterclass: Investing Through the Masters, Buffett's Framework Applied to Indian Markets
A deep study of the Buffett framework for serious independent investors, portfolio managers in training and HNI investors who already know how to read a company and now want a coherent investing philosophy. You will trace the framework from Graham through Fisher and Munger, apply the circle of competence and Buffett's four filters to Indian sectors, compute owner earnings and returns on tangible capital, judge management through candour and capital allocation, and set intrinsic value and margin of safety at Indian valuations. The course then covers temperament through real Indian market crashes, concentrated portfolio construction under Indian tax rules, Buffett's landmark deals translated into Indian parallels, his admitted mistakes, and where the framework has to be adapted for India. It closes with a full Buffett checklist run on a listed Indian company.
- Trace how Buffett's framework evolved from Graham's cigar butts to Munger's wonderful businesses at fair prices
- Draw an honest circle of competence and apply Buffett's four filters to Indian sectors and companies
- Compute owner earnings, return on tangible capital and incremental returns for an Indian company
Masterclass: Long Term Compounding, Case Studies of 20 Year Holders
A case-study masterclass on the rarest skill in Indian investing: buying a great business and holding it for 20 years. Start with the maths of decades, how CAGR, re-rating, dividends, taxes and inflation really add up over a holding period that spans multiple market crashes. Then dissect real NSE and BSE compounders across consumer, financial and industrial sectors, reconstructing what the business looked like at the start, what an early holder had to believe, and the drawdowns they had to sit through. Study the holders as much as the stocks, from Chandrakant Sampat's patience to Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's Titan, and confront the other side of survivorship bias: former darlings that went to zero or went nowhere for a decade. Finish by building your own compounder checklist, sizing and review rhythm, and a tax-efficient 20-year holding plan under current Indian capital gains rules.
- Decompose any 20-year stock return into earnings growth, re-rating and dividends
- Recognise the traits shared by Indian compounders and the warning signs in the ones that failed
- Hold through deep drawdowns with a written thesis, review rhythm and clear sell rules
Masterclass: Munger's Mental Models for Stock Selection
Charlie Munger's edge was not a formula but a way of thinking: a latticework of models from economics, psychology, mathematics and biology, applied with patience and a ruthless willingness to say no. This masterclass turns that method into a practical stock selection process for serious Indian investors. You will learn to draw your circle of competence on the NSE, invert every thesis to find how it fails, use opportunity cost as your real hurdle rate, read promoter and management incentives in Indian filings, spot Munger's psychological tendencies in your own portfolio, and build a written checklist and decision journal. The course closes with full case studies that run Indian companies through every model, and a personal operating system you can use for every future buy and sell decision.
- Build a latticework of core mental models and apply more than one to every stock decision
- Define your circle of competence and use a too-hard pile to eliminate most listed companies quickly
- Invert investment theses and run pre-mortems to find how a stock can destroy capital
Masterclass: Peter Lynch's Approach to Finding Multibaggers in India
A deep, practical masterclass on Peter Lynch's stock-picking method, adapted line by line for Indian markets. Start with what actually drove Lynch's record at Magellan, the maths of how a stock becomes a multibagger through earnings growth plus re-rating, and the amateur's edge an observant Indian investor has over institutions. Learn to sort every company into Lynch's six categories (slow growers, stalwarts, fast growers, cyclicals, turnarounds and asset plays) because each one is bought, valued and sold differently. Go hunting for ideas using Lynch's traits of the perfect stock, the stocks he warned against, scuttlebutt and screener.in screens. Then run the numbers that matter: the PEG ratio and its Indian pitfalls, earnings quality, balance sheet strength, inventories and receivables, and promoter buying and buybacks. Write and test the two-minute drill story, build a portfolio sized for fast growers, and apply category-specific sell rules. Finish with Indian multibagger case studies and a complete Lynch checklist you can run on any NSE-listed company.
- Classify any Indian listed company into Lynch's six categories and apply the right valuation and sell rules for each
- Screen for Lynch-style candidates on screener.in and stress-test them with the PEG ratio, balance sheet and earnings quality checks
- Write a two-minute drill story for a stock, track it quarterly, and know when the story has broken
Masterclass: Philip Fisher's Scuttlebutt Method for Indian Small Caps
A deep, practical masterclass on Philip Fisher's scuttlebutt method, adapted for Indian small caps where coverage is thin, disclosure is patchy and the best information sits with dealers, customers, competitors and former employees. Start with what Fisher actually did and why under-researched Indian small caps suit his approach, then rebuild all fifteen of his points for Indian businesses and turn them into a weighted scorecard. Do the desk work first: annual reports, concall transcripts, BSE and NSE filings, shareholding and pledge data, related party disclosures and alternative data a retail investor can actually access. Then go into the field, within the legal line drawn by SEBI's insider trading regulations, to run conversations with channel partners, customers, competitors, suppliers and industry veterans, and to get real value from plant visits, AGMs and trade fairs. Judge promoters on track record, candour and governance, triangulate conflicting evidence into a written scuttlebutt memo, value growth without overpaying, size positions for small-cap liquidity, and apply Fisher's three reasons to sell. Finish with a full worked case study and a reusable scuttlebutt playbook.
- What Philip Fisher's scuttlebutt method really is, and why thinly covered Indian small caps are where it gives the biggest edge
- How to apply all fifteen of Fisher's points to Indian businesses and score them with a weighted scorecard
- How to do the desk work first using annual reports, concall transcripts, BSE and NSE filings, shareholding, pledge and related party data
Masterclass: Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's Investing Philosophy
A deep masterclass on the investing philosophy of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, the chartered accountant who started with ₹5,000 in 1985 and became India's best known investor. Start with the story and the two engines behind it, trading and long-term investing, and his unshakeable bet on the India growth story, along with an honest look at what his record can and cannot teach a retail investor. Work through his core tenets: buy right and sit tight, backing the right promoters, hunting for scalable businesses with long runways, buying when India is out of favour, and respecting the market enough to accept losses. Learn how he read businesses through consumption and demographic themes, how he paid for growth without overpaying, and how cycles and PSU bets fit his playbook, then build Jhunjhunwala-style screens on screener.in. Study the winners, including Titan, CRISIL, Lupin, Tata Tea and his late-career IPO bets, and the losses and controversies, including the Aptech SEBI settlement and the 2008 drawdown. Finish with how he sized, held and sold positions, why copying superstar shareholding disclosures fails, and a complete Jhunjhunwala checklist you can run on any NSE-listed company.
- Apply Jhunjhunwala's tests for management quality, scalability and long runways to any Indian listed company
- Study his biggest winners and mistakes to understand how conviction, valuation and cycles interact over decades
- Build your own buy right, sit tight process with sizing, holding and selling rules suited to a retail investor
Practice Drills: Applying Munger's Mental Models to a Live Stock Pick
A hands-on drill course for serious investors who know Munger's mental models and now need to use them on a real decision. You pick one live NSE stock and run it through the latticework, drill by drill: test whether it sits inside your circle of competence, filter a screener.in shortlist through the too-hard pile, and map which models actually apply. Then invert the thesis, measure the stock against your opportunity cost, quantify the compounding machine through ROCE and reinvestment runway, and score the moat on evidence. Read promoter and management incentives straight from the annual report, audit related-party deals and pledges, and run Munger's psychological tendencies against your own thesis. Finish by setting a buy price with a margin of safety, sizing the bet with Kelly-style limits, and writing a complete checklist and decision journal entry you can act on. Every drill uses Indian companies, NSE and BSE filings, and INR figures.
- Score honestly whether a stock sits inside your circle of competence before spending hours on it
- Filter a screener.in shortlist to one pick using the too-hard pile and a model map
- Invert a thesis into a ranked list of failure paths with measurable triggers
Practice Drills: Building a DCF Model From Scratch
A practice-first companion to Valuation Methods: DCF, Relative Valuation, and When to Use Each. Instead of more theory, you build a working DCF in Google Sheets from a blank tab: pull ten years of history from screener.in, forecast revenue, margins, capex and working capital, compute free cash flow to the firm, build WACC from the 10-year G-Sec yield, beta and an Indian equity risk premium, add terminal value, and bridge enterprise value to a per-share number you can compare with the NSE price. Then stress-test it with sensitivity tables, bull/base/bear scenarios and a reverse DCF, and finish by building a full model for a company of your choice.
- Lay out a clean, auditable DCF sheet from a blank Google Sheets tab
- Turn ten years of screener.in history into defensible forecast assumptions
- Calculate free cash flow to the firm year by year and reconcile it with reported cash flow
Practice Drills: Building a Sum of the Parts Valuation Model
A practice-first companion to Advanced Valuation: Sum of the Parts and Special Situations. Instead of more theory, you build a sum of the parts model in Google Sheets from a blank tab: pull segment data from annual reports and Ind AS 108 notes, value each operating segment with the right metric (EV/EBITDA, P/E, P/B or embedded value), mark listed stakes to NSE prices, apply holding company discounts and tax on stake sales, and bridge the total to a per-share value you can set against the market price. You then run full builds on Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra and Bajaj Finserv, stress-test every segment multiple, back out the stub value the market is paying for the core business, and finish with an SOTP of a company of your choice.
- Lay out a clean, auditable SOTP sheet from a blank Google Sheets tab
- Extract and normalise segment revenue, EBIT and capital employed from annual report segment notes
- Match each segment to the right valuation metric and a defensible peer multiple from screener.in
Practice Drills: Comparing Relative Valuation Across Peer Companies
A practice-first course for investors who know what a P/E ratio is but want to use peer comparison properly. Every lesson is a drill built on a real Indian sector peer set: paints, FMCG, cement, private banks and NBFCs, quick service restaurants and IT services. You start by choosing peers that are genuinely comparable and pulling clean numbers from screener.in and annual reports. Then you drill each core multiple the way an analyst does: P/E after stripping one-offs, EV/EBITDA built from the balance sheet, P/B against ROE for lenders, and EV/Sales or price to cash flow where earnings mislead. You adjust for growth, returns and accounting differences, check a stock against its own history, and finish by turning peer medians and quartiles into an implied value range and a buy, hold or avoid view. Worksheet figures are illustrative; each drill shows you how to rerun it on live data.
- Build a peer set that is genuinely comparable on business model, size, growth and accounting
- Pull clean, consistent multiples from screener.in and annual reports without mixing TTM, FY, standalone and consolidated figures
- Compute P/E, EV/EBITDA, P/B, EV/Sales and price to cash flow correctly, including the enterprise value bridge
Practice Drills: Evaluating a Distressed Debt Situation
A practice-first course for investors who already understand how distress and the IBC work and now want to evaluate a real situation themselves. Every lesson is a drill built on the kind of numbers you find in Indian annual reports, exchange filings, rating rationales and NCLT orders. You start by spotting stress early and rebuilding a company's debt schedule from the borrowings note. Then you drill liquidity runway, the maturity wall, coverage ratios and how much debt a business can actually carry. You map claims through the Section 53 waterfall, estimate going-concern and liquidation recovery, price a stressed NCD against its expected recovery and work through security receipt economics. You finish by building a probability-weighted scenario tree, computing creditor haircuts from a resolution plan and running a full evaluation of a stressed issuer from filings to a reasoned decision. Worksheet figures are illustrative; each drill shows you how to rerun it on live data.
- Spot early distress signals in rating actions, default disclosures, promoter pledges and auditor remarks before the headlines
- Rebuild a complete debt schedule from the borrowings note, separating secured, unsecured, short-term and long-term obligations
- Measure liquidity runway and the maturity wall, and judge whether a company can refinance or will default
Practice Drills: Scuttlebutt Research on a Real Indian Small Cap
A hands-on drill course for serious investors who know Philip Fisher's scuttlebutt method and now need to run it on a real company. You pick one live Indian small cap and work it end to end. Build the desk file from annual reports, concall transcripts and BSE and NSE filings, map the value chain into a source list, and turn Fisher's fifteen points into questions you can actually test. Draw the UPSI line under SEBI's insider trading regulations before a single call, then script and run dealer checks, customer and competitor interviews, and conversations with ex-employees and suppliers, logging every note in a disciplined format. Back at the desk, run the candour test on five years of management guidance, weight conflicting evidence, and score the company on a weighted fifteen-point scorecard. Finish by valuing the growth, sizing for small-cap liquidity, setting sell triggers and writing a complete scuttlebutt memo you can act on. Every drill uses Indian companies, exchange filings and INR figures.
- Choose a small cap where primary research gives a real edge, and reject ones where it cannot
- Build a complete desk file from annual reports, concalls, shareholding, pledge and related-party filings
- Map the value chain into a prioritised list of dealers, customers, competitors, suppliers and ex-employees
Practice Drills: Stress Testing a High Conviction Bet Using Howard Marks' Cycle Framework
A hands-on drill course for serious independent investors, portfolio managers in training and HNI investors who already know Howard Marks's ideas and now want to use them on a real position. You start by writing down the high conviction bet you want to test, separating first-level from second-level reasons for owning it, and mapping its exposure to each Marks cycle. You then read the cycle before sizing: score an Indian market temperature checklist, place the stock's sector on the profit and credit cycles, and measure where the sentiment pendulum sits on the name. The core drills stress test the thesis itself with bull, base and bear alternative histories, a shut credit window hitting the balance sheet, and valuation multiple compression when the pendulum swings back. Finally you convert the stress test into a position size, adjust that size for cycle temperature, set cycle-aware add, trim and exit triggers, replay a 2007 Indian infrastructure bet through the framework, and finish with a capstone stress test of your own bet end to end. Every drill uses NSE and BSE listed companies, screener.in data and INR figures.
- Write a high conviction thesis in a form that can actually be stress tested
- Separate first-level from second-level reasons for owning a stock
- Map one position's exposure to the economic, profit, credit and psychology cycles
Understanding Cross Holdings and Group Company Valuation
A hands-on course on how Indian business groups are wired together and what that means for the price you pay for a share. Teaches experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs to trace ownership through subsidiaries, associates, and promoter vehicles, read standalone versus consolidated numbers under Ind AS 110 and Ind AS 28, separate core business value from the value of stakes held, and spot where cross holdings inflate market caps, leak value through related party deals, or hide an unlocking opportunity. Built on real NSE and BSE cases including the Tata group and Tata Sons, Bajaj Holdings and Maharashtra Scooters, Grasim and Aditya Birla Capital, Mahindra and Mahindra, and Reliance Industries, using BSE shareholding filings, annual reports, SEBI regulations, and Screener.in throughout.
- Map any Indian business group from BSE shareholding pattern filings and annual report subsidiary lists
- Read standalone and consolidated statements correctly and know where associate and JV profits appear
- Split a company's value into core business value and the value of stakes it holds, without double counting
Understanding Distressed Debt and Turnaround Investing
A practical guide to investing in companies under financial stress, built for experienced Indian retail investors, active traders, and HNIs. Covers the full distress cycle: how the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code works, why equity usually gets wiped out under the Section 53 waterfall, how to map a capital structure and estimate recovery value, which distressed instruments Indian investors can actually access, and how to separate a genuine turnaround from a value trap. Uses real cases throughout, including Bhushan Steel, Essar Steel, Jet Airways, Ruchi Soya, Suzlon, Vodafone Idea, and Yes Bank, with data from Screener.in, NCLT orders, and exchange filings.
- Read the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code process from default to resolution and know where equity sits in the waterfall
- Map a stressed company's capital structure and estimate liquidation and recovery values
- Understand security receipts, stressed NCDs, and distressed credit AIFs and which ones a retail investor can access
Understanding Economic Moats and Competitive Advantage
A practical guide to identifying, measuring, and valuing durable competitive advantages in Indian listed companies. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who already read financial statements and want to separate genuinely great businesses from temporarily good ones. Covers the five moat sources (intangibles, switching costs, network effects, cost advantages, efficient scale), how moats show up in ROCE, margins, and cash flows on Screener.in, how moats erode through disruption and regulation, and how to avoid overpaying for quality, using real NSE and BSE listed examples throughout.
Understanding Special Situations Investing: Spin Offs, Demergers, Buybacks
A strategy course on making money from corporate events rather than from earnings forecasts. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs who want a repeatable process for demergers, spin-offs, buybacks, open offers, delistings, rights issues, and merger arbitrage on NSE and BSE. Covers why these events create mispricing, where to find them before the crowd, how to read the scheme documents and SEBI filings that decide the payoff, how to size positions when capital is locked up, and how the post-October 2024 tax rules change the buyback trade. Anchored in real Indian cases including Jio Financial Services, ITC Hotels, Siemens Energy India, Tata Motors, TCS and Infosys buybacks, the Reliance and Bharti Airtel rights issues, the Vedanta five-way split, and the HDFC merger, using BSE corporate announcements, NCLT filings, SEBI regulations, and Screener.in throughout.
Valuation Methods: DCF, Relative Valuation, and When to Use Each
A practical, India-focused course for investors who can already read financial statements and now want to answer the harder question: what is this stock actually worth? Build a DCF from the ground up for an Indian listed company, from free cash flow and cost of equity using Indian government bond yields, through WACC, terminal value and the bridge to value per share. Then learn relative valuation properly: P/E, PEG, EV/EBITDA, P/B and historical valuation bands on screener.in, and how to pick a peer set that is genuinely comparable. Most importantly, learn which method fits which business, from FMCG and IT services to cyclicals, banks and NBFCs, loss-making new-age listings and holding companies. Finish with reverse DCF, common valuation traps, reconciling methods that disagree, and a full case study on a Nifty 50 company that ends in a buy, hold or avoid decision.
Technical Trading
6 courses
Advanced TradingView: Multi Timeframe and Strategy Backtesting
You already know your way around TradingView: charts, indicators, alerts. This course takes you to the part most traders skip. First, multi-timeframe analysis done with discipline: how to pick a timeframe stack that fits NSE's 375-minute session, read trend, setup and trigger from different timeframes, and resolve conflicts between them. Then the Strategy Tester, decoded: which metrics actually matter, how to load realistic Zerodha brokerage, STT, exchange charges, GST, stamp duty and slippage in INR, and why intrabar fill assumptions flatter almost every backtest. Finally, you build and test a multi-timeframe strategy on Nifty 50 stocks, with lookahead bias shut out and the results read honestly. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders and HNI investors who want evidence before conviction.
- Choose a timeframe stack that fits the NSE session and your holding period
- Read trend, setup and trigger top-down, and handle timeframes that disagree
- Build a synced multi-chart TradingView layout with higher-timeframe indicators that do not repaint
Introduction to Technical Analysis (Extended)
A ground-up, India-specific guide to reading stock charts, built for people who are not trying to become day traders. Written for first-time demat holders, college students, salaried professionals, homemakers and retirees who keep seeing candlestick charts on Zerodha Kite and Groww, hear phrases like '52-week high' and 'broke its 200 DMA' on business news, and want to actually understand what they mean. Unlike a trader's course, this one teaches charts from an investor's lens: what they tell you about a stock or the market, how long-term investors and momentum investors use them differently, and where charts fit alongside fundamentals rather than replacing them. Loaded with real Indian case studies across Infosys, HDFC Bank, IRCTC, Waaree Energies, Suzlon, Zomato, Yes Bank, Titan and Eicher Motors, plus Nifty 50, Nifty Bank and Nifty IT index history, so every concept is anchored to a real Indian market story instead of a textbook example.
- How to read a price chart on Zerodha Kite, Groww or TradingView without needing a trading background
- What financial news actually means by '52-week high', 'all-time high' and 'broke its 200 DMA'
- How long-term investors use charts differently from intraday and swing traders
Practice Drills: Identifying Support and Resistance on Live Charts
A hands-on companion to Technical Analysis: Charts, Patterns and Indicators. Instead of more theory, this course puts you in front of real Indian market charts and has you practice spotting support and resistance the way a trader actually does, one drill at a time.
- Spot horizontal support and resistance on live Nifty and Bank Nifty charts
- Tell a strong level from a weak one using touches, volume, and recency
- Draw and trade off dynamic trendline support and resistance
Practice Drills: Reading and Interpreting Candlestick Patterns
A hands-on drill course for practicing candlestick pattern recognition on real Indian market charts. Skip the theory recap and go straight to spotting, naming, and interpreting single-candle and multi-candle patterns the way you will actually see them on a Zerodha or screener.in chart.
- Identify single-candle patterns like Doji, Hammer, and Shooting Star on real NSE and BSE charts
- Distinguish high-conviction candles from indecision using Marubozu and Spinning Top drills
- Read multi-candle reversal signals: Engulfing patterns, Morning Star, and Evening Star
TradingView for Beginners: Charts, Indicators, and Alerts
A hands-on guide to TradingView built around NSE and BSE charts. Covers setting up your watchlist for Indian symbols, reading candlestick and other chart types across timeframes, using core indicators like moving averages, RSI, and volume, and setting up alerts so you can follow the market without staring at a screen all day.
- Why TradingView is widely used by Indian retail investors and how to set it up for NSE/BSE symbols
- How to build and organize a watchlist using correct exchange suffixes
- How to navigate the TradingView chart interface
Technical Analysis — Charts, Patterns & Indicators
A foundational course in technical analysis, covering support, resistance, trend lines, moving averages and key indicators used to read price charts. Shows how to recognize common chart patterns and put them together into a structured trading system.
- Learn the foundation of technical analysis and trend reading
- Study support, resistance, moving averages and key indicators
- Recognize chart patterns and build a trading system
Options & Derivatives
7 courses
Advanced Options Strategies for Portfolio Protection
A defined-risk framework for protecting an existing portfolio with options, built for experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs who already know how calls and puts work. Moves past speculation into protective puts, collars, spreads, index-level and tail-risk hedging, and the real cost, margin, and tax mechanics of running a hedge in the Indian market. Uses real Indian drawdowns, including the March 2020 crash and the 2022 correction, alongside Nifty, Bank Nifty, and India VIX data, SPAN margin mechanics, and ITR treatment of options P&L throughout.
- Hedge a portfolio using protective puts, collars and covered calls
- Apply spreads and index-level hedges across diversified portfolios
- Build a systematic framework covering costs, taxes and margin
Practice Drills: Structuring an Options Hedge for a Live Portfolio
A practice-first companion to Advanced Options Strategies for Portfolio Protection. Instead of more theory, you carry a single model portfolio of NSE-listed stocks through every step of building a working hedge: measure its beta against the Nifty 50, turn that into a hedge ratio and a lot count, pick put strikes and expiries, price the hedge as a percentage of portfolio value, and stress-test it against 10%, 20% and 30% falls. Then you finance it with put spreads and collars, deal with single-stock and bank-heavy concentration, check SPAN and exposure margin, account for STT and charges, and manage the hedge live through rolls, rallies and a crash. The course ends with you writing a six-month hedge plan for your own holdings.
- Measure a portfolio's beta to the Nifty 50 and convert it into an exact hedge ratio and lot count
- Choose put strikes and expiries against a stated drawdown you are willing to accept
- Express hedge cost as an annualised percentage of portfolio value and compare structures on that basis
Practice Drills: Using Options for Basic Portfolio Hedging
A practice-first companion to Understanding Options as a Hedging Tool for Investors. You already know what a protective put, a collar, and portfolio beta are; this course makes you work them with real numbers. Starting from a live NSE option chain, you will drill the floor and cost of a protective put, compare strikes and expiries, estimate your portfolio's beta from mutual fund factsheets, size a Nifty hedge in lots, build a zero-cost collar, add up the true all-in cost of protection, and decide when to roll, hold, or let a hedge expire. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who want a repeatable, calculator-backed routine for protecting a portfolio around budgets, elections, and results season, without turning into full-time F&O traders.
- Read an NSE option chain the way a hedger does, focusing on premium, liquidity, and implied volatility
- Calculate the floor, breakeven, and cost as a percentage of portfolio for any protective put
- Compare protection across strikes, expiries, and India VIX regimes before you pay for it
Understanding Futures Contracts and Margin Trading
An advanced, mechanics-first course on futures contracts and leveraged trading for experienced retail investors, active traders, and HNIs who already know what a futures contract is. Covers contract specifications, cost of carry and basis, open interest and rollover, the full NSE Clearing margin stack (SPAN, exposure, mark-to-market, peak margin, shortfall penalties), broker square-off rules, Margin Trading Facility (MTF) and pledging, directional and hedging strategies with Nifty and stock futures, calendar spreads, cash-futures arbitrage, physical settlement, MWPL ban periods, and the taxation of F&O income in India. Built around live NSE contract data, SEBI circulars, and Zerodha-style broker mechanics.
- Read any NSE futures contract specification and compute fair value from the cost of carry
- Explain exactly how SPAN, exposure, and peak margins are computed and why margin calls happen
- Use Margin Trading Facility and pledging correctly, and compute the true cost of leverage
Understanding Options as a Hedging Tool for Investors
A concept-first course on options as insurance for people who already own stocks and mutual funds. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors, and salaried professionals who want to understand when and how to protect a portfolio without turning into F&O traders. Covers the hedger's mindset, protective puts, hedging a mutual fund portfolio with Nifty options, covered calls and collars, the real costs, margins, and taxes of hedging in India, and a clear framework for when hedging is worth it. Uses NSE contracts, India VIX, real Indian market events, Zerodha costs, and SEBI's F&O rules throughout.
- Tell the difference between using options to hedge and using them to speculate, and why the mindset changes every decision
- Treat a put option as an insurance policy, mapping strike, premium, and expiry to deductible, cost, and term
- Hedge a diversified stock or mutual fund portfolio with Nifty options by adjusting for beta and sizing the number of lots
Futures & Derivatives Explained
An introduction to derivatives and futures contracts, covering how futures are priced and the mechanics behind a futures trade. Explores common futures strategies alongside real market rules and famous blowups that show why risk management matters.
- Learn what derivatives are and how futures contracts work
- Understand futures pricing and common trading strategies
- Study market rules and famous blowups to manage risk
Options Trading from Zero
A beginner's guide to options trading, covering what options are, how to read an options chain and the basics of buying your first option. Introduces core options strategies, option pricing, the Greeks, and the trading rules every new options trader needs to know.
- Understand what options are and how they get priced
- Read an options chain and buy your first option
- Learn basic strategies, the Greeks and key trading rules
Mutual Funds & ETFs
6 courses
Mutual Funds and Passive Investing Basics (Extended)
Description coming soon.
Navigating AMFI and Mutual Fund Utility Portals
Mutual fund paperwork does not end after your first SIP. This course walks you through the infrastructure behind every mutual fund investment in India, AMFI, the RTAs (CAMS and KFintech), and the MF Utility platform, so you can register once, read your Consolidated Account Statement without confusion, and handle SIPs, switches, and redemptions yourself.
- What AMFI, CAMS, and KFintech actually do, and why every mutual fund investor deals with them whether they realise it or not
- How to complete KYC through a KRA and why it only needs to be done once
- How to register on MF Utility, get a CAN, and link your folios
Practice Drills: Comparing Two Mutual Fund Factsheets
A hands-on, India-specific drill set for actually reading a mutual fund factsheet and comparing two funds side by side instead of just going by star ratings. Built for first-time demat holders, college students, salaried professionals, homemakers, and retirees who have opened an AMC factsheet PDF or a screener.in mutual fund page and not known which numbers actually matter. Walks through expense ratio, exit load, fund manager tenure, portfolio turnover, trailing versus rolling returns, and the risk metrics worth trusting, then puts that knowledge to work on real head-to-head comparisons: two large cap funds, a direct versus regular plan of the same fund, and an active fund against its index fund benchmark.
Practice Drills: Reconstructing a Fund Manager's Public Portfolio Logic
Every Indian mutual fund publishes its full portfolio every month. Most investors glance at the top ten holdings and move on. This drill course teaches you to read those disclosures the way an analyst at a rival AMC would: as evidence of a decision process. You will download and clean a real monthly portfolio file, classify holdings into SEBI market-cap buckets, measure concentration and active share against the benchmark, compute weighted portfolio valuations, and place the fund on a value, growth and quality map. Then you move from snapshots to behaviour, building a month-over-month change log that separates genuine buying from price drift, spots tranche entries and exits, and estimates turnover and cash calls. You will extend the method to PMS managers and named large investors through quarterly shareholding patterns and bulk and block deals, learn exactly what public data cannot tell you, and finish by writing a ten-line rulebook for a fund of your choice and testing it against the next month's disclosure.
- Source and clean AMC monthly portfolio disclosures into a reusable reconstruction workbook
- Classify holdings by SEBI market-cap bucket and measure concentration, active share and sector tilts against the benchmark
- Compute weighted portfolio P/E, P/B and ROE and place a fund on a value, growth and quality map
Using Value Research Online for Mutual Fund Analysis
Value Research Online is the tool most serious Indian mutual fund investors check before they buy. This course teaches you to actually use it: read its star ratings correctly, pull the metrics that matter, compare funds side by side, and build a shortlist you can defend, instead of picking funds off a screener's top-10 list.
- Navigate Value Research Online and set up a free account
- Read and correctly interpret VRO's 1-5 star fund rating system
- Understand NAV, AUM, and expense ratio as shown on VRO
Mutual Funds & ETFs — The Complete Guide
A complete guide to how mutual funds and ETFs actually work, covering how to evaluate a fund, compare index funds and ETFs, and use SIPs and SWPs effectively. Walks through the tax rules on mutual funds and shows how to build a mutual fund portfolio suited to your goals.
- Learn how mutual funds actually work and get evaluated
- Compare index funds and ETFs as portfolio building blocks
- Use SIPs, SWPs and tax rules to build your portfolio
Financial Modelling
1 course
Building Your First Financial Model in Excel
Financial modelling is one of the most in-demand skills for finance freshers, but most people learn it by copying templates without understanding why they work. This course starts from zero: what a model actually is, the Excel habits that separate a clean model from a broken one, and how the three financial statements fit together. By the end, you will have the foundation to build and audit your own models with confidence.
- What a financial model is actually used for in real finance roles
- Modelling conventions: colour coding, structure and auditability
- The Excel functions and habits every modeller relies on
Quantitative Finance
96 courses
Understanding the Mathematical Toolkit for Quant Finance: What You Actually Need
A finance-first orientation to the mathematics behind quantitative investing, written for engineers, coders, and systematic traders who want to know which tools matter before committing months to textbooks. Instead of teaching every subject in depth, this course shows where probability, statistics, linear algebra, calculus, time series, optimisation, and numerical methods actually appear in real quant work: sizing a Nifty 50 position, building a covariance matrix from NSE returns, backtesting a momentum rule, pricing a Bank Nifty option, and reading a risk report. Each lesson pairs the concept with a worked Indian example and a clear verdict on how deep you need to go. You finish with a personal study plan and a checklist of the maths you can defer until a specific strategy demands it.
- Which branches of mathematics quant roles actually use daily, and which are mostly interview theatre
- How to think in probabilities and expected value when sizing a position on the NSE
- Why the covariance matrix, not individual stock volatility, decides the risk of a portfolio
Advanced Machine Learning Techniques for Trading: Ensembles and Deep Learning
A rigorous, code-first path into applying ensemble methods and deep learning to systematic trading, for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. Goes from correct labeling of market data through random forests, gradient boosting, and stacked ensembles, into recurrent networks and convolutional architectures for sequential price data, with an honest look at where deep learning helps and where it overfits. Built on real NSE and BSE data (Nifty 200, Nifty Bank, sector baskets), with Python throughout.
Advanced Options Strategies: Volatility Arbitrage and Skew Trading
A quant-grade deep dive into volatility trading: how the implied volatility surface is built from the NSE options chain, why skew and term structure exist, and how prop desks and systematic traders extract edge from them through dispersion, risk reversals, calendar spreads, and vanna-volga adjustments.
- How to construct and read the implied volatility surface from live NSE options chain data
- Why volatility skew and smile exist and how to quantify them using risk reversals and butterflies
- How to trade volatility term structure shifts around events like Budget, RBI policy, and earnings
Advanced Regime Switching Models for Strategy Allocation
A rigorous, code-first path into regime detection and regime-switching strategy allocation for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. Goes from rule-based regime flags through Hidden Markov Models, Markov-switching regression, regime-conditional strategy design, capital allocation, rigorous backtesting, and risk management through regime transitions. Built on real Nifty, Bank Nifty, and NSE data, with Python throughout.
Advanced Risk Management: Value at Risk and Stress Testing
A rigorous, formula-first treatment of Value at Risk and stress testing built for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematic traders who already understand volatility and returns. Covers the three core VaR methodologies (historical simulation, parametric, and Monte Carlo), why VaR breaks down at the tails and how Expected Shortfall fixes it, how to backtest a VaR model properly, and how to build a stress testing framework using real Indian market crises like the 2008 GFC, the 2013 taper tantrum, and the 2020 COVID crash, applied to Nifty, Bank Nifty, and individual NSE stocks.
Advanced Statistical Arbitrage: Multi Factor Approaches
A rigorous, code-first path into statistical arbitrage and multi-factor investing for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. Goes from cointegration and pairs trading through basket mean-reversion, factor construction, signal combination, portfolio risk, honest backtesting, execution microstructure, and the SEBI algo-trading and tax framework that governs running this live in India. Built on real NSE and BSE data (Nifty 500 pairs, sector baskets, Kite Connect execution), with Python throughout.
Case Study: Analyzing a Momentum Strategy's Performance Across Market Cycles
A backtest that shows 18 percent CAGR over twenty years tells you almost nothing until you know where those returns came from and when they disappeared. This intermediate case study takes a completed cross-sectional momentum strategy on the Nifty 500 universe, the same 12-1 monthly rebalanced design built in our beginner backtesting course, and puts it through the analysis a prop desk or quant fund would run before allocating capital. You will define Indian market regimes from 2005 to 2025 using rules rather than hindsight, slice the track record by bull, bear, sideways and recovery phases, dissect the momentum crashes of 2009 and 2020, measure drawdown depth against duration, run rolling Sharpe and beta, attribute returns to sectors, size and style factors, and price the STT, brokerage and short-term capital gains tax that vary with turnover across cycles. The course ends with the performance memo a hiring manager expects, and a verdict on what should change before the strategy runs with real money.
- How to define bull, bear, sideways and recovery regimes for Indian equities with transparent rules that cannot be tuned in hindsight
- How to compute conditional returns, hit rates and turnover for a momentum portfolio inside each regime, and why the averages hide the story
- Why momentum crashes when markets rebound sharply, using the 2009 and 2020 Nifty recoveries as worked examples
Case Study: Analyzing the 2020 Covid Crash Through a Volatility Lens
A beginner-friendly quant case study that re-reads the March 2020 Covid crash using volatility as the measuring instrument instead of price. You will learn what realized and implied volatility actually measure, how NSE computes India VIX, and then apply those tools to the actual 2020 timeline: the calm January, the 38% collapse in Nifty, VIX at 86, two circuit-breaker halts, and the V-shaped recovery. The final chapter shows how to reproduce every chart in Python and turn the lessons into a simple volatility-aware position-sizing rule.
- What volatility measures, how it is calculated from daily returns, and why it is the quant's preferred lens for a crash
- How NSE builds India VIX from the Nifty options chain and what a reading of 12 versus 86 actually implies
- The day-by-day volatility story of January to June 2020 on NSE, including the 13 March and 23 March circuit-breaker halts
Case Study: Archegos Capital's Collapse Through a Risk Management Lens
In March 2021 a single family office lost roughly USD 20 billion of its own capital in two trading days and handed its prime brokers more than USD 10 billion in losses, without ever owning most of the shares it was betting on. This case study rebuilds Archegos Capital's book, its total return swap financing, and the margin-call cascade that unwound it, then dissects every risk control that should have stopped it and did not. Built for aspiring quant researchers, prop desk applicants and systematic traders scaling up leverage, with each lesson mapped to the Indian framework: SEBI position limits, NSE margining, broker pledging rules and the concentration traps that exist on Indian exchanges too.
- Reconstruct how a USD 10 billion family office built USD 50 billion of hidden exposure using total return swaps across eight prime brokers
- Trace the March 2021 margin-call cascade day by day and explain why the fastest bank to sell lost nothing while the slowest lost USD 5.5 billion
- Diagnose the specific risk-control failures at Credit Suisse: static margining, ignored limit breaches, potential exposure blind spots and governance gaps
Case Study: Building and Scaling a Volatility Arbitrage Desk
A case study that follows a two-person Mumbai prop desk from a first delta-hedged Nifty straddle to a fifty crore volatility book. You build the pricing and Greeks toolkit, run the core short gamma book and the relative value overlays (skew, term structure, dispersion), design the risk limits and margin discipline that keep a short volatility desk alive on gap days, move from Excel to a production stack on broker APIs, and work through SEBI's F&O and algo framework, taxation, and entity structure. Every chapter closes with a case drawn from real NSE events, and every number is worked in INR on Nifty and Bank Nifty options.
- Measure the volatility risk premium on Nifty and Bank Nifty using India VIX and realized volatility estimators
- Price and risk manage an options book with a Black-76 engine and a full Greeks ladder (delta, gamma, vega, theta, vanna, volga)
- Run a delta-hedged short gamma book and attribute its P&L to theta, gamma, vega and hedging costs
Case Study: Comparing Buy and Hold vs a Simple Systematic Strategy
A hands-on case study for coders, engineers and quant-curious investors who want to know whether a simple rule can actually beat doing nothing. You will take two clearly defined approaches, buying and holding the Nifty 50 through an index fund, and a 200-day moving average rule that moves between the Nifty 50 and a liquid fund, and put them through the same test on the same Indian data. Along the way you will learn why the Total Return Index matters, how to build both equity curves in Python, how to read CAGR, drawdown, Sharpe and time under water without fooling yourself, and how brokerage, STT, exit loads, capital gains tax and whipsaws change the verdict. The course ends with an honest scorecard and a framework you can reuse to judge any strategy against buy and hold.
- What buy and hold actually commits you to, and why most investors who claim to follow it do not
- What separates a systematic strategy from a hunch: a written rule, a signal, a schedule and no discretion
- How to set up a fair comparison with the same data, the same period, the same starting capital and no cherry-picking
Case Study: Comparing Systematic Strategy Performance Pre and Post Covid
March 2020 split the Indian market into two worlds. Volatility, correlation, liquidity and the retail investor base all changed within weeks, and every systematic strategy that had been tuned on the calm years before it was suddenly running on unfamiliar ground. This case study walks through how momentum, mean reversion, trend following and low volatility strategies behaved across the pre Covid, crash, recovery and post Covid windows on NSE, how to measure that behaviour honestly after costs, and how to diagnose why the numbers moved. Built for aspiring quant analysts, prop desk applicants and discretionary traders who are systematising their process and need to show they can evaluate a strategy across regimes rather than on one lucky backtest.
- Split a market history into defensible regime windows and justify the boundaries with data rather than hindsight
- Compute and interpret CAGR, Sharpe, Sortino, maximum drawdown, rolling returns and time under water for a systematic strategy
- Explain why momentum, mean reversion, trend following and low volatility behaved so differently across the Covid crash and recovery on NSE
Case Study: How Alternative Data Predicted Retail Earnings Surprises
An advanced case study built around Meridian Quant, a fictional Mumbai systematic fund, and its analyst Priya Nair, who is asked one question: can data that arrives before a quarter ends tell us whether DMart, Trent, Titan or V-Mart will beat or miss consensus? Each chapter is one stage of the project: mapping the retail P&L to what alternative data can actually observe, assembling an Indian data stack from GST and UPI aggregates, Google Trends, app-download panels, scraped store locators and price trackers, engineering point-in-time features, building and backtesting a revenue nowcast against Bloomberg and Refinitiv consensus, walking through three real earnings quarters where the model called a beat, called a miss, and got it wrong, and finally turning the forecast into a sized, risk-controlled event trade that survives crowding, signal decay and SEBI's insider-trading line. Built for aspiring quant researchers, prop-desk applicants and systematic traders who want to see a complete alternative-data pipeline in an Indian context, with the failures left in.
- Map an Indian retailer's P&L to the alternative datasets that can observe each line item before results are announced
- Source and clean Indian alternative data: GST and e-way bill aggregates, UPI volumes, Google Trends, app-download panels, scraped store counts and price trackers
- Engineer point-in-time features aligned to Indian fiscal quarters without look-ahead bias
Case Study: How Jane Street Approaches Market Making
Jane Street quotes prices in thousands of ETFs, bonds and options across the world, and in July 2025 it became the most talked-about trading firm in India when SEBI's interim order accused it of manipulating Bank Nifty. This case study takes the firm apart as a market maker: how a quote is priced, skewed for inventory and protected from toxic flow, how ETF creation and redemption keep prices honest, and how options market making works on NSE's index options, the busiest derivatives market in the world. It then reads the SEBI order carefully, separating what is alleged from what is proven while the matter is before SAT, and closes with a Python market making simulator, risk limits, and what prop shop interviews actually test. Built for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants and systematic traders scaling up.
- Explain how a market maker earns the spread and why adverse selection, not competition, is its biggest cost
- Price a fair value, skew quotes for inventory, and recognise toxic order flow using Indian equity and index examples
- Walk through ETF creation and redemption and why Indian ETFs often trade away from their iNAV
Case Study: How LTCM's Statistical Arbitrage Strategy Failed
In 1998 a hedge fund run by two Nobel laureates and Wall Street's best bond arbitrageurs lost roughly USD 4.6 billion in under five months and had to be rescued by a Federal Reserve-brokered consortium of 14 banks. Long-Term Capital Management's edge was relative-value and convergence trading, the direct ancestor of today's statistical arbitrage: buy the cheap twin, sell the expensive one, wait for the spread to close. This case study rebuilds the trades, the leverage and the risk models, walks through the Russian default and the August-September 1998 unwind, and dissects why a strategy that was right on average still blew up. Built for aspiring quant analysts, prop desk applicants and traders systematizing a pairs or spread strategy, with every lesson mapped to NSE pairs trades, arbitrage funds, SEBI margining and Indian liquidity crises.
- Explain how LTCM's convergence trades worked, from on-the-run versus off-the-run Treasuries to the Royal Dutch/Shell pair, and how they relate to modern statistical arbitrage
- Reconstruct how roughly USD 4.7 billion of equity supported a balance sheet above USD 100 billion and over USD 1 trillion of derivatives notional
- Trace the Russian default of August 1998 and the flight to liquidity that pushed every LTCM spread wider at the same time
Case Study: How Renaissance Technologies' Philosophy Applies to Retail Quant
A case study breaking down Renaissance Technologies and the Medallion Fund: what actually made the firm different, which of its principles are genuinely learnable by a retail trader, and where the comparison breaks down. Written for engineers, coders, and systematic traders who want the substance behind the legend, not the mythology.
- What Renaissance Technologies and the Medallion Fund actually did, separated from the popular mythology around them
- Which of Renaissance's principles (uncorrelated small edges, data discipline, systematic risk control) are genuinely usable by a retail trader
- Why capital, infrastructure and data access mean you cannot replicate Medallion from a retail brokerage account
Case Study: Reconstructing a Simple Machine Learning Model for Stock Direction Prediction
A hands-on case study for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants and traders who want to systematise their process. We take a typical claim you will see on social media, a simple machine learning model that 'predicts next-day Nifty direction with high accuracy', and reconstruct it step by step in Python on real NSE data. Along the way you will frame direction prediction as a classification problem, build labels and features correctly, catch the look-ahead leakage that inflates most published results, train logistic regression and random forest models with walk-forward validation, and judge them with the right metrics instead of raw accuracy. The course ends by turning predicted probabilities into a trading rule, subtracting real Indian costs on Nifty futures, testing the edge across regimes like 2020 and 2022, and delivering an honest verdict on what a simple ML model can and cannot do.
- Why stock direction models look so impressive in screenshots and what questions to ask before believing any accuracy claim
- How to frame next-day or next-week direction as a supervised classification problem with clean, well-defined labels
- How to build a Nifty 50 daily dataset in Python and engineer features such as lagged returns, RSI, moving average gaps and India VIX
Case Study: Renaissance Technologies' Medallion Fund, What's Publicly Known
An advanced case study that separates the documented record of Renaissance Technologies' Medallion Fund from the folklore. We grade the sources, take the return series apart, reconstruct the engine from public testimony, interviews and the US Senate's basket options report, and then test which ideas survive contact with NSE data, Indian costs and SEBI's rules. Built for quant research aspirants, prop desk applicants and systematic traders scaling up.
- How to grade the public sources on Renaissance and tell documented fact from repeated rumour
- How to read Medallion's gross and net returns, fee structure and the statistics of a single outlier
- What public testimony and interviews reveal about the signals, the single integrated model, leverage and execution
Case Study: The 2010 Flash Crash, A Market Microstructure Post Mortem
On the afternoon of 6 May 2010 the US equity market lost close to a trillion dollars of value and got most of it back within about half an hour. This course runs the event as a full post-mortem. Start with the market structure that made it possible: fragmented venues, Reg NMS, the E-mini future and liquidity providers with no obligation to stay. Then replay the crash: a large sell algorithm keyed only to volume, high-frequency traders passing contracts back and forth, a five-second pause in Chicago and trades in blue chips at a penny. Weigh the competing explanations, from the CFTC-SEC report to order flow toxicity to the spoofing charges brought five years later, and rebuild the liquidity collapse yourself. Finish with the regulatory fixes, India's own freak trade of October 2012, the safeguards NSE and SEBI run today and a playbook for building execution logic that cannot become the next 6 May.
- Explain how venue fragmentation, Reg NMS and unobligated liquidity providers set the stage for 6 May 2010
- Replay the crash minute by minute across the E-mini future, ETFs and individual stocks
- Show why a sell algorithm targeting a percentage of volume, with no price or time limit, fed on its own impact
Case Study: The 2018 Volmageddon Event, A Volatility Strategy Post Mortem
On 5 February 2018 the VIX more than doubled in a single session and XIV, an exchange-traded note that had returned hundreds of percent by selling volatility, lost over 90 percent of its value after the closing bell. It was not a black swan. It was the predictable result of a strategy with negative convexity, a product that had to buy exactly what was spiking, and a crowd that had mistaken a long calm stretch for low risk. This intermediate case study rebuilds the event the way a risk desk would: the VIX futures term structure that made the trade look like free money, the daily rebalancing maths that turned a bad day into a terminal one, the acceleration clause that ended XIV, and the risk metrics that hid the tail. Then it turns the lens on India, where short straddles and strangles on Nifty and Bank Nifty options are the same trade in local clothing, and on the India VIX shocks of March 2020 and 4 June 2024. You finish with a post-mortem memo and a deployment checklist for any short-volatility strategy.
- Why selling volatility produced smooth, high returns from 2012 to 2017 and why that smoothness was itself the warning
- How the VIX, VIX futures and contango worked together to create the roll yield that short-vol products harvested
- How daily-rebalanced inverse volatility ETNs were forced to buy VIX futures into a spike, and how to compute that rebalancing need yourself
Case Study: Understanding Flash Crashes Through Market Microstructure
A case-study driven walk through market microstructure: how order books, market makers and liquidity actually work, what happened minute by minute during the May 2010 Flash Crash and India's own fat-finger and circuit-breaker moments, and how NSE/BSE safeguards and SEBI's algo trading rules try to prevent a repeat. Built for engineers, coders and systematic traders who want the mechanics, not just the headlines.
- How order books, bid-ask spreads and market makers actually work
- What triggered the May 2010 Flash Crash, minute by minute
- How liquidity evaporation creates a feedback loop that crashes prices
Case Study: Using Monte Carlo Simulation to Estimate Portfolio Value at Risk
An end-to-end case study for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematizing traders. You follow one ₹1 crore portfolio of Nifty 50 stocks and a gold ETF from raw NSE price data to a finished risk memo: estimating the covariance matrix, correlating random shocks with Cholesky decomposition, choosing between normal and fat-tailed distributions, simulating 10,000 scenarios in Python, extracting VaR and Expected Shortfall, then backtesting, stress testing, and decomposing the result the way a real risk desk would.
- Build a Monte Carlo VaR model for a real multi-asset Indian portfolio from scratch
- Estimate volatilities and a covariance matrix from NSE price history
- Use Cholesky decomposition to generate correlated return scenarios
Introduction to Machine Learning for Trading: What Actually Works
A clear-eyed, myth-busting path into using machine learning for trading, built for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders looking to systematize their process. Covers where ML actually adds value versus where it is just curve-fitting in disguise, correct problem framing (prediction vs signal vs execution), the data leakage and look-ahead traps that quietly wreck most beginner models, honest model selection between linear, tree-based, and deep learning approaches, and how a validated signal turns into a strategy once transaction costs and slippage are accounted for. Built on real NSE and BSE data, with Python throughout.
- Why most 'ML for trading' claims online are curve-fitting dressed up as skill, and how to tell the difference
- How to frame a trading problem correctly before touching a single model: prediction vs signal vs execution
- How to spot and eliminate data leakage and look-ahead bias in your features and labels
Introduction to Monte Carlo Simulation in Quantitative Finance
A hands-on, formula-first introduction to Monte Carlo simulation for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematizing traders. Builds up from randomness and probability fundamentals to simulating stock price paths with Geometric Brownian Motion, pricing options via simulation, and estimating Value at Risk. Grounded entirely in Nifty 50 and Indian market data.
Introduction to Options Pricing Models: Black-Scholes Explained
A rigorous but accessible walkthrough of how options are actually priced, built for aspiring quant analysts, prop trading applicants, and traders who want to move past chart-reading into the math underneath. Covers geometric Brownian motion, risk-neutral valuation, the Black-Scholes formula step by step, and the Greeks that drive real hedging decisions. Uses Nifty and Bank Nifty option chains, India VIX, and Zerodha/NSE data throughout so every formula lands on a real, checkable Indian market number.
Introduction to Portfolio Optimization: Markowitz and Beyond
A rigorous, formula-first path into modern portfolio theory for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematizing traders. Covers portfolio return and variance, covariance and correlation, the Markowitz efficient frontier, the Capital Market Line and its link to CAPM, and the practical extensions (Black-Litterman, risk parity, factor-based construction) that fix mean-variance optimization's real-world weaknesses. Built entirely on Nifty 50, Nifty Bank, and Nifty IT data.
Introduction to Quantitative Finance: What Quants Actually Do
A practical, myth-busting guide to what quantitative finance actually involves, where quants work in India and globally, what the job looks like day to day, the core skills that matter, and how to actually break in.
- Explore the quant landscape and where quants actually work
- See a day in the life and the quant toolkit
- Learn practical paths for getting into quantitative finance
Introduction to Risk Metrics: Sharpe Ratio, Sortino Ratio, Drawdown
A clear, formula-first walkthrough of the three risk metrics every serious investor and systematic trader needs: the Sharpe ratio, the Sortino ratio, and maximum drawdown. Learn what each one actually measures, how to calculate it on real Indian market data, where each one breaks down, and how to read them together instead of in isolation.
- Learn why risk-adjusted returns matter more than raw returns
- Calculate and interpret the Sharpe and Sortino ratios
- Understand drawdown and recovery to judge portfolio risk
Introduction to SQL for Storing and Querying Market Data
A first course in SQL built entirely around Indian market data, for engineering graduates, working coders and traders who want to store and query price history properly instead of wrestling with spreadsheets. Sets up a free local database with SQLite and DB Browser, then teaches SELECT, WHERE, sorting, aggregation and GROUP BY by working directly with NSE and BSE bhavcopy data. Moves on to real schema design, primary keys, and joins across stocks, prices and sector tables, finishing with subqueries and CTEs for the kind of multi-step questions a quant or systematic trader actually asks of their data.
Introduction to Statistical Arbitrage
A rigorous, from-first-principles path into statistical arbitrage for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders looking to systematize their trading. Covers market-neutral thinking, correlation and spread construction, the z-score as a trading signal, formal cointegration testing (stationarity, the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, Engle-Granger), building and running a real pairs trade, dynamic hedge ratios with the Kalman filter, the risk and cost realities that make backtests lie, and a first look at factor-based stat arb with orthogonalization. Built entirely on real NSE and BSE data, with Python throughout.
- How statistical arbitrage isolates alpha from a relationship between two assets instead of a directional market call
- How to build a spread and turn it into a z-score trading signal
- How to formally test whether a pair is cointegrated using the Augmented Dickey-Fuller and Engle-Granger tests
Introduction to Statistics for Trading and Investing
A foundation course in statistics for trading and investing, built for engineering graduates, coders, data scientists and systematic traders. Covers descriptive statistics, probability, distributions, correlation and regression, and hypothesis testing, all grounded in NSE and BSE market data, with worked calculations, real Indian stock examples, and hands-on practice exercises in every lesson.
- Calculate and interpret mean, variance, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis on real stock return data
- Apply probability rules and Bayes' theorem to trading decisions
- Understand why fat tails and log-normal distributions matter more than the normal distribution in real markets
Introduction to Systematic Trading vs Discretionary Trading
A clear, jargon-free comparison of the two ways to trade markets: by written rules that are tested and executed the same way every time, or by human judgement applied trade by trade. Built for engineering graduates and coders curious about quant work, and for active traders who want to know whether their process should be systematized. Covers what each style actually is, how a systematic rule is written and backtested, what human discretion does well and badly, how to compare the two honestly on returns, risk, costs and scalability in Indian markets, and how to pick the path that fits your temperament, time and capital. Uses NSE and BSE examples throughout, with real Indian tools and cost structures.
- What separates a systematic trader from a discretionary one, and why 'algorithmic' and 'systematic' are not the same thing
- How a trading idea becomes a written rule with a universe, signal, entry, exit and position size, and how that rule is backtested
- What backtests can and cannot tell you, and the ways both styles fool themselves: overfitting on one side, hindsight bias on the other
Introduction to Time Series Data in Financial Markets
A ground-up introduction to time series data for engineering graduates, coders, and traders who want to systematize their process. Starts with what makes market data a time series, how an OHLCV bar is built, and where Indian market data actually comes from (NSE bhavcopy, broker APIs, free sources). Moves to the one transformation every quant does first, prices to returns, including log returns, adjusted prices, and Indian corporate actions. Then teaches how to describe a series honestly: rolling windows, volatility, return distributions, stationarity, autocorrelation, seasonality, and the cleaning work that real NSE data demands. Every concept is applied to Nifty 50 and NSE stock data with short Python examples.
- Explain what makes financial data a time series and why ordering and sampling frequency change what you can conclude from it
- Read an OHLCV bar, pick the right frequency for a question, and source Indian market data from NSE, BSE, and broker APIs
- Convert prices to simple and log returns, handle dividends, splits, and bonus issues, and rebuild a price path from returns
Masterclass Case Study: A CIO's Post Mortem on a Failed Quant Strategy
A full-length case study for senior quants, systematic fund manager aspirants and prop desk leads. You sit in the CIO's chair at Tapti Quant Capital, a hypothetical SEBI Category III AIF whose residual momentum and quality long-short book in Indian mid and small caps went live in mid 2024 on the back of a Sharpe 2.1 backtest, then lost 31% as the momentum and smallcap trade unwound between October 2024 and March 2025. Across ten chapters you run a blameless post-mortem: reopen the research that got approved, rebuild the backtest honestly with deflated Sharpe ratios and point-in-time NSE data, dissect the risk model, crowding, hedging and liquidity assumptions, reconstruct the drawdown week by week, audit execution and model governance, and examine the people and incentive failures behind the numbers. The case is tested against LTCM, the 2007 quant quake, the 2009 momentum crash and Indian market shocks, and the course closes with the CIO's written remediation plan and a pre-mortem and strategy health playbook you can run on your own systematic book.
- Run a structured, blameless post-mortem on a systematic strategy and separate bad luck from bad process
- Detect overfitting with multiple-testing adjustments, the deflated Sharpe ratio and honest holdout design
- Spot survivorship, look-ahead and regime biases in Indian equity backtests built on NSE and BSE data
Masterclass Case Study: How a Founder Built an Indian Quant Fund From Zero AUM
This masterclass follows Nikhil Rao, a composite founder built from the real decisions Indian quant managers face, as he leaves a Mumbai prop desk and builds a systematic fund from zero assets. Every stage is worked through with Indian specifics: running a personal prop book on NSE through broker APIs, choosing between a PMS licence, a Category III AIF and a GIFT City structure, budgeting for a trustee, custodian, fund administrator and SEBI fees, turning a two-year prop track record into something an investor can audit, raising the first crore from people who trust him, surviving the first real drawdown with outside money, and scaling past the capacity of his own strategies. All fund figures, AUM milestones and returns in this course are illustrative and used only to make the arithmetic concrete. Built for senior quants, aspiring systematic fund managers and prop desk leads who want to know what the journey costs before they start it.
- Decide whether your strategy should stay a prop book, become a PMS, launch as a Category III AIF or go offshore via GIFT City, and what each choice costs in rupees and months
- Build a track record that survives investor due diligence, with audited prop statements, realistic Indian transaction costs and a clear line between backtest and live
- Assemble the minimum viable infrastructure for a live systematic fund on NSE, from broker APIs and colocation to reconciliation and kill switches
Masterclass Case Study: How a Prop Desk Built a Multi Strategy Book Over a Decade
A decade-long case study of a Mumbai proprietary trading desk that grew from one Nifty futures trend strategy and three crore of partner capital in 2015 into a diversified book of trend, statistical arbitrage, volatility premium and event strategies running over two hundred crore by 2025. You follow every major decision in sequence: why the first strategy was not enough, how each new engine was researched and sized, how the strategies were combined into one risk budget, how the book survived demonetisation, the 2018 IL&FS shock, the March 2020 crash and the June 2024 election gap, and how the infrastructure, team, entity and tax structure had to change at every stage. Every number is worked in INR on NSE instruments with the actual SEBI rules that applied at the time.
- Diagnose when a single strategy desk has hit its capacity, drawdown or correlation ceiling and a second engine is needed
- Research, validate and size a new strategy so it earns its place in an existing book instead of diluting it
- Build and run four distinct engines on NSE: index trend, cash and futures statistical arbitrage, short volatility, and calendar and event trades
Masterclass Case Study: Raising the First Institutional Ticket for a Systematic Fund in India
Most Indian systematic funds are built on HNI and family money. The first institutional ticket is a different game: a committee, not a person, decides; a quantitative due diligence team rebuilds your returns; an operational due diligence team walks your office; and a lawyer turns the yes into a side letter. This masterclass follows a composite, illustrative Category III AIF that already runs HNI capital with a three-year live record as it spends fourteen months landing its first institutional allocation. Each chapter is one stage of that process: deciding why an institution is worth chasing and who in India can actually write a Category III cheque, rebuilding the track record, governance and operations to institutional standard, surviving the investment and operational due diligence (including the red flags the allocator found), negotiating fees, capacity rights, transparency and key person terms, and living with the money once it arrives, through the first drawdown and the concentration risk a single large investor creates. All fund names, people and numbers are illustrative and used to make the arithmetic concrete. Built for senior quants, prop desk leads and aspiring systematic fund managers who have raised friends-and-family money and want to know exactly what the next level demands.
- Judge when an HNI-funded Indian quant fund is ready for institutional capital, and what the first ticket changes about the business
- Map which Indian and foreign institutions can actually invest in a Category III AIF, and build a realistic pipeline with conversion math
- Rebuild a live track record, governance structure and operating stack to the standard an institutional allocator's due diligence team expects
Masterclass Case Study: Two Sigma's Approach to Data Driven Investing
A masterclass case study for senior quants, systematic fund manager aspirants and prop trading firm leads. Two Sigma, founded in 2001 by John Overdeck and David Siegel, built one of the world's largest systematic investment firms on a simple bet: that investing can be run like a science, with hypotheses, data, experiments and engineering discipline in place of star stock pickers. This course reconstructs that approach from public sources: the research process that turns hypotheses into signals, the data supply chain and alternative data, the crowdsourcing experiments on Kaggle, the engineering culture and infrastructure, factor-based risk thinking, and portfolio construction across many weak signals. It then tests the model against its failures: factor crowding and the 2007 quant quake, the SEC case over unauthorised model changes, and the governance strains of a founder-led firm. Every lesson translates the lesson to India: NSE and BSE data, GST and UPI as alternative data, SEBI's Category III AIF, PMS and algo trading rules, and a research stack an Indian systematic fund can actually afford. Facts about Two Sigma come from public filings, regulator releases and the firm's own publications; where the course infers how something works internally, it says so.
- Explain Two Sigma's operating thesis and how data, technology and the scientific method fit together in its investment process
- Design a hypothesis-driven research pipeline that separates genuine signals from data-mined noise
- Evaluate alternative datasets on cost, coverage, point-in-time integrity and decay, including Indian sources such as GST, UPI and Account Aggregator data
Masterclass: Building a Quant Fund From Scratch, Structure and Strategy
A founder-level blueprint for turning a set of profitable signals into an institutional quant fund in India. Covers the fund as a business (fees, costs and the AUM breakeven), the choice between a SEBI Category III AIF, a PMS, a proprietary desk and a GIFT City vehicle, tax and algo-trading regulation, strategy architecture and capacity on NSE, the research pipeline and alpha governance, fund-level risk, the data and execution stack, team and service providers, and raising capital from Indian family offices and institutional seeders. Built for senior quants, aspiring systematic fund managers and prop-desk leads who can already generate alpha and now need to build the firm around it.
- Model the P&L of a quant fund and find the AUM at which it stops burning founder capital
- Choose between a Category III AIF, a PMS, a prop desk and a GIFT City feeder using SEBI rules, tax and investor access
- Design a multi-strategy alpha book sized to what NSE liquidity can actually absorb
Masterclass: Building and Leading a Quant Research Team
A leadership masterclass for senior quants, systematic fund manager aspirants and prop desk leads who are about to build or take over a quant research team. Strategy design is assumed; this course is about the organisation around it. You work through the mandate and economics of a research team inside an Indian prop desk, SEBI Category III AIF or PMS, the roles and team topologies that work, how to hire and pay quants from the IIT, ISI and industry talent pool, the data and research platform a team needs before its first signal, a research process built on pre-registration, holdouts and a multiple-testing budget, how to lead PhDs and engineers without killing intellectual honesty, the model risk, SEBI algo and data licensing obligations a head of research owns, and what breaks when the team scales from three to thirty. The course runs on a hypothetical fund, Mahanadi Systematic, from its first hire to a multi-strategy desk, and closes with a 90-day plan and a scorecard for a new head of quant research.
- Define the mandate, cost base and capacity economics of a quant research team inside an Indian prop desk, Category III AIF or PMS
- Choose a team topology and role mix that fits your capital, strategy horizon and asset classes
- Source, interview and pay quant researchers and data engineers in the Indian talent market without overpaying for pedigree
Masterclass: How Top Prop Trading Firms Hire and Train Quants
An inside view of how proprietary trading firms in India and globally source, screen, interview, onboard and evaluate quantitative talent. Built for senior quants who want to understand the machine they are inside, aspiring systematic fund managers who need to build one, and prop desk leads who own a hiring pipeline. Covers the economics of a trading seat, the campus and lateral funnels that feed Indian HFT and options market-making desks, the probability, market-making and coding rounds and how they are actually graded, the bootcamp and graduated-risk model used to train a fresh quant, and the evaluation gates that decide who gets capital. Grounded in NSE and BSE market structure, SEBI regulation and real Indian desk examples.
Masterclass: Managing a Multi Strategy Quant Portfolio
A masterclass in running a book of many quantitative strategies as one portfolio. Built for senior quants who own a sleeve inside a larger book, aspiring systematic fund managers who must design the book from scratch, and prop desk leads who allocate capital across traders. Treats every strategy as a return stream with its own data sheet, then teaches how to allocate capital across streams under noisy Sharpe estimates, aggregate gross, net and factor exposure across pods, set drawdown budgets and kill switches, use NSE margin and netting rules for capital efficiency, and run the full lifecycle from incubation to retirement. Follows Mahanadi Systematic, a hypothetical Category III AIF running five sleeves on NSE cash, futures and options, from its first allocation to a full year of live decisions. Grounded in SEBI regulation, NSE Clearing margin practice and the real history of multi-strategy blow-ups.
- Describe every strategy as a return stream with a standard data sheet covering Sharpe, drawdown, capacity, turnover, cost drag and regime behaviour
- Explain how pod, central-book and hybrid multi-strategy firms are organised and which model fits an Indian AIF, PMS or prop desk
- Allocate capital across sleeves using equal risk, risk parity, fractional Kelly and shrinkage-based mean-variance, and know when each one breaks
Masterclass: Raising Capital for a Systematic Trading Fund
A masterclass for senior quants, prop desk leads and aspiring systematic fund managers in India who have a strategy and now need outside capital. It covers the full raise: choosing between a SEBI PMS, a Category III AIF and a GIFT City IFSC structure; the minimum tickets, sponsor commitment and tax treatment that shape each; fee economics and breakeven AUM; why allocators discount backtests and how to build a verifiable live track record; the pitch deck and the hard questions on overfitting, capacity and key person risk; the due diligence questionnaire and operational due diligence that family offices, wealth platforms and global allocators run; seed and anchor deals, first-loss capital, founders' share classes and side letters; distribution through wealth managers and placement agents; and how to run the pipeline, report to investors through drawdowns and manage capacity once the money arrives. Every lesson uses Indian regulation, Indian allocators and realistic rupee numbers, and the capstone has you write your own fund's capital raising plan.
- Choose the right vehicle for a systematic strategy in India: PMS, Category III AIF, GIFT City IFSC fund or managed accounts
- Model fee structures, hurdle rates, high-water marks and the breakeven AUM your fund needs to survive
- Build a track record that allocators actually trust, and present performance the way institutional investors read it
Masterclass: The Philosophy of Systematic Investing, Lessons From Industry Leaders
A masterclass on the ideas, not the code, behind the world's most successful systematic investors, and how those ideas translate to Indian markets. Built for senior quant professionals, aspiring systematic fund managers and prop desk leads who already know how to build a backtest and now need to decide what kind of firm, process and philosophy they are building. Traces the intellectual lineage from Markowitz, Fama and Thorp through Simons, Shaw, Asness, Dalio, Dennis and Harding, extracts the operating principles each of them actually lived by, and tests each principle against NSE data, SEBI rules and the Indian quant landscape of HFT props, quant mutual funds and momentum PMS. Ends with you writing the investment charter for your own systematic strategy.
Practice Drills: Applying Derivatives to Calculate Greeks and Duration
A drill-focused course for learners who already understand options and bonds and now want to compute their risk sensitivities cleanly and quickly. Every drill uses real Indian market inputs: NSE option chains for the Greeks, G-Secs for duration and convexity. The closing chapter rebuilds the same calculations in Python for anyone who wants to automate them.
- Read Delta and Gamma off a live NSE option chain and size a hedge from them
- Quantify Theta decay and Vega sensitivity for a given options position
- Use Rho to judge how rate moves reprice an options position
Practice Drills: Building a Basic Portfolio Optimization Model
A practice-drill course for quant aspirants, prop desk applicants and traders who want to systematise how they size positions. You know the Markowitz theory. Here you build the model yourself, with no black-box library doing the thinking for you. You start from five Nifty 50 stocks, build the return and covariance inputs, solve a two-stock minimum variance problem by formula, then solve the full five-stock minimum variance and max Sharpe problems in Google Sheets Solver. You rebuild the same model in Python with NumPy and scipy.optimize, trace and plot the efficient frontier, add weight caps, stress-test how fragile the weights are, and finish by converting optimal weights into a whole-share order list for a ₹5 lakh budget on Zerodha.
- Write any portfolio optimization problem as three pieces: inputs, an objective and constraints
- Build annualised return and covariance inputs for five NSE stocks from daily prices
- Solve two-stock minimum variance weights by formula and check them against a spreadsheet
Practice Drills: Building a Cointegration Test for a Pairs Trade
A hands-on drill course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders systematizing their approach. You will take two NSE stocks from raw price data to a defensible pass or fail verdict on cointegration: unit root tests on each leg, an OLS hedge ratio, the Engle-Granger residual test with the right critical values, half-life of mean reversion, and rolling-window stability checks. Every step is worked by hand first, then automated in Python.
- How to pull, clean, and align price data for two NSE stocks so the test is not corrupted by splits, bonuses, or missing days
- How to run and read an Augmented Dickey-Fuller test on each leg, by hand and with statsmodels
- How to estimate a hedge ratio with OLS and test the residual spread for stationarity using the correct critical values
Practice Drills: Building a Covariance Matrix and Running PCA on a Stock Portfolio
A practice-drill course for engineers, coders, and systematic traders who want to build real quant intuition. You will take a small portfolio of Indian stocks from raw daily returns to a full covariance matrix, then run principal component analysis on it to uncover the hidden risk factors driving the portfolio, all worked by hand first and then automated in Python.
- Why portfolio risk cannot be measured by averaging individual stock volatilities
- How to compute a covariance matrix from real NSE stock return data, by hand and in Python
- What eigenvectors and eigenvalues of a covariance matrix actually represent
Practice Drills: Building a Multi Factor Alpha Model From Raw Data
A practice-first course for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants and systematic traders scaling a book. You will build a point-in-time NSE dataset free of survivorship and look-ahead bias, engineer value, momentum, quality and low-volatility signals, test each one with information coefficients, quintile spreads and Fama-MacBeth regressions, combine them into a neutralised alpha score, and run an honest walk-forward backtest with Indian costs and SEBI constraints. Every drill is done in Python on data you assemble yourself.
- How to build a point-in-time NSE universe and returns panel without survivorship or look-ahead bias
- How to engineer, winsorise, z-score and sector-neutralise raw factor signals
- How to judge a factor with IC, IC decay, quintile spreads and Fama-MacBeth regressions
Practice Drills: Building a Real Time Risk Dashboard Specification
A hands-on drill course for senior quants, prop desk leads and aspiring systematic fund managers who will one day have to tell engineers exactly what a risk dashboard must do. Most risk screens fail not in the code but in the specification: metrics nobody defined precisely, feeds with no staleness rule, limits with no owner, and alerts that fire so often everyone mutes them. You work on one realistic book, a multi-strategy desk trading Nifty and Bank Nifty options, stock futures and cash equities on NSE, and write its dashboard specification drill by drill. You write the decision charter, map the book and its risk owners, define the metric hierarchy, and specify Greeks aggregation, intraday VaR and expected shortfall, margin monitoring against NSE Clearing requirements, and stress scenarios built from real Indian market days. Then you specify data feeds, latency budgets, reconciliation and failure modes, write a soft, hard and kill-switch limit framework with an escalation matrix, lay out the screens for three different users, write acceptance tests replayed against a historical stress day, and assemble a specification you can defend in front of a CIO and a CTO. Every drill uses Indian instruments, NSE contract specifications and INR figures.
- Write a decision charter that ties every dashboard screen to a specific decision and a specific owner
- Define a firm, strategy and position level risk metric hierarchy with unambiguous calculation rules
- Specify real-time Greeks aggregation, intraday VaR and expected shortfall for an NSE options and futures book
Practice Drills: Building a Risk Parity Allocation From Scratch
A hands-on drill course for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. You will build a risk parity allocation across Nifty 50, Nifty Midcap 150, 10-year G-Secs, and gold, starting from raw return series and a covariance matrix, working inverse-volatility weights by hand, solving true equal risk contribution in Google Sheets and then in Python, and finally making the portfolio investable with volatility targeting and a rebalancing policy that respects Indian costs and capital gains tax.
- How to turn raw NSE index and ETF prices into clean return series and an annualised covariance matrix
- How to compute inverse-volatility weights by hand and why they are only an approximation of risk parity
- How to calculate each asset's marginal and total risk contribution and check whether a portfolio is truly risk-balanced
Practice Drills: Building a Simple Classification Model for Price Direction
A hands-on drill course for aspiring quant analysts, prop trading applicants, and discretionary traders who want to systematise. You build a next-day direction classifier for the Nifty 50 from scratch in Python: labelling the data, engineering features without leaking the future, training logistic regression and a decision tree with chronological splits, and scoring the output with confusion matrices, precision, recall, and calibration. The final chapter turns predictions into positions, subtracts real Indian trading costs, and runs the full pipeline end to end on Bank Nifty.
- Turn a raw Nifty 50 price series into a clean up-or-down label and measure the base rate you must beat
- Build lagged return, RSI, moving average and volatility features without look-ahead leakage
- Split time series data chronologically and retrain a model walk-forward
Practice Drills: Building a Simple Correlation Matrix Across Stocks
A focused practice-drill course that takes you from raw NSE price data to a finished correlation matrix you can actually read and use. You will calculate correlation by hand for one pair of stocks, then build the full matrix in a spreadsheet and in Python, and learn what the numbers do and don't tell you about diversification.
- What a correlation coefficient actually measures between two stocks
- Why correlation must be calculated on returns, not raw prices
- How to pull clean historical price data for NSE stocks
Practice Drills: Building a Volatility Skew Trading Signal
A hands-on drill course for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematic traders scaling up. You will take a raw Nifty option chain from NSE, solve implied volatility strike by strike, interpolate to fixed deltas, build a constant-maturity skew series, normalise it into a z-score, and turn that into explicit entry and exit rules. Then you will backtest the signal with Indian transaction costs and lot sizes, hunt down look-ahead bias, and finish with a go or no-go scorecard. Every step is worked by hand first, then coded in Python.
- How to pull and clean an NSE Nifty option chain so illiquid strikes and stale quotes do not corrupt your skew measure
- How to solve implied volatility strike by strike in Python and interpolate it to fixed 25-delta and ATM points
- How to build a constant-maturity 30-day skew series by blending two expiries
Practice Drills: Calculating Position Sizes Using the Kelly Criterion
A hands-on drill course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders systematizing their approach. You already know what the Kelly Criterion is. Here you calculate it, over and over, on realistic NSE trades: extracting win rate and payoff ratio from a trade log, converting a Kelly fraction into shares and F&O lots, running continuous Kelly from mean and volatility, shrinking an overconfident edge, sizing defined-risk Nifty spreads and margined futures, and sizing correlated positions together. Every drill is worked by hand first, with a Python sizing sheet as the capstone.
- How to extract win rate, average win, average loss, and payoff ratio from a real trade log without fooling yourself
- How to compute the discrete Kelly fraction for any trade with a defined stop and target, and sanity-check the answer
- How to convert a Kelly percentage into a whole number of NSE shares or F&O lots, respecting lot sizes and rounding rules
Practice Drills: Calculating Sharpe Ratio and Drawdown by Hand and in Python
A focused set of practice drills for two of the most-used risk metrics in systematic trading: Sharpe ratio and maximum drawdown. Each metric is worked out by hand first, from raw daily returns, so the formula stops being a black box. Then the same calculation is reproduced in Python using numpy and pandas, so you can check your hand-worked answer against code and start building the habit of verifying a metric both ways.
- What Sharpe ratio and maximum drawdown actually measure, and why raw returns alone are misleading
- How to calculate Sharpe ratio by hand from a series of daily returns, including annualizing it correctly
- How to reproduce the same Sharpe ratio calculation in Python using numpy and pandas
Practice Drills: Coding a Deep Learning Model for Price Prediction
A hands-on drill course for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. You code a next-day return forecaster for the Nifty 50 in Python and PyTorch from a blank notebook: framing the target correctly, windowing sequences without leaking the future, building a dense baseline and an LSTM, writing the training loop with early stopping, and then attacking your own results with naive baselines, walk-forward retraining, seed variance tests, and real Indian trading costs. The capstone runs the full pipeline end to end on Bank Nifty.
- Frame price prediction as a return forecasting problem and set a naive baseline the network must beat
- Scale features and slice sliding windows without leaking test data into training
- Build a dense network and an LSTM in PyTorch and write a training loop with early stopping
Practice Drills: Conducting a Post Mortem on a Failed Strategy
A hands-on drill course for senior quants, systematic fund manager aspirants and prop desk leads. The case study showed you how a CIO thinks through a failure. Here you do the work yourself, drill by drill, on realistic evidence packs from failed Indian systematic strategies: rebuilding the failure timeline from trade logs and decision records, testing whether a drawdown was bad luck or bad process, decomposing live versus backtest returns into beta, factor exposure, costs and genuine alpha, measuring slippage and capacity on NSE fills, recomputing the deflated Sharpe ratio from a research log, hunting look-ahead and survivorship bias, scoring the risk model against realised volatility, diagnosing crowding and a hedge that failed, and auditing kill-switch rules and a code change that caused a loss. Every drill is worked by hand with the numbers shown, and the capstone is a full post-mortem in Python, ending in a written findings, root cause and corrective action report.
- How to assemble a post-mortem evidence pack and rebuild a failure timeline from trade logs, risk reports and decision records
- How to test statistically whether a live drawdown was consistent with the backtest or evidence that the edge was never real
- How to decompose the gap between backtest and live returns into beta, factor exposure, costs and residual alpha
Practice Drills: Designing a Multi Strategy Allocation Framework
A hands-on drill course for senior quants, aspiring systematic fund managers and prop desk leads. You are handed the data pack for Kaveri Quant, a hypothetical prop desk running five systematic strategies on NSE cash, futures and options, and ₹200 crore to allocate across them. Working drill by drill, you write the mandate, estimate and haircut the inputs, build four baseline allocations by hand and in Python, layer on capacity, cost and margin constraints, add a regime overlay and a rebalancing rule, stress test and walk-forward test the allocator itself, and finish by writing the allocation policy document and defending it to a risk committee. Every number in the data pack is illustrative and labelled as such.
- Write an allocation mandate with an objective, a book-level risk budget and hard constraints before touching any optimiser
- Clean and align strategy return streams, then estimate volatility and correlation with sample, EWMA and shrinkage methods
- Haircut backtested Sharpe ratios for estimation error and multiple testing using the deflated Sharpe ratio
Practice Drills: Detecting Market Regime Shifts Using Rolling Statistics
A hands-on drill course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants and traders who want to systematize their process. The concept course explained what regimes are. Here you measure them yourself, drill by drill, on Indian market data: rolling means and standard deviations on Nifty 50 returns, choosing window lengths, annualised and EWMA volatility, volatility percentile bands with India VIX, rolling z-scores, autocorrelation, variance ratios and the Hurst exponent, rolling correlation and beta between Nifty, Bank Nifty and G-Secs, breadth across the Nifty 500, and formal change-point checks like two-window t-tests and CUSUM. Every drill is worked by hand with the numbers shown, then confirmed in Python. The capstone builds a complete rolling-statistics regime detector and tests it on 2008, 2020 and 2022.
- How to compute rolling means, standard deviations and z-scores on Nifty 50 returns by hand and in pandas
- How window length trades off noise against detection lag, and how to choose one deliberately
- How to classify calm and stressed volatility regimes using annualised rolling volatility, EWMA and percentile bands
Practice Drills: Identifying Overfitting in a Sample Backtest
A practice-drill course for anyone building or evaluating trading strategies who wants to catch overfitting before it costs real money. You will look at sample backtests, learn the warning signs of curve-fitting and data snooping, and work through drills that test whether a strategy's edge is real or an artifact of the data it was built on.
- Recognize the signs that a backtest result is too good to be true
- Tell the difference between curve-fitting, data snooping, and survivorship bias
- Read the gap between in-sample and out-of-sample performance
Practice Drills: Mock Investor Pitch for a Systematic Trading Fund
A drill-first masterclass for senior quants, prop desk leads and aspiring systematic fund managers preparing to raise outside capital in India. You will map your allocator, pick between a Category III AIF, PMS and GIFT City structure, turn a prop book into an allocator-grade track record, build an honest tear sheet, defend your edge and capacity on NSE liquidity, walk through operational due diligence, justify your fee terms, and then face a hostile mock allocator scored against a real rubric. Every drill ends with an artefact you can reuse in an actual pitch.
- How to identify what each type of Indian allocator actually needs to hear before they write a cheque
- How to choose and justify a fund vehicle across Category III AIF, PMS and GIFT City structures
- How to present backtest, paper and live returns honestly on a single allocator-grade tear sheet
Practice Drills: Mock Quant Researcher Technical Interview Round
A mock technical round for anyone applying to quant researcher roles at prop desks, hedge funds and systematic trading firms in India. Each lesson is a drill set modelled on the questions these rounds actually ask: probability puzzles, statistics and econometrics, linear algebra and stochastic calculus, live Python coding, and open-ended research cases built on NSE data. You solve under time pressure, then compare your reasoning against a model answer and a scoring rubric. The course ends with a full timed mock round and a structured debrief.
- Understand how a quant researcher technical round is structured and scored
- Solve conditional probability, expected value and random walk problems quickly and out loud
- Answer regression, hypothesis testing and time series questions with the depth interviewers probe for
Practice Drills: Pricing a European Option Using Monte Carlo Simulation
A drill-heavy course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants and systematizing traders who know what Monte Carlo is but have never priced an option with it from scratch. Every lesson is a worked exercise on a Nifty index option: you set up the inputs from the NSE contract, simulate terminal prices by hand, average and discount the payoffs, attach a standard error and confidence interval to the answer, check it against Black-Scholes and put-call parity, sharpen it with antithetic and control variates, and finish by pricing, validating and reporting a monthly Nifty option end to end in Python. The kind of exercise interviewers at prop desks and quant funds hand you on a whiteboard.
- Turn the terms of an NSE Nifty option contract into the five inputs a Monte Carlo pricer needs
- Explain why the simulation drifts at r minus q and not at the expected return of the Nifty
- Convert standard normal draws into simulated terminal Nifty levels by hand
Practice Drills: Pricing an American Option Using a Binomial Tree
A drill-heavy course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants and systematizing traders who know what a binomial tree is but have never priced an American option on one from scratch. Every lesson is a worked exercise on an NSE stock: you set up the inputs, calibrate u, d and p, build the tree by hand, roll it back with an early-exercise check at every node, map the exercise boundary, split out the early-exercise premium, validate against Black-Scholes and the intrinsic floor, extract the Greeks, deal with dividends, and finish by pricing and reporting an American put end to end in Python. The kind of exercise interviewers at prop desks and quant funds hand you on a whiteboard.
- Turn the terms of an option on an NSE stock into the six inputs a binomial pricer needs
- Compute u, d and the risk-neutral probability with the Cox-Ross-Rubinstein parameterization
- Build a multi-step recombining stock price tree by hand and fill in terminal payoffs
Practice Drills: Simulating a Brownian Motion Path and Verifying Ito's Lemma
A drill-heavy course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants and systematizing traders who have met Brownian motion and Ito's Lemma on paper but never checked them with numbers. Every lesson is a worked exercise: calibrate a GBM to the Nifty 50, turn random draws into a Brownian path by hand, test it against the Wiener properties, watch quadratic variation converge to T as the grid shrinks, isolate the extra dt term in Ito's Lemma, measure the half sigma squared volatility drag on real index returns, and finish with a Python audit that simulates thousands of paths and verifies each Ito prediction within its standard error. The kind of whiteboard and notebook exercise quant interviewers use to separate memorised formulas from real understanding.
- Calibrate drift and volatility for a Nifty geometric Brownian motion from daily log returns
- Turn standard normal draws into Brownian increments with the correct variance and build a path by hand
- Test a simulated path against the four defining properties of a Wiener process
Practice Drills: Solving a Constrained Portfolio Optimization Problem Using Lagrange Multipliers
A drill-heavy course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants and systematizing traders who have seen the Lagrangian derivation of the minimum variance portfolio but have never actually solved one with real numbers. Every lesson is a worked exercise on Nifty 50 stocks: you write the problem in matrix form, check the covariance matrix, solve the first-order system by hand for two and three assets, use the closed forms, add a target return constraint and trace the frontier, read every multiplier as a shadow price, find the tangency portfolio, then hit the wall where a weight goes negative and switch to KKT and an active set. The course closes by verifying each hand solution in NumPy and solving a four-stock constrained problem end to end. The kind of problem quant interviewers put on a whiteboard.
- Write any budget, return or weight constraint on a portfolio in clean matrix form
- Check a covariance matrix is positive definite before trusting any solution built on it
- Set up the Lagrangian and solve the first-order conditions for two and three Nifty stocks by hand
Practice Drills: Stress Testing a Portfolio Against Historical Crisis Scenarios
A drill-heavy course for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants and systematic traders scaling up capital who understand VaR and volatility but have never actually put a portfolio through a crisis. You work on one sample ₹50 lakh Indian portfolio across Nifty stocks, a small-cap sleeve, gilt and credit debt funds, gold and a US equity fund. You map its factor exposures, replay four real Indian market crises by hand, measure drawdown and recovery, watch correlations break, attribute the losses, design hypothetical and reverse stress tests, check whether you could even exit the small caps, and finish by building a replay engine in Python and writing the stress test report a risk committee would expect.
- Decompose a multi-asset Indian portfolio into equity beta, rate, currency and credit exposures
- Pick crisis windows honestly, with defensible peak, trough and recovery dates
- Replay the 2008 GFC, 2013 taper tantrum, 2018 IL&FS crisis and 2020 COVID crash on a real portfolio
Practice Drills: Structuring a Quant Team Hiring and Evaluation Framework
A hands-on drill course for senior quants, systematic fund manager aspirants and prop desk leads. Most quant teams are hired on gut feel and judged on last quarter's PnL, and both habits are expensive. Here you build the whole system yourself on realistic Indian cases: mapping a strategy to the roles it needs, sizing headcount against AUM and fee revenue, writing role scorecards, building a sourcing funnel, setting compensation bands, designing a probability screen, a take-home research case on NSE data and a coding test, calibrating interviewers, measuring pipeline quality, setting research KPIs that do not reward overfitting, attributing desk PnL to individuals, designing deferred bonus pools with clawback, and handling IP, personal trading and SEBI algo obligations. Every drill is worked with the numbers shown, and the capstone is a full hiring and evaluation framework for a ₹500 crore systematic fund.
- How to translate a strategy book into the specific researcher, developer, trader and risk roles it needs
- How to size a quant team and its cost base against AUM, fee revenue and break-even
- How to write role scorecards and build a sourcing funnel with measurable conversion rates
Practice Drills: Structuring a Value at Risk Calculation for a Multi Asset Book
A hands-on drill course for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants and systematic traders scaling beyond one strategy. Knowing the VaR formula is easy; structuring a VaR calculation for a real book that holds Nifty stocks, Government securities, USD/INR futures, gold and Nifty options is where most candidates fall apart in interviews and most desks get the number quietly wrong. You work on one realistic INR book throughout and structure its VaR drill by drill. You fix the question (horizon, confidence, base currency), inventory the positions, and map each one to risk factors: equity beta, G-Sec key rate vertices through cash-flow mapping, currency and commodity exposures, and option delta and gamma. Then you compute parametric, historical simulation and Monte Carlo VaR on the same book, explain why the three numbers differ, decompose risk into component, marginal and incremental VaR, extend to expected shortfall and multi-day horizons, overlay stress scenarios from real Indian market episodes, backtest with the Kupiec test and a traffic light, and write the methodology note a risk committee will actually sign. Every drill uses NSE, RBI and MCX instruments and INR figures.
- Frame a VaR calculation precisely: horizon, confidence level, base currency and what the number is for
- Inventory a multi-asset INR book and map every position to a small, explicit set of risk factors
- Map G-Sec holdings to key rate vertices and translate currency, gold and equity exposures into INR factor sensitivities
Understanding Alternative Data in Quantitative Strategies
A rigorous, theory-and-practice path into alternative data for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. Covers the taxonomy of alt data (web, satellite, transaction, text, supply chain), sourcing and compliance in the Indian context, feature engineering, signal research, rigorous backtesting, portfolio integration, and real Indian case studies from satellite tracking to UPI data. Built around NSE, BSE, and Indian vendor examples throughout.
Understanding Calculus for Finance: Derivatives, Integrals, and Continuous Compounding
A ground-up, finance-first introduction to the calculus that quant work actually uses. Starts with the idea of a rate of change using Nifty 50 price paths, builds derivatives as sensitivities (duration, delta, marginal cost), then integrals as accumulation (total return, expected payoff, area under a distribution), and finishes with the exponential function and continuous compounding that underpin discounting, log returns, and Black-Scholes. Every concept is anchored in NSE and BSE data, INR examples, and screener.in style numbers rather than abstract textbook problems.
Understanding Capacity Constraints and Strategy Scaling
A framework-driven look at why every trading strategy has a ceiling on how much capital it can absorb, and how quant researchers, prop desks, and systematic traders scale AUM without destroying their own edge. Covers market impact, liquidity, alpha decay, crowding, capacity estimation, scaling playbooks, and execution at scale, grounded throughout in NSE liquidity, Nifty and Bank Nifty examples, and real capacity math.
Understanding Correlation and Its Role in Strategy Building
A ground-up, numbers-first course on correlation for anyone who wants to build trading or investing strategies systematically. You will learn what the correlation coefficient actually measures, how to compute it correctly on NSE price data in Google Sheets and Python, why it moves around so much across market regimes, and how it drives the three things every strategy depends on: diversification, hedging, and relative-value ideas like pairs trading. Anchored in Indian examples throughout, including Nifty 50, Bank Nifty, IT stocks versus USD/INR, gold, crude, and the 2020 COVID crash, with a hard look at the traps that catch most beginners: spurious correlations, unstable windows, and mistaking correlation for causation or beta.
- Read a correlation coefficient the way a quant does, and explain what it does and does not tell you
- Compute correlation correctly from NSE data using returns rather than prices, in Sheets and Python
- Tell correlation apart from beta, R-squared, and causation without getting confused again
Understanding Factor Investing From a Quant Lens
A rigorous, formula-first introduction to factor investing for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematizing traders. Covers the theory behind why factors earn a premium, the core factor zoo (value, momentum, size, quality, low-volatility), and the practical mechanics of scoring, backtesting, and combining factors into a portfolio. Grounded in NSE and BSE data, Nifty factor indices, and Indian smart-beta ETFs throughout.
Understanding Implied Volatility and the Volatility Surface
A focused, practitioner-style walkthrough of implied volatility and how it organizes itself into a surface across strikes and expiries. Built for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematizing traders who already understand Black-Scholes and want to go one level deeper into how real options desks read volatility. Covers IV vs historical/realized vol, the smile and skew, term structure, and how to assemble and interpret a full volatility surface, using Nifty, Bank Nifty, and India VIX data throughout.
Understanding Latency, Colocation, and Infrastructure in HFT
A ground-up look at the infrastructure layer of high frequency trading: what latency actually costs, why firms pay for colocation at NSE and BSE, how SEBI regulates fair access, and the network and hardware choices that separate microseconds from milliseconds.
- How tick-to-trade latency is measured and where the time actually goes
- Why colocation at NSE and BSE exists and how SEBI regulates fair access to it
- How fiber, microwave, and FPGA hardware choices trade off cost against speed
Understanding Linear Algebra for Finance: Matrices, Eigenvalues, and Covariance
A from-scratch, finance-first tour of linear algebra for engineers, coders, and systematic traders who want to understand what actually happens inside a portfolio optimiser or a risk model. You will represent portfolios as vectors, build a covariance matrix from real Nifty 50 constituent returns, see why portfolio variance is w transpose sigma w, and meet eigenvalues through principal component analysis of Indian equities and the G-Sec yield curve. The final chapter applies it all: beta via the normal equations, the minimum variance portfolio via the inverse covariance matrix, and the estimation errors that break naive models on real NSE data. Every concept is anchored in Indian market examples with worked numbers you can reproduce in Python or Google Sheets.
- Represent a portfolio of NSE stocks as a weight vector and price moves as a returns matrix
- Multiply, transpose, and invert matrices by hand and in Python, and know which operation answers which finance question
- Build a covariance and correlation matrix from daily returns of Nifty 50 constituents
Understanding Market Data: Tick, OHLC, and Order Book Basics
Every quant model, backtest and trading bot is built on market data, yet most people never learn what that data actually is. This course takes you from a single order hitting NSE's matching engine to the tick it produces, the OHLC candle it gets folded into, and the order book it moved through. You will learn to read Zerodha's market depth window, understand why adjusted and unadjusted prices differ, spot the data quality traps that quietly break backtests, and pull your first clean dataset into Python. Built for engineers, data scientists and systematic traders who want to stop treating price data as a black box.
- Trace a single order through NSE's matching engine and understand what a tick, a trade and a quote each record
- Build OHLC candles from raw ticks and see how timeframe and aggregation choices change what a chart shows
- Correct historical prices for splits, bonuses and dividends and know when to use adjusted versus unadjusted data
Understanding Market Making and Liquidity Provision Strategies
A rigorous, India-grounded path into how market makers actually operate: the economics of the bid-ask spread, inventory risk, adverse selection, order book microstructure, and the regulatory framework SEBI and NSE/BSE impose on liquidity providers. Built for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book, using real Nifty, Bank Nifty, and NSE order book examples throughout.
Understanding Mean Reversion Strategies
A comprehensive, from-first-principles course on mean reversion for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders looking to systematize their approach. Covers the statistical logic of reversion (z-score, autocorrelation, half-life, the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process), single-asset strategies built on Bollinger Bands, RSI, and moving averages, volatility reversion using India VIX, valuation and sector-level reversion, an introduction to pairs-based reversion, and a full Python backtesting workflow. Closes with the failure modes that turn a reversion trade into a falling knife. Built entirely on real NSE and BSE data, with Python throughout.
- Why prices, volatility, and valuations tend to pull back toward a statistical 'normal', and why some things never revert
- How to measure how stretched a price is using z-score, autocorrelation, and half-life of reversion
- How to build and trade single-asset reversion strategies with Bollinger Bands, RSI, and moving averages
Understanding Momentum and Trend Following Strategies
A rigorous, from-first-principles path into momentum and trend following for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders looking to systematize their approach. Covers what momentum actually is as a market anomaly, how to measure trend with moving averages and crossover systems, momentum indicators like ROC and RSI, and how to build a cross-sectional momentum ranking system in the spirit of Jegadeesh-Titman. Built entirely on real NSE and Nifty data, with Indian brokers, costs, and market structure throughout.
- What momentum is as a market anomaly, and why it persists despite being well known
- The difference between trend following and momentum, and where each idea comes from
- How to build and read moving average crossover systems like the golden cross and death cross
Understanding Multi Asset Systematic Strategies
A rigorous path into building systematic strategies that span equities, fixed income, commodities, and currencies, for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. Goes from the asset universe and cross-asset correlation through trend-following, carry, value, risk parity, multi-strategy allocation, rigorous backtesting, and the operational realities of running a multi-asset book. Built on real NSE, MCX, and G-Sec data throughout.
Understanding Numerical Methods in Quantitative Finance: Binomial Trees and Finite Difference Methods
A formula-first, computation-heavy course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematizing traders on the two workhorse numerical methods for option pricing: binomial trees and finite difference schemes. Builds from why closed-form Black-Scholes breaks down, through single and multi-step trees, American option early exercise, and on to explicit, implicit, and Crank-Nicolson finite difference methods. Grounded throughout in Nifty 50, Bank Nifty, and NSE stock examples.
Understanding Optimization Theory: Convex Optimization and Lagrange Multipliers for Portfolio Construction
A rigorous, formula-first path into the optimization theory that underlies modern portfolio construction, for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematizing traders. Builds from the basics of objective functions and constraints, through convex sets and convex functions, gradients and Hessians, Lagrange multipliers for equality-constrained problems, KKT conditions for real-world inequality constraints like no-short-selling, and Lagrangian duality. Every derivation is grounded in Nifty 50 stock data.
Understanding Order Book Dynamics and Microstructure Alpha
A rigorous, code-first path into limit order book mechanics and microstructure alpha for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. Goes from order book anatomy and price formation through trade classification, price impact, and short-horizon alpha signals like order book imbalance and VPIN, all built on real NSE and BSE tick and depth data, with Python throughout.
Understanding Pairs Trading: Concepts and Cointegration
A focused, from-first-principles course on pairs trading for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders looking to systematize their approach. Covers market-neutral thinking, spread construction, the z-score as a trading signal, and the formal statistical test that separates a real pairs trade from a coincidence: cointegration, via stationarity, the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, and the Engle-Granger two-step method. Ends with screening, sizing, and managing a real pair from entry to exit. Built entirely on real NSE and BSE data, with Python throughout.
- How pairs trading isolates alpha from a relationship between two assets instead of a directional market call
- How to build a spread between two stocks and turn it into a z-score trading signal
- Why correlation is not cointegration, and why that distinction decides whether a pair actually mean-reverts
Understanding Position Sizing and the Kelly Criterion
A first-principles guide to position sizing for traders and investors who already have an edge but don't know how much to bet on it. Derive the Kelly Criterion from scratch, learn why full Kelly is too aggressive for real markets, and apply fractional Kelly and portfolio-level sizing to Indian equities, Nifty and Bank Nifty options, and futures.
Understanding Probability Concepts Used in Trading Strategies
A ground-up course on the probability ideas that every systematic trading strategy quietly depends on. Built for engineering graduates, coders and self-taught traders who can write a loop but have never had probability explained in market terms. Covers expected value and edge, distributions and fat tails, conditional probability and base rates, sample size and the law of large numbers, and how these feed into position sizing, drawdown estimates and the honest evaluation of a backtest. Every idea is worked with Indian market examples: Nifty 50 daily returns, Bank Nifty options, Zerodha brokerage arithmetic and SEBI's own data on retail F&O outcomes.
Understanding Regime Detection in Markets
A concept-first introduction to market regimes for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders who want to systematize their process. Builds the intuition behind trending vs mean-reverting markets and calm vs stressed volatility, shows how to read regime signals like India VIX, market breadth, and correlation without any modelling, and explains the statistical ideas behind regime detection (Markov-switching, Hidden Markov Models) in plain language before any code is introduced. Grounded in real Indian market history including 2008, 2020, and 2022. A natural on-ramp to the code-first Advanced Regime Switching Models course.
- Explain what a market regime is and why the same strategy behaves differently across regimes
- Distinguish trending from mean-reverting markets and calm from stressed volatility regimes
- Read India VIX, moving averages, market breadth, and correlation as practical regime signals
Understanding Reinforcement Learning Applications in Trading
A rigorous, code-first path into reinforcement learning for trading, for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. Goes from framing trading as a Markov Decision Process through core RL theory, building a working trading environment in Python, and (in later chapters) training, validating, and stress-testing RL-based strategies on real NSE data.
Understanding Risk Parity and Advanced Portfolio Construction
A rigorous, formula-first path into risk parity and modern portfolio construction for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. Goes from the failures of mean-variance optimization through equal risk contribution, volatility targeting and leverage, correlation regimes, Hierarchical Risk Parity, factor risk parity, and honest backtesting, ending with a live Python build using Nifty, G-Sec, and gold data. Built entirely on Indian asset classes.
Understanding Stochastic Calculus: Brownian Motion, Ito's Lemma, and the Path to Black-Scholes
A rigorous, first-principles build-up of the stochastic calculus that underpins modern quant finance, for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematizing traders who want the actual math, not just the formula. Starts from random walks, builds the Wiener process and its defining properties, develops Ito's lemma from scratch, and uses it to derive the Black-Scholes PDE and formula step by step. Grounded in Nifty and Indian market examples throughout.
Understanding Transaction Costs and Slippage in Backtests
A practical, cost-first look at why backtested returns rarely survive contact with live markets. Covers the full Indian cost stack (brokerage, STT, GST, stamp duty, exchange charges), bid-ask spread and market impact, how to model slippage realistically, why high-turnover strategies suffer more than low-turnover ones, break-even edge analysis, and how to build a cost-aware backtest that won't lie to you. Built for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders systematizing their own strategies, grounded throughout in NSE and Zerodha-level cost realities.
- Why paper returns and executable returns diverge, and how large that gap typically is
- How to price the full Indian cost stack: brokerage, STT, GST, stamp duty, and exchange charges
- How bid-ask spread and market impact create slippage even before you account for broker fees
Using Excel Solver for Basic Optimization Problems
A hands-on introduction to Excel's Solver add-in for readers who want to move beyond manual trial and error. You will set up an objective, decision variables and constraints for a real portfolio allocation problem, run Solver end to end, and learn to read its sensitivity report so you can trust the answer it gives you.
- What optimization means and when Solver is the right tool for the job
- How to enable Solver and structure a spreadsheet around an objective, decision variables and constraints
- How to build and solve a portfolio allocation problem in Excel from scratch
Using Google Colab for Free Cloud Based Quant Research
A hands on introduction to Google Colab as a free, cloud based research environment for quant work. You will set up your first notebook, pull real NSE and BSE market data, and build a repeatable analysis workflow, all without installing anything on your own machine.
- Why cloud notebooks are a better starting point than a local Python setup for market data work
- How to set up and navigate a Colab notebook, including runtimes and Google Drive integration
- How to pull, clean, and store NSE and BSE price data using yfinance and nsepy
Algorithmic Trading
22 courses
Case Study: Building and Testing a Volatility Breakout Strategy on Nifty Options
A hands-on case study that follows a single idea, volatility compression followed by expansion on the Nifty 50, all the way from a written hypothesis to a costed backtest and a paper-trading plan. You will source NSE bhavcopy and India VIX data, build the squeeze and breakout signals in Python, express the view with Nifty options (straddles, directional buys, debit spreads), account for STT, brokerage and slippage, and then stress the results with walk-forward tests and regime splits across the 2020 crash, the 2021 rally and the 2024 election week. Built for aspiring quant analysts, prop trading applicants and discretionary traders who want to systematise.
- Write a falsifiable trading hypothesis before touching data or code
- Source and clean Nifty spot, India VIX and options chain data from NSE bhavcopies
- Build ATR and Bollinger Band Width squeeze signals and a VIX regime filter in Python
Automating Strategies Using Zerodha Kite Connect API
You already know how to log in to Kite Connect, pull data and place an order. This course is about everything that comes after: building a strategy that runs on its own, reliably, inside SEBI's retail algo framework. You will build live candles from ticks, structure strategy logic as a state machine, size positions from live margins, handle partial fills and rejections, code your own kill switch, and deploy the bot on a Mumbai cloud server with a static IP, using a Nifty futures opening range breakout as the running example.
- How to architect an automated strategy as separate data, signal, risk, execution and monitoring layers
- What SEBI's retail algo framework, static IP rules and order-per-second limits mean for your code
- How to build live candles from Kite Ticker ticks and survive disconnects without corrupting your data
Building a Backtesting Engine Using Python and Backtrader
A hands-on build course for traders and aspiring quants who have outgrown spreadsheet and pandas one-liner backtests. You will assemble a complete event-driven backtesting engine on Backtrader: Indian data feeds from CSV and pandas, strategies with proper order handling, commission schemes that reproduce a real Zerodha contract note (brokerage, STT, exchange charges, SEBI fees, GST and stamp duty), slippage and volume rules, position sizers, and NSE futures with lot sizes and margin. You then measure results with built-in and custom analyzers, benchmark against the Nifty 50 TRI, and pressure-test every edge with parameter optimisation, walk-forward splits and Monte Carlo resampling. The course ends with a full momentum rotation backtest on Nifty 50 stocks and a clear map of what changes when a backtest moves toward paper and live trading under SEBI's retail algo framework. Built for quant analyst aspirants, prop desk applicants and systematising traders who can already write basic Python.
- Explain when an event-driven engine beats a vectorised pandas backtest, and why Backtrader is built the way it is
- Load, clean and resample NSE daily and intraday data, including corporate actions, holidays and multiple stocks at once
- Write strategies with correct order handling, custom indicators and no look-ahead bias
Case Study: A Retail Trader's Journey From Discretionary to Systematic Trading
A foundation-level case study built around Arjun Mehta, a Bengaluru software engineer who starts trading Nifty stocks and Bank Nifty on Zerodha on instinct, loses money, and rebuilds himself as a systematic trader over eighteen months. Each chapter is one stage of his journey: auditing his discretionary trades with Zerodha Console, turning instincts into precise written rules, backtesting on NSE data with realistic Indian costs, sizing positions and surviving a real drawdown, and finally going live with Kite Connect while keeping the discipline that stops him slipping back. Built for engineers, coders and traders who want to see exactly how the transition happens in an Indian account, with the mistakes left in.
- Audit your own discretionary trades using Zerodha Console, Tradebook and P&L exports to find where money actually leaks
- Convert instincts into a complete, testable rule set covering universe, entry, exit, sizing and review
- Run a first Python backtest on NSE data with Indian brokerage, STT, slippage and taxes built in
Case Study: Backtesting a Basic Momentum Strategy on Indian Stocks
A hands-on, end-to-end case study for coders and quant-curious engineers who have never run a backtest before. You will take one clearly specified idea, buying the NSE stocks that have risen the most over the past year and rebalancing monthly, and turn it into a working Python backtest step by step. Along the way you will source and clean Indian price data, handle splits and bonuses, avoid survivorship and look-ahead bias, build the ranking and rebalancing engine, and then subtract the brokerage, STT, impact cost and capital gains tax that separate a pretty equity curve from a real one. The course ends with a verdict on whether basic momentum has actually worked in India, and a checklist for what to test before risking a rupee.
- What cross-sectional momentum is, why it has persisted in Indian and global markets, and what the Nifty200 Momentum 30 index tells you about it
- How to write a complete, testable strategy specification before touching any data, so you cannot move the goalposts later
- How to source NSE price data in Python, adjust it for splits, bonuses and dividends, and build a clean monthly price panel
Case Study: Backtesting a Pairs Trade on Indian Banking Stocks
A hands-on, end-to-end case study for aspiring quant analysts, prop desk applicants and traders who want to systematise a market-neutral idea. You will take the classic pairs trade, going long one bank and short another when their price relationship stretches too far, and turn it into a working Python backtest on Nifty Bank constituents. Along the way you will learn why correlation is the wrong test and cointegration is the right one, how to estimate a hedge ratio and the half-life of the spread, how to build a z-score signal engine in pandas, and how the two-leg cost stack in India, including STT, SLB borrowing fees and stock futures rollovers, changes the answer. The course ends with a verdict on whether the chosen pair actually paid, and a checklist of what to test before risking a rupee.
- What a pairs trade is, why it is market-neutral in theory and not quite in practice, and why Indian banking stocks are a natural hunting ground
- The difference between correlation and cointegration, and how to run the Engle-Granger and ADF tests on NSE price data in Python
- How to estimate a hedge ratio, build the spread, and measure its half-life so you know how long a trade should take to converge
Case Study: How HFT Firms Compete on Latency in Indian Markets
A case study of the speed race that now sets prices on Indian exchanges. Start with why a few microseconds are worth crores to a market maker and how high-frequency trading arrived in India after direct market access and NSE colocation. Trace a single order through the tick-to-trade path: colocation racks, tick-by-tick feeds, kernel bypass, FPGAs and clock sync. Study the NSE colocation case in depth, where feed design handed some brokers a first-to-connect edge, and what SEBI's orders changed. Then see the strategies that live on speed, from Nifty and Bank Nifty options market making to NSE versus BSE and GIFT Nifty arbitrage, the rules that shape the race, and the point where spending on speed stops paying. Finish by running the numbers on a latency upgrade for an illustrative Mumbai prop desk.
- Explain why being first by microseconds changes who earns the spread and who gets picked off
- Trace the full tick-to-trade path on NSE and put a latency budget on every hop
- Separate the hardware edges that matter (colocation, feeds, kernel bypass, FPGAs) from the ones that are marketing
Case Study: How a Simple Moving Average Crossover Strategy Performs on Nifty
A hands-on case study for coders and quant-curious engineers who want to run their first real backtest. You will take the most famous trend-following rule in the world, buy Nifty 50 when its 50-day moving average crosses above its 200-day average and sell when it crosses back below, and test it honestly on two decades of Indian index data in Python. Along the way you will download and clean Nifty 50 history, compute moving averages and crossover signals in pandas, build positions without look-ahead bias, simulate an equity curve, and then subtract the brokerage, STT, slippage and capital gains tax that separate a textbook chart from a real trading account. The course ends with a verdict on whether the golden cross has actually worked on Nifty, why it behaves the way it does in Indian bull and sideways markets, and a checklist of what to test before risking a rupee.
- What a simple moving average is, what a golden cross and death cross mean, and why trend followers have used them for a century
- How to write the exact rules of a crossover strategy before touching any data, so you cannot move the goalposts later
- How to download Nifty 50 daily history in Python and clean it into a backtest-ready pandas DataFrame
Case Study: Knight Capital's Algorithmic Trading Disaster
On the morning of 1 August 2012 Knight Capital, the largest US market maker in equities, switched on new code for the NYSE Retail Liquidity Program. One of its eight servers never got the update. Old, unused logic woke up, and in about 45 minutes Knight's router sent millions of orders into the market and built a position worth billions of dollars it never meant to hold. The loss came to roughly 460 million dollars and the firm needed a rescue within days. This course runs the event as a full post-mortem: Knight's business and its order router, the deployment gap and the warnings that went unread, a minute-by-minute replay of how the losses compounded, the rescue and the SEC's Market Access Rule case, and India's own algo failures and safeguards from the Emkay freak trade of 2012 to SEBI's retail algo framework. It ends with an engineering playbook: pre-trade checks, deployment discipline and kill switches you can apply to your own strategies.
- Explain how Knight Capital made money as a wholesale market maker and why the NYSE Retail Liquidity Program mattered to it
- Trace how dead code, a repurposed flag and a manual deployment to eight servers combined into a live failure
- Replay the 45 minutes of 1 August 2012 and show how buying high and selling low at machine speed compounded the loss
Introduction to High Frequency Trading Concepts
High frequency trading is the fastest corner of algorithmic trading, and on Indian exchanges it shapes the spreads, depth and fills every other trader gets. This course explains HFT at the concept level: what makes trading high frequency, how the limit order book and NSE's matching engine work, where the microseconds go and why colocation matters, the core strategy families (market making, cross-venue arbitrage, index arbitrage and short-horizon order flow signals), and the risks and SEBI rules that govern it, including the NSE colocation case. No code and no trading advice, just a clear mental model of how the fastest participants operate.
- What separates high frequency trading from ordinary algorithmic and retail algo trading in India
- How the limit order book, price-time priority and NSE's matching engine decide who gets filled
- Why tick size, spreads and tick-by-tick data feeds matter so much at short horizons
Introduction to TradingView Pine Script for Strategy Building
A ground-up, code-first introduction to Pine Script for traders and engineers who want to build their own indicators and strategies on TradingView instead of relying on someone else's. You will set up TradingView for NSE and BSE charts, learn Pine Script's syntax, series and built-in variables, and use them to build real indicators like moving averages, RSI and Bollinger Bands from scratch. You will then move from indicator() to strategy(), write entry and exit logic, size positions, and read a Strategy Tester report the way a sceptical coder would, spotting the difference between a good backtest and a lucky one. No prior Pine Script experience is assumed, but comfort with basic programming logic (variables, if-else, loops) will help you move faster.
- How to set up TradingView for NSE and BSE charts and navigate the Pine Script editor
- Pine Script's core language: variables, series, built-in OHLCV variables, operators, conditionals and loops
- How to write built-in and user-defined functions in Pine Script
Introduction to Zerodha's Kite Connect API
A hands-on foundation course for using Zerodha's Kite Connect API to access market data and place orders programmatically. You will set up API access, understand the authentication flow, pull the instruments dump, fetch historical and live tick data, and place your first order, all with real NSE and BSE examples in Python.
- How to create a Kite Connect developer app and generate API credentials
- The Kite Connect login and authentication flow, including daily access token refresh
- How to fetch and decode the instruments dump to map trading symbols to instrument tokens
Masterclass: Understanding Regulatory Considerations for Algorithmic Trading in India
A regulator's-eye map of algorithmic trading in India for senior quants, aspiring systematic fund managers and prop desk leads. Covers the legal stack (SEBI Act, SCRA, Stock Broker Regulations, PFUTP, exchange bye-laws), exchange-level algo approvals and pre-trade risk checks, order-to-trade ratio and order-per-second discipline, kill switches, the co-location and market data framework and the NSE co-location matter, SEBI's February 2025 retail algo framework (broker as principal, API rules, white-box and black-box algos, algo registration), market abuse doctrine for algorithmic conduct, and how to structure and run a systematic business in India: prop membership, PMS, AIF Category III, GIFT IFSC, cybersecurity and system audit obligations, tax treatment and a working compliance programme.
- Map every rule that touches an algorithmic order on NSE or BSE to the statute, regulation, circular or bye-law it comes from
- Design pre-trade risk checks, OTR and OPS controls and kill-switch procedures that satisfy exchange requirements
- Explain the co-location and market data framework and the lessons of the NSE co-location matter
Practice Drills: Backtesting a Moving Average Crossover Strategy
A hands-on practice drill for building and honestly evaluating a moving average crossover backtest in Python, using real NSE price data. You will code the strategy, compute performance metrics, and learn where backtests quietly lie to you.
- How a moving average crossover strategy generates buy and sell signals
- How to source and clean NSE price data for a backtest
- How to code a crossover backtest in Python from scratch
Practice Drills: Backtesting a Strategy While Accounting for Transaction Costs
A drill course for traders who already understand why costs break backtests and now need to prove it on their own strategies. You will price real Zerodha round trips line by line, code the Indian cost stack and a slippage model in Python, run the same NSE strategy gross and net of costs, find the break-even cost at which its edge disappears, and finish with a full cost-aware backtest and the kind of report a prop desk or quant interviewer expects to see.
- Price a delivery, intraday, futures and options round trip on Zerodha line by line, including STT, exchange charges, GST, SEBI fees and stamp duty
- Turn the Indian cost stack into a reusable Python function that plugs into any backtest
- Estimate slippage from bid-ask spreads and traded volume instead of guessing a flat number
Practice Drills: Coding a Momentum Strategy From Scratch
A drill-based course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants and traders who want to systematize their process. Each lesson is one tightly scoped coding task with a spec, starter code, a worked solution and checks you can score yourself on. You will build a momentum strategy piece by piece in pandas: validating an NSE price panel, coding time-series and cross-sectional momentum scores, turning ranks into positions without look-ahead bias, charging realistic Indian costs, and scoring the result. The course ends with a bug hunt, an honest parameter sweep and a timed rebuild from a blank notebook. This is a coding skill course, not a recommendation to trade any strategy.
- Load, validate and align an NSE price panel in pandas before any signal touches it
- Code time-series momentum, the 12-1 lookback and volatility-adjusted momentum scores
- Rank a stock universe cross-sectionally and turn ranks into top-N equal-weight positions
Practice Drills: Simulating a Market Making Strategy on Order Book Data
A hands-on drill course for quant researcher aspirants, prop trading applicants, and traders scaling a systematic book. You will rebuild an NSE limit order book from tick-by-tick messages, code a naive two-sided quoter, simulate fills with honest queue-position assumptions, decompose the P&L into spread capture, inventory and costs, measure adverse selection with markouts, then upgrade the quoter with inventory skew and an Avellaneda-Stoikov model. The course ends with pessimistic-fill and toxic-day stress tests and a go/no-go scorecard. Every step is worked by hand first, then coded.
- How to rebuild a level-2 order book from tick-by-tick add, modify, cancel and trade messages
- How to anchor quotes on the mid-price or microprice and round them correctly to NSE tick sizes
- How to model fills with queue position and partial fills instead of the optimistic touch-equals-fill assumption
Practice Drills: Writing a Basic Buy Sell Signal Generator in Python
A practice-drill course for coders and quant-curious learners who want to get their hands dirty writing the Python logic behind a basic buy/sell signal generator. You will pull real NSE stock data, code moving average and RSI based signals from scratch, combine them, and sanity-check the output against history. This is a coding skill drill, not a validated trading system.
- Pull historical OHLC data for NSE stocks into Python with pandas
- Code a moving average crossover signal from scratch
- Code an RSI-based overbought/oversold signal from scratch
Understanding Algorithmic Trading: Concepts and Terminology
A foundation-level walkthrough of algorithmic trading for the Indian markets, covering the core concepts, terminology, and building blocks that separate systematic trading from discretionary trading. Built for engineering graduates, coders, and traders curious about the quant side of NSE and BSE markets.
- Learn what algorithmic trading is and its core terms
- Explore types of algo strategies and backtesting basics
- See India's market infrastructure and algo career pathways
Understanding Backtesting: Concepts and Common Pitfalls
A concept-first course on backtesting for coders, engineers and systematic traders who want to know what a backtest can and cannot tell them before they write one. You will learn the anatomy of a proper backtest, how Indian price data misleads you through splits, bonuses and delisted stocks, and the five biases that turn random noise into a beautiful equity curve. You will then price the real frictions of trading on NSE and BSE, brokerage, STT, slippage, impact cost, circuit limits and capital gains tax, and learn to read CAGR, drawdown and Sharpe ratio the way a sceptical reviewer would. No code is required; every idea is illustrated with Indian stocks, Nifty data and worked numbers you can reproduce in a spreadsheet.
- What a backtest actually measures, and the difference between a historical simulation and a forecast
- The five components every backtest needs: universe, signal, rules, execution assumptions and evaluation metrics
- Why raw NSE prices lie without split, bonus and dividend adjustment, and how to spot an unadjusted series
Understanding Overfitting and Curve Fitting in Strategy Design
A foundation course on the single most common way systematic traders lose money: building a strategy that fits the past perfectly and the future not at all. You will learn what overfitting and curve fitting actually are in statistical terms, the specific design habits that let them creep in (parameter sweeps, data snooping, look-ahead and survivorship bias), how to detect an overfit strategy before you risk capital using out-of-sample tests, walk-forward analysis, and parameter sensitivity checks, and how to design strategies with an economic rationale that hold up on NSE and BSE data. Every example uses Indian market data, Indian brokers, and INR.
- Explain overfitting and curve fitting in plain statistical terms and recognise them in a backtest
- Identify the design habits that introduce overfitting: parameter sweeps, data snooping, look-ahead and survivorship bias
- Split data into in-sample and out-of-sample sets and run a walk-forward test correctly
Using Amibroker for Basic Strategy Backtesting
Learn to use Amibroker, one of the most widely used backtesting platforms among Indian systematic traders, to turn a trading idea into a rule-based strategy and test it against historical NSE data. You will set up Amibroker with Indian market data, learn the basics of AFL (Amibroker Formula Language), build a simple moving average crossover strategy, and run your first backtest with stop-loss and position sizing rules in place. By the end, you will be able to read a backtest report and spot the most common mistakes that make backtests lie.
- Install Amibroker and connect it to Indian (NSE) market data
- Read and write basic AFL (Amibroker Formula Language) code
- Translate a trading idea into buy and sell signal conditions
Python for Finance
13 courses
Building a Monte Carlo Option Pricing Model in Python
A build-along course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants, and systematizing traders who want a real Monte Carlo pricing engine, not a toy script. You will write a vectorised GBM engine in NumPy, validate it against Black-Scholes and the live NSE Nifty chain, cut its error with antithetic, control variate, and Sobol techniques, compute Greeks by simulation, price path-dependent payoffs like the barriers inside Nifty-linked MLDs, move beyond GBM with jump-diffusion and Heston, handle early exercise with Longstaff-Schwartz, and ship the whole thing as a tested, fast Python package.
Building a Pairs Trading Strategy Using Python and Statsmodels
A build course for quant analyst aspirants, prop desk applicants and traders who already know what a pairs trade is and now want to code one properly. You will use statsmodels as your statistics engine: sm.OLS and RollingOLS for hedge ratios, adfuller and kpss for stationarity, coint for Engle-Granger, coint_johansen for multi-stock baskets, an AR(1) regression for half-life, a state space model for a time-varying hedge ratio, and VECM for the adjustment dynamics of both legs. Each tool is taught by reading its actual output, not just calling it. You then scan sector universes from the Nifty 200 for candidates without falling into the multiple testing trap, code a z-score signal engine with no look-ahead bias, backtest it in pandas with the full Indian cost stack, walk it forward, and package the whole thing as a reusable, tested Python module.
- Set up a clean pairs trading project and pull, adjust and align NSE price data for two or more stocks
- Estimate a hedge ratio with sm.OLS and read every line of the regression summary, including the ones that mislead you on price data
- Track hedge ratio drift with RollingOLS and model it directly with a Kalman filter built on statsmodels state space
Building a Portfolio Optimizer Using Python's PyPortfolioOpt
A hands-on build course for quant aspirants, prop desk applicants and traders who want to systematise how they size a portfolio. You already know what an efficient frontier is. This course makes you build one that survives contact with real Indian data. You will pull a clean price panel for Nifty 50 stocks, estimate expected returns three ways, build covariance matrices that are not drowned in noise, and run max Sharpe, minimum volatility and target return optimisations in PyPortfolioOpt with the Indian risk-free rate. You then add the constraints a real portfolio needs (weight caps, NSE sector limits, regularisation, transaction cost penalties), move beyond mean-variance with Hierarchical Risk Parity, Black-Litterman and CVaR, and finally convert weights into whole shares for a real INR budget, backtest the result against the Nifty 50 TRI and account for rebalancing turnover and Indian capital gains tax. The course ends with an end-to-end monthly optimizer pipeline you can rerun yourself.
- Set up a reproducible PyPortfolioOpt project and build a clean, adjusted price panel for NSE stocks
- Estimate expected returns with historical, exponentially weighted and CAPM methods, and know why each one misleads
- Build sample, shrunk, exponential and semicovariance risk models, and check them before trusting them
Building an Options Pricing Calculator Using Python
A hands-on build course for traders and aspiring quants who want to understand where the numbers on an NSE option chain come from. You will write a complete options pricing library in Python: the Black-Scholes formula term by term, all five Greeks in closed form and by finite differences, an implied volatility solver, a binomial tree and a Monte Carlo engine. Every model is tested against real Nifty 50 and Bank Nifty contracts, with Indian conventions handled correctly: the 91-day T-bill as the risk-free rate, lot sizes, weekly and monthly expiry timing, and India VIX as a cross-check on your implied volatility. You finish by packaging the code as a tested module with a Streamlit front end and a strategy payoff tool. Built for systematising traders, prop-desk applicants and quant analyst aspirants who can already read an option chain and want to rebuild it from first principles.
- Set up a clean Python environment for options work with NumPy, SciPy, pandas and pytest
- Prepare the Black-Scholes inputs the Indian way: spot vs futures, T-bill risk-free rate, dividend yield and exact time to expiry
- Code the Black-Scholes pricer and verify it with put-call parity and live Nifty 50 chain prices
Introduction to Jupyter Notebooks for Trading Research
A focused course on working well inside Jupyter, for readers who already know basic Python and pandas from Introduction to Python for Finance. Covers choosing between JupyterLab, classic Notebook and VS Code notebooks, magic commands and widgets that speed up exploration, and the habits that keep a research notebook honest: avoiding hidden state, structuring notebooks so they survive a restart-and-run-all, version controlling them with Git, and exporting them into reports colleagues can actually trust. Closes with look-ahead bias and data snooping, the two mistakes that quietly ruin notebook-based research.
- Choose and configure the right Jupyter environment for serious research work
- Use magic commands, widgets and extensions to move faster inside a notebook
- Structure notebooks so they survive a restart-and-run-all
Introduction to Pandas and NumPy for Market Data
A hands-on introduction to NumPy and Pandas built around real Indian market data. You will learn to work with arrays and DataFrames, clean and index price data, pull live data from NSE and BSE, and run the same groupby and aggregation techniques used in professional quant workflows, all using screener.in exports and yfinance pulls instead of toy datasets.
- Why NumPy arrays outperform plain Python lists for price and returns data
- How to build, index, and filter Pandas Series and DataFrames
- How to work with dates and resample daily price data to weekly or monthly
Introduction to Python for Finance: Why It's the Quant's Language
A first course in Python built entirely around Indian market data, for engineering graduates, working coders and traders who want to systematise what they do. Explains why Python beat Excel, R and C++ as the working language of quant desks, sets up a proper workstation with Jupyter and free NSE data, then teaches core Python, NumPy and pandas by computing returns, moving averages, volatility and drawdowns on Nifty 50 stocks. Ends with a simple, honest backtest that includes STT and slippage, a look at Zerodha Kite Connect and SEBI's algo rules, and a realistic map of quant careers in India.
Practice Drills: Cleaning and Structuring Raw Market Data in Pandas
Nine hands-on drills for cleaning, structuring and merging real NSE and BSE market data in Pandas. Built for anyone who already knows basic Python and wants practice on the messy CSVs, corporate action adjustments and multi-symbol datasets they will actually run into, not toy data.
- Parse and clean raw NSE/BSE bhavcopy files and broker data exports in Pandas
- Adjust historical prices for splits, bonuses and dividends
- Reshape and merge multi-symbol datasets into an analysis-ready format
Practice Drills: Pricing an Option Using Black Scholes in Python
A drill-heavy course for quant analyst aspirants, prop trading applicants and systematizing traders who understand the Black-Scholes formula on paper but have never turned it into code they would trust with a real position. Every lesson is a worked exercise on a Nifty index option: you pull the inputs off the NSE option chain, calculate d1 and d2 by hand, write and test call and put functions, vectorise them across the whole chain, code and verify the Greeks, solve for implied volatility, harden the pricer against the inputs that break it, and compare your model prices with what the market is actually quoting. The course ends with a capstone where you build, test and report a pricer for a monthly Nifty expiry, the kind of exercise interviewers at prop desks and quant funds hand you on a laptop.
- Turn a row of the NSE Nifty option chain into the six inputs a Black-Scholes pricer needs
- Compute d1, d2 and N(d) by hand, then reproduce the same numbers in Python
- Write tested Black-Scholes call and put functions from scratch with NumPy and SciPy
Practice Drills: Writing Your First Python Script to Pull Stock Data
A practice-drill course for engineers and quant-curious learners who want hands-on reps writing Python that talks to real market data. You will set up your environment, pull live NSE stock prices, clean and structure the data, save it properly, and then push your script further with progressively harder drills covering multiple stocks, date ranges, and a simple watchlist tracker.
- Set up a working Python environment for pulling market data
- Write a script that fetches live NSE stock price data
- Clean and structure raw API data into usable tables with pandas
Setting Up Python for Financial Data Analysis
Get your Python environment, core libraries and first real NSE/BSE data pipeline working, so you're ready to analyse Indian markets in code instead of spreadsheets.
- Install and configure Python, VS Code and Jupyter for financial analysis work
- Manage virtual environments and packages so your projects stay reproducible
- Use NumPy and pandas to work with price and returns data
Using NumPy for Matrix Operations in Finance
A hands-on introduction to NumPy built specifically for finance work: representing price series and portfolios as arrays, and using matrix operations to compute portfolio returns, covariance, and risk. For engineers and data-inclined traders who already know some Python and want to stop looping over prices in plain lists. Every example uses real Indian market data conventions: NSE/BSE tickers, Nifty constituents, and data shaped the way you'd pull it from screener.in or a broker API.
Using yfinance and NSEpy to Pull Indian Market Data
A hands-on guide to pulling real Indian market data with Python. Covers yfinance for NSE and BSE tickers (historical OHLCV, adjusted close, corporate actions) and NSEpy for NSE-specific data that yfinance doesn't cover, including F&O and delivery percentage. Built for engineering graduates, coders, and systematizing traders who want a working data pipeline, not just theory, with every example run against real Nifty 50 and F&O tickers.
Corporate Finance
73 courses
Advanced Investor Relations: Managing Institutional Shareholder Expectations
Once a company is listed, its share price is set at the margin by a few dozen institutions: FPIs, domestic mutual funds, insurers and pension money. This advanced course is for CFOs, finance leaders, late-stage founders and corporate development teams who have to manage what those institutions expect. It covers who owns India Inc and why, how to read and shape a shareholder register, how consensus forms and how to guide without breaching SEBI LODR, how stewardship codes and proxy advisors drive votes on related party transactions and special resolutions, how to handle activists and short sellers, and how to run and measure a serious institutional IR programme. Educational content only, built on real Indian cases.
- How promoter, FPI, DII and retail ownership of Indian companies has shifted and what each holder type wants
- How to read a shareholder register and target the investors who fit your stock
- How free float, block deals, OFS and QIPs reshape your institutional base
Advanced Treasury Strategy: Liquidity Management Across Multiple Entities
Built for CFOs, group treasurers, finance controllers, late-stage founders and corp dev teams who run more than one legal entity. A group with ten companies and forty bank accounts can be cash rich on a consolidated basis and still miss a payroll in one subsidiary. This course shows how to get group-wide cash visibility, forecast liquidity entity by entity, and move money inside the group using the tools Indian law actually allows: inter-corporate loans under Sections 185 and 186 of the Companies Act, related party approvals, arm's length pricing, physical sweeps and in-house banking. It covers the tax traps (deemed dividend, TDS on interest, Section 94B thin capitalisation, GST on corporate guarantees), cross-border liquidity through FEMA and GIFT City treasury centres, a group investment policy for surplus cash, holdco versus opco borrowing, and liquidity stress testing, closing with lessons from IL&FS and DHFL and a full treasury blueprint for a five-entity Indian group.
- How to map a group's cash, find trapped liquidity and choose between centralised, decentralised and hybrid treasury models
- How to build a group-wide 13-week rolling cash forecast and measure its accuracy
- How to move cash between group entities legally using Sections 185, 186 and 188 and arm's length pricing
Building a Corporate Bond Issuance Cost Comparison Model
A hands-on build for treasury teams, growth-stage founders and corporate strategy professionals who need to decide how to raise debt in India. The coupon is only the headline: arranger fees, credit ratings, stamp duty, debenture trustee and listing charges, the recovery expense fund, GST and ongoing surveillance costs all move the real number. This course maps every cost line for a listed NCD issue on the NSE and BSE EBP platforms, then builds an Excel model from scratch that turns those costs into an all-in pre-tax and post-tax cost using IRR and XIRR. It then adds term loans, commercial paper and ECBs with hedging, compares them side by side, stress-tests the answer across rating, tenor and issue size, and closes with a full case study and a board-ready recommendation.
- Why the coupon understates the true cost of a bond and how to calculate the all-in cost
- Every upfront and ongoing cost line in an Indian NCD issue, from arranger fees to the recovery expense fund
- How to build a bond cash flow schedule and compute all-in cost with IRR and XIRR in Excel
Building a Foreign Exchange Hedging Tracker in Excel
A hands-on build for treasury and finance teams, growth-stage founders with import or export exposure, and strategy teams who need to see what a rupee move does to the plan. Starts with how FX risk actually hits an Indian company's P&L, the three types of exposure, the hedging instruments available onshore, and the RBI framework that governs who can hedge what. Then builds a working Excel tracker from a blank workbook: an exposure register, a forward contract hedge book, and reference rates from FBIL and forward premium data. From there it covers mark-to-market valuation, hedge ratios, currency options and NSE/BSE currency futures, and realised versus unrealised gains on settlement, before closing with a treasury dashboard, rupee stress scenarios, Ind AS 109 hedge accounting basics, and the controls that keep the tracker audit-ready.
- How transaction, translation and economic FX exposure show up in an Indian company's numbers
- Which hedging instruments Indian businesses can use and the RBI rules that govern them
- How to build an exposure register and forward contract hedge book in Excel from scratch
Building a Simple Cap Table Using Excel or Carta
A hands-on walkthrough for anyone who has been handed cap table ownership without a finance background: HR and L&D teams issuing ESOPs, treasury and finance-adjacent staff maintaining ownership records, and startup founders tracking their own equity. Starts with what a cap table actually is and the terms that trip people up (authorized vs issued vs outstanding vs fully diluted), then builds one from scratch in Excel, layering in founder equity, an ESOP pool with vesting, and convertible instruments like CCPS and SAFEs. From there it covers how a priced funding round changes the numbers and how to model dilution across rounds, before closing with when and how to move the whole thing into Carta and keep it audit-ready.
- What a cap table is and the ownership terms every stakeholder should know
- How to build a cap table from scratch in Excel, step by step
- How to model an ESOP pool, vesting schedules, and convertible instruments like CCPS and SAFEs
Building a Term Sheet Negotiation Checklist and Tracker
A hands-on course for the people who actually sit across the table when an Indian company raises money or takes a strategic investment: growth-stage founders, CFOs and treasury teams, and corporate strategy and BD teams. Starts by breaking an Indian term sheet into its economic, control and regulatory terms, including CCPS structures, FEMA pricing rules and the clauses that survive into the shareholders' agreement. Then builds two working tools in Google Sheets or Excel: a negotiation checklist that records the market standard, your position and your walk-away point for every clause, and a tracker that logs redlines, owners, status and conditions precedent across every draft. Closes with how to sequence concessions, manage multiple investors, carry the tracker through the SHA and SSA, and turn it into a post-closing compliance calendar.
- How to read an Indian term sheet clause by clause and separate economic terms from control terms
- How to build a negotiation checklist with market standard, target position and walk-away point for every clause
- How to model liquidation preference and anti-dilution outcomes in a spreadsheet before you agree to them
Building an FP&A Dashboard Using Excel and Power BI
A hands-on, India-specific course for finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams who need a monthly management dashboard that people actually use. Start by choosing the right FP&A KPIs and designing the dashboard on paper. Pull ledger data out of Tally, Zoho Books or an ERP, map it to a clean chart of accounts, and shape it with Power Query while handling the April to March financial year and lakhs and crores formatting. Build budget vs actual variance analysis, driver-based rolling forecasts and a one-page Excel dashboard. Then move to Power BI: model finance data as a star schema, build a fiscal-year date table, and write the DAX measures FP&A needs, from YTD and prior-year comparisons to budget variances. Finish by designing P&L, cash and working capital pages, adding drill-through and bookmarks for management reviews, publishing with scheduled refresh and row-level security, and building a full monthly FP&A pack for an Indian D2C brand.
Case Study: A Corporate's FX Hedging Strategy During Rupee Volatility
A decision-by-decision case study built for CFOs and treasury teams, growth-stage founders with dollar revenue or dollar costs, and corporate strategy and BD teams who need to understand what currency risk does to a plan. We follow an illustrative Indian mid-sized manufacturer that exports in dollars, imports raw material in dollars and carries a foreign currency loan, through a period of sharp rupee depreciation. Start by mapping its transaction, translation and economic exposure and seeing exactly how a rupee move flows into margins, covenants and cash. Then build the board-approved hedging policy, price a forward from interest rate parity, compare bank forwards, NSE currency futures, options and cross-currency swaps, and work through the RBI rules that govern who can hedge what. Walk through the volatility episode one decision point at a time, then close with Ind AS 109 hedge accounting, a hedged versus unhedged scorecard, the mistakes Indian corporates have made with exotic structures, and a playbook your own treasury can adopt.
- How to map a company's transaction, translation and economic FX exposure and net it before hedging anything
- How to write a hedging policy with clear objectives, hedge ratio bands, tenor limits, approved instruments and counterparty limits
- How to price a USD/INR forward from interest rate parity and read the forward premium as a cost or a gain
Case Study: How Zomato Structured Its Series G Round Before IPO
A deal-structuring case study built around Zomato's September 2015 Series G, the $60 million round led by Temasek with existing investor Vy Capital. Start with why a restaurant discovery app burning cash across more than 20 countries needed late-stage capital, then open up the term sheet: why foreign investors in India take compulsorily convertible preference shares instead of plain equity, how liquidation preferences and anti-dilution clauses protect them, and how pre-money, post-money and the ESOP pool shape the fully diluted cap table. Trace how those protections behaved through the valuation markdowns of 2016 and 2017, the pivot to food delivery, the Ant Financial rounds, the share-swap acquisition of Uber Eats India and the Tiger Global era rounds of 2020 and 2021. Then watch the clean-up: conversion to a public company, the bonus issue, CCPS conversion under SEBI ICDR rules, listing with no identified promoter, and the ESOP rework. Close by working out the multiple each round earned at the IPO price and building a pre-IPO structuring playbook. Written for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and corporate strategy teams.
- Explain why late-stage foreign investors in Indian startups hold CCPS rather than equity shares, and what FEMA pricing rules require
- Model how a liquidation preference and a weighted average anti-dilution clause change payouts and share counts
- Build a fully diluted cap table across pre-money, post-money and ESOP pool changes
Case Study: How a Company Restructured Debt During a Downturn
Most companies do not die from losses. They die when debt falls due and there is no cash to pay it. Suzlon Energy is the clearest Indian example of a company that hit that wall, twice, and survived. This case study follows the Pune wind turbine maker from its debt-funded global expansion through the downturn that followed, the 2012 foreign currency convertible bond default, the Corporate Debt Restructuring package, the sale of its German crown jewel, a second restructuring under RBI's prudential framework, and finally the rights issue, QIP and refinancing that made it net debt free. Along the way you learn the full restructuring toolkit: maturity extension, repricing, moratoriums, debt to equity conversion, asset sales, fresh equity and refinancing, plus the early warning signals that tell a finance team when to act. Built for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams who want to understand how debt stress actually gets resolved in India, not just how it is described in a textbook.
- Tell the difference between a liquidity problem and a solvency problem, and why the fix for each is different
- Trace how an acquisition-led, debt-funded expansion turned into a crisis once the wind energy cycle turned
- Read the stress signals in financial statements: interest cover, debt to EBITDA, working capital days and refinancing walls
Case Study: How a Growth Stage Startup Built Its First FP&A Function
Most Indian startups hit Series B with a good accountant, a CA firm for compliance and no one whose job is to look forward. This case study follows a composite Bengaluru D2C home brand, roughly ₹120 crore in revenue, from the board meeting where its cash runway turned out to be months shorter than anyone thought, to a working FP&A function eighteen months later. You will see how the founders defined what FP&A should and should not do, when and whom they hired, how they fixed a messy chart of accounts and month-end close in Tally and Zoho Books, and which unit economics they chose to track. Then you will walk through the core models they built: a driver-based operating model, a 13-week cash flow forecast and scenario-based runway planning. Finally you will see the operating rhythm that made it stick, from the first annual operating plan to monthly business reviews, variance analysis and the board pack, and finish with the mistakes, trade-offs and a playbook you can apply to your own company.
- What FP&A does in a growth stage company and how it differs from accounting and compliance
- When to hire the first FP&A person, what profile to look for and where the role should report
- How to fix the data foundations: chart of accounts, month-end close and a single source of truth
Case Study: How a Startup Valued Its ESOP Pool Before a Funding Round
Almost every Indian Series A term sheet carries one line that quietly moves crores of value: the ESOP pool clause. Investors ask for a larger pool, created before their money comes in, and the founders pay for it. This case study follows Neelgiri Labs, an illustrative Bengaluru B2B SaaS startup built from real Indian market practice, through the six weeks between receiving its term sheet and closing the round. You size the pool from a real hiring plan, benchmark it against disclosed Indian startup pools, and work through the option pool shuffle to find the effective pre-money valuation the founders actually got. Then you put a number on the options themselves: fair market value under Rule 11UA and a registered valuer report, a Black-Scholes value with defensible inputs for an unlisted company, and the total pool cost that flows into the P&L under Ind AS 102. The course closes with exercise pricing, perquisite tax, Companies Act approvals, the post-round cap table and the mistakes founders and CFOs make most often. Built for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams who sit on either side of that negotiation.
- Explain why investors ask for the ESOP pool to be created pre-money, and who really bears that dilution
- Size an ESOP pool bottom-up from a 24-month hiring plan and sanity-check it against Indian startup benchmarks
- Calculate the effective pre-money valuation after the option pool shuffle and negotiate it with numbers, not adjectives
Case Study: Investor Relations Lessons From a Company's IPO Roadshow
Investor relations does not start on listing day. It starts months earlier, when a company first has to explain to strangers why its business deserves their money at a particular price. This case study follows a composite Gujarat-based specialty chemicals manufacturer, roughly ₹1,800 crore in revenue and backed by a private equity fund, through a ₹1,500 crore IPO combining a fresh issue and an offer for sale. You will see how the company and its book running lead managers turned a DRHP into an equity story, chose the KPIs and peer set it would be judged against, stayed within SEBI's publicity rules, ran early-look and pre-deal investor education, and then took the story on the road through anchor, QIB and one-on-one meetings in Mumbai, Singapore, London and New York. You will follow the price band decision, the anchor book, the subscription data and listing day, and compare the outcome with public examples such as Paytm and Nykaa. Finally you will see how the same discipline carries into life as a listed company: the first earnings call, disclosure obligations under SEBI's LODR Regulations, anchor lock-in expiry and building a permanent IR function. Built for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams who will one day sit across the table from institutional investors.
- Explain what an IPO roadshow is, who runs it and why investor relations begins well before listing
- Turn a DRHP into a clear equity story backed by KPIs and a defensible peer set
- Build an investor presentation and stay inside SEBI's rules on publicity and forward-looking statements
Case Study: Transfer Pricing Dispute Between an Indian Subsidiary and Its Parent
Follow an illustrative Indian subsidiary of a foreign parent through a full transfer pricing dispute, from the pricing decisions that started it to the audit, the adjustment, the appeals and the settlement. Along the way, learn India's arm's length rules under Sections 92 to 92F of the Income-tax Act, how Form 3CEB and TP documentation work, how a Transfer Pricing Officer benchmarks your margins against comparables, and why royalty, management fees, marketing spend and share issues to the parent are the most fought-over items. The case is anchored in real Indian rulings including Maruti Suzuki, LG Electronics, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone India and Shell India, and ends with a practical playbook covering APAs, safe harbour and documentation discipline for CFOs and founders.
- Explain the arm's length principle and when India's transfer pricing rules apply to a subsidiary
- Read a Form 3CEB and understand what TP documentation must prove
- Follow how a Transfer Pricing Officer selects comparables and computes an adjustment
Introduction to Corporate Fundraising: Equity vs Debt
A plain-language, India-specific introduction to how companies raise money, built for founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees outside finance who want to understand the funding decisions shaping their company. Learn why companies raise capital, what it really means to sell ownership versus borrow, and where each kind of money comes from in India: angels, VCs, PE funds, IPOs, QIPs and rights issues on one side; banks, NBFCs, venture debt and corporate bonds on the other. Understand covenants, collateral, credit ratings and what happens under the IBC when repayment fails. Compare the true cost of equity and debt, see how leverage magnifies both returns and risk, meet the hybrids in between, and finish with a practical decision framework, a walkthrough of reading any listed company's funding mix on screener.in, and a case study of two Indian companies that funded growth in opposite ways.
Introduction to Corporate Governance for Growing Companies
A practical, India-specific guide to corporate governance for founders, CFOs, treasury teams, and strategy and BD professionals at companies that are scaling fast. Learn what governance really means beyond compliance checklists, why it breaks down at scale through cases like Byju's, BharatPe, and GoMechanic, and how the Companies Act 2013 and SEBI LODR shape your obligations as you grow. Build a board that actually oversees, set up audit and other committees, understand independent directors, internal financial controls, and auditors, and navigate shareholder rights, investor protections in term sheets, dual-class structures, and related party transactions. Cover disclosure, insider trading rules, whistleblower mechanisms, and risk management, then finish with a stage-by-stage governance roadmap from seed to IPO readiness.
Introduction to Corporate Restructuring and Its Triggers
An India-specific guide to why companies change their shape and how they do it, built for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders, and strategy and business development teams. Learn the four families of restructuring (portfolio, financial, organisational and operational) and the triggers behind each: conglomerate discounts, leverage and liquidity crunches, regulatory and tax changes, technology disruption, and promoter succession. Spot the early warning signs in financial statements, rating actions, auditor remarks and exchange filings. Then walk through the Indian toolkit: mergers, demergers, slump sales, buybacks and capital reduction, and debt restructuring from one-time settlements to the IBC, along with the Companies Act, NCLT and SEBI road map every listed deal must follow. Finish by weighing who wins and who loses, why restructurings fail, and a trigger-to-toolkit framework you can apply to your own company. Uses real NSE and BSE cases like the Tata Motors demerger, Vodafone Idea's debt-to-equity conversion, Essar Steel's insolvency resolution and ITC Hotels, with screener.in and exchange filings throughout.
Introduction to Corporate Treasury Functions
Every company, from a funded startup to a Nifty 50 conglomerate, needs someone who knows how much cash it has today, where the next crore will come from and what could go wrong with the money in between. That is corporate treasury. This course explains the treasury function in plain language for non-finance employees, founders and new treasury hires: how treasury differs from accounting and FP&A, how cash is positioned and forecast, how Indian companies fund short and long gaps through bank lines, commercial paper, TReDS, term loans, bonds and ECBs, where surplus cash is parked, how foreign exchange, interest rate and commodity risks are hedged, and the controls and policies that keep treasury safe. Indian examples throughout, no jargon left unexplained.
- What corporate treasury is responsible for and how it differs from accounting and FP&A
- Why treasury puts liquidity first, safety second and yield last
- How treasurers position daily cash and build short-term and annual cash forecasts
Introduction to Employee Stock Options (ESOPs) Explained
A plain-language, India-specific guide to employee stock options, built for employees outside finance, HR and L&D teams, treasury professionals and startup founders. Learn why companies share ownership with employees, how ESOPs differ from RSUs, SARs and sweat equity, and what grant, vesting, cliff, exercise price and expiry really mean. Follow an option from the grant letter to the day you sell the shares, including what happens when you resign, get let go or your company is acquired. Understand what your options are actually worth, why listed and unlisted company ESOPs are very different things, and how buybacks and secondary sales turn paper wealth into cash. Get the tax picture right, from perquisite tax at exercise to capital gains at sale and the deferral available to eligible startups, and see the rules that govern ESOPs under SEBI and the Companies Act. Finish by looking at ESOPs from the company's side, covering pool design, accounting cost and dilution, and a case study of real Indian ESOP outcomes.
Introduction to Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) as a Function
Every listed Indian company gives earnings guidance, sets an annual operating plan and explains its quarterly misses to analysts. The team behind all of that is Financial Planning and Analysis. This course explains FP&A as a function: where it sits next to accounting, controllership and treasury, what it produces, and how its work drives real decisions. You follow the full planning cycle as it runs in India, from the April to March financial year and the annual operating plan to rolling forecasts and the monthly business review. You learn the core outputs every FP&A team owns: budgets built from driver-based models, variance analysis that explains the gap between plan and actual, and the KPIs and unit economics that leadership watches. Then you move beyond the numbers to business partnering, scenario planning, capital allocation and the tools Indian FP&A teams actually use, before closing with how the function is structured from startup to conglomerate and how to build a career in it. Built for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy and business development teams who need to plan, measure and explain performance.
- Explain what FP&A does and how it differs from financial accounting, controllership and treasury in an Indian company
- Walk through the Indian planning calendar, from the annual operating plan to the monthly business review and quarterly results
- Build a budget from business drivers instead of last year's numbers plus a percentage
Introduction to Financial Statements for Non Finance Managers
A plain-language, India-specific introduction to financial statements, built for managers outside finance, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and founders who sit in review meetings where revenue, EBITDA, working capital and cash flow decide budgets and bonuses. Learn where to find the numbers in an Indian company's annual report, the accounting basics that shape them, and how to read a profit and loss statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement line by line. See which lines your own department creates, from employee costs and overheads to receivables, inventory and payables, and why reported profit is not money in the bank. Connect the three statements through a single transaction, use a handful of ratios that matter to managers, read variance reports and MIS with confidence, build a business case finance will take seriously, spot red flags, and finish by working through a real Indian company's annual report the way a manager should.
Introduction to Foreign Exchange Risk Management for Corporates
A practical, India-specific introduction to foreign exchange risk for treasury and finance teams, growth-stage founders, and strategy and business development professionals. Learn how the USD/INR market actually works, how banks price the rates you are quoted, and why a rupee move shows up in margins, covenants and valuations. Identify and measure transaction, translation and economic exposure, build a currency exposure map, and size the risk with sensitivity and scenario analysis. Start with hedges that cost nothing, like natural hedging, invoicing currency choices, netting and EEFC accounts, then move to forwards, NSE and BSE currency futures and options, OTC options and collars, and cross-currency swaps on foreign currency borrowings. Understand the RBI rules on what corporates can hedge, how Ind AS 109 hedge accounting keeps hedge noise out of profit and loss, and how to write a board-approved hedging policy. Finish with hedging playbooks by business type, the mistakes that have cost Indian companies crores, and a full exporter case study.
- Explain how the USD/INR market works and decode a bank's FX quote, including the margin hidden in it
- Separate transaction, translation and economic exposure and build a currency exposure map for a business
- Measure FX risk with sensitivity analysis, scenario tests and cash flow at risk
Introduction to Series B and Growth Stage Fundraising
An India-specific guide to raising money after product-market fit, built for growth stage founders, corporate finance and treasury professionals, and strategy and business development teams who sit across the table from growth investors. Learn what actually changes between Series A and Series B, why the bar shifts from promise to proof, and who writes growth cheques in India: growth VCs, crossover funds, sovereign and pension funds, private equity and corporate strategic investors. Master the growth stage scorecard of revenue quality, net revenue retention, cohorts, contribution margin, CAC payback, burn multiple and the Rule of 40, and build the data room and financial model that survives diligence. See how growth valuations are set using revenue multiples and listed comparables on NSE and BSE, how primary and secondary components split the money, how down rounds and structured deals work, and when venture debt helps or hurts. Read growth term sheets with stacked liquidation preferences, ratchets and investor rights, understand syndicate dynamics and pro rata, and navigate the Indian regulatory layer for large rounds: FDI routes, pricing guidelines, Press Note 3 and CCI approval. Finish with deploying growth capital, the road to Series C and an IPO, and a case study following one Indian SaaS company from Series B to Series C.
Introduction to Startup Fundraising: Seed to Series A
A practical, India-specific walkthrough of how startups actually raise money from their first cheque to a Series A, built for founders, treasury and finance teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees who want to understand the funding rounds shaping their company. Learn why startups raise and when they should not, how the funding ladder runs from bootstrapping and friends and family to pre-seed, seed and Series A, and who writes the cheques in India: angels, angel networks, micro VCs, institutional VCs and government schemes. Understand what investors look for at each stage, the traction and unit economics metrics that matter, how to build a pitch deck and get the legal house in order. See how pre-money, post-money, dilution, ESOP pools and instruments like CCPS, CCDs and iSAFEs work, how a fundraise is run, how to read a term sheet, and what due diligence, definitive agreements and the Indian compliance layer involve. Finish with life after the round, how startups bridge the gap from seed to Series A, and a case study following one Indian startup through both rounds.
Masterclass: Building a Family Business Succession and Governance Framework
Most of India Inc is promoter led, and the single largest governance risk in a family controlled company is the handover. This masterclass is for CFOs, corporate development heads, senior finance and strategy leaders, and founders before or after an IPO who have to design that handover from inside the company. It treats succession as a corporate finance problem: how promoter control, holding structures and related party flows affect valuation, how to build a board that can actually govern a family firm under SEBI LODR, how to choose and retain the next CEO, how dividend policy, buybacks, IPOs and stake sales can fund family liquidity without starving the business, and how to value a family member's exit. It closes with a board ready succession and governance charter and an eighteen month implementation roadmap, anchored in real Indian cases including Tata Sons, Godrej, Bajaj, Kirloskar, Raymond and Infosys. Educational content only.
- Explain where family control creates value in Indian listed companies and where it shows up as a governance discount in the share price
- Map promoter group holding structures, cross holdings and pledges, and quantify a holding company discount
- Use family settlements, demergers and SAST inter se transfer exemptions to reorganise ownership without triggering an open offer
Masterclass: Leading a Company Through an IPO, A CFO's Perspective
An IPO is the single largest test of a finance function. The CFO has to make the numbers listing-grade, hold the deal team to a timeline, negotiate with promoters and private equity investors over the offer, defend the valuation in front of institutions and then live with every promise made in the DRHP. This masterclass is for CFOs, corporate development heads, founders preparing to list and senior finance leaders. It covers whether and when to list, how to design the offer, how to build a finance function that survives SEBI and investor scrutiny, how to run bankers, lawyers and auditors, how the DRHP and SEBI review actually work, how pricing and the anchor book are decided, and how to manage the first year after listing under SEBI LODR. Built on real Indian IPOs. Educational content only, not investment or legal advice.
- How to decide whether an IPO beats a strategic sale, PE secondary or staying private
- How to time the listing window and design the mix of fresh issue and offer for sale
- How to build restated financials, KPIs and internal controls that hold up in the DRHP and after listing
Masterclass: Managing Institutional Investor Relationships at Scale
A company with 30 institutional holders can be managed from the CFO's phone. A company with 300 holders, 25 covering analysts and investors in Mumbai, Singapore, London and New York cannot. This masterclass is for CFOs, heads of corporate development, pre and post IPO founders and senior finance leaders who must turn investor relations into an operating system. It covers how to tier the institutional universe and design the IR team, how to build the investor CRM and ownership intelligence that tells you who is buying and selling, how to plan global roadshows and decide which investors get which format, how to keep one consistent equity story across hundreds of meetings without breaching SEBI LODR or insider trading rules, how to manage relationships through QIPs, block trades, index events and lock-in expiries, and how to measure the programme and report it to the board. Educational content only, built on Indian market practice.
- Why investor relations breaks as a shareholder base grows and how to tier holders, targets and influencers
- How to design the IR team, its reporting lines, budget and relationship ownership across senior management
- How to build an investor CRM and ownership intelligence from BENPOS, fund disclosures and flow data
Masterclass: Strategic Capital Allocation Frameworks Used by Top Indian Conglomerates
Over a decade, what a group does with its capital matters more than any single operating decision. This masterclass is for CFOs, corporate development heads, senior finance and strategy leaders, and founders before or after an IPO who sit in the room where those decisions are made. It starts with the arithmetic of value creation (return on capital against cost of capital) and how the market prices Indian business groups, then opens up group architecture: holding companies, listed subsidiaries, internal capital markets and group leverage. It studies the frameworks real Indian conglomerates have used, including Mahindra's return hurdles and exits, Reliance's stake sales to fund Jio and Retail, Tata Sons' pruning and consolidation, and the contrasting cash policies of Bajaj and ITC. It then covers capex gating, acquisitions against organic build, demergers and divestments, dividends and buybacks under current Indian tax rules, and the funding mix. It closes with a capital allocation policy, a portfolio scoring matrix and a five year group capital plan you can take to your own board. Educational content only.
- Measure value creation as the spread between return on capital and cost of capital, and apply it at business unit and group level
- Explain why Indian business groups trade at a conglomerate or holding company discount and what narrows it
- Map how cash moves through a group's holding company, listed subsidiaries and internal capital market, and where group leverage creates contagion risk
Masterclass: The CFO's Playbook for Long Term Value Creation
A company creates value only when it earns more on its capital than that capital costs, and keeps doing so as it grows. Making that happen year after year is the CFO's real job. This masterclass is for CFOs, corporate development heads, founders before and after listing, and senior finance and strategy leaders. It covers the value equation of growth, ROIC and cost of capital, how to find the segments, customers and processes that create or destroy value, how to run capital allocation as an operating discipline, how to build a balance sheet that survives the cycle, how to align planning, KPIs and executive pay with long term value, and how to communicate with investors so the share price reflects it. Built on real Indian companies listed on NSE and BSE. Educational content only, not investment advice.
- How growth, ROIC and the cost of capital combine to create or destroy value, and how to estimate WACC for an Indian company honestly
- How to build a value driver tree and find the segments, customers and products that quietly destroy value
- How to run capital allocation as a discipline: capex hurdles, acquisitions, deleveraging and payout policy under Indian rules
Practice Drills: Building a Basic Startup Cap Table
A hands-on drill course for startup founders, HR and L&D teams running ESOPs, treasury staff and anyone who has been handed a cap table to maintain. Working on one sample Bengaluru startup from its incorporation to its seed round, you will lay out a cap table in Excel or Google Sheets, issue founder shares, apply vesting and a co-founder exit, create and grant an ESOP pool, price a seed round, top up the pool before the round closes, convert an angel note at its valuation cap, reconcile everything against MCA filings, and run a simple exit waterfall. Every drill has a worked answer so you can check your numbers line by line.
- How to lay out a cap table in Excel or Google Sheets that stays correct as new rows and rounds are added
- How to issue founder shares, check face value and paid-up capital, and apply vesting and a leaver clause
- How to create an ESOP pool, record grants and lapses, and calculate fully diluted ownership
Practice Drills: Building a Board Level Capital Allocation Presentation
A hands-on drill course for CFOs, finance controllers, corporate development teams, and late-stage founders who have to take a capital allocation plan to a board and get it approved. Working with one sample NSE-listed manufacturer, you will size the five-year deployable cash envelope, estimate the hurdle rate, stress-test the plan against covenants and a downturn, then rank the competing uses on a common basis: capex projects, an acquisition, dividends, a buyback, and debt reduction. You will then turn the numbers into a board deck with a single clear recommendation, the approvals it needs under the Companies Act and SEBI rules, and a risk section that tells directors what would change the answer. The course closes with an independent-director Q&A drill and a complete board pack.
- How to size a five-year deployable cash envelope from free cash flow, balance sheet cash, and debt capacity
- How to estimate a defensible hurdle rate for an Indian listed company and adjust it for project risk
- How to stress-test an allocation plan against lender covenants and a downturn scenario
Practice Drills: Building a Debt Restructuring Scenario Model
A practice-first course for anyone who has to sit across the table from lenders when the numbers stop working. You will build a debt restructuring scenario model in Excel or Google Sheets from a blank sheet: a tranche-by-tranche debt schedule, a cash flow and DSCR engine, and a set of levers covering tenor extension, principal moratorium, interest rate resets, funded interest, one-time settlements, haircuts and debt-to-equity conversion. Then you will stress it, size sustainable debt from cash flow capacity, compare lender recovery against the IBC alternative, and track what each plan does to the promoter's stake. Every drill uses Indian context: RBI's Prudential Framework for stressed assets, inter-creditor agreements, NCLT timelines and INR numbers. Built for treasury and corporate finance professionals, growth-stage founders carrying term or venture debt, and strategy and BD teams evaluating distressed opportunities.
- Lay out a multi-tranche debt schedule with repayments, interest and covenants that recalculates from a few inputs
- Build a base case cash flow and track DSCR and net debt to EBITDA year by year
- Model tenor extension, principal moratorium, rate resets and funded interest term loans as switchable levers
Practice Drills: Building a Foreign Exchange Exposure Assessment
A practice-first course for treasury teams, founders and strategy professionals who need to answer one question with numbers: how much does a move in the rupee actually cost this business? You will work through Indian annual reports, Ind AS 21 and Ind AS 107 disclosures, and realistic exporter and importer books to build a currency-wise exposure register, net natural hedges, bucket exposures by maturity, run rupee sensitivity and stress scenarios, and separate transaction, translation and economic exposure. The course closes with full drills on an IT services exporter and an importer carrying foreign currency debt, and a one-page exposure assessment you can put in front of a CFO or board. Educational content only, not investment or hedging advice.
- Locate foreign currency risk disclosures in an Indian annual report and read the unhedged exposure table correctly
- Build a currency-wise, maturity-bucketed exposure register from receivables, payables, orders and loans
- Net natural hedges across exports, imports and foreign currency debt without double counting
Practice Drills: Building a Simple Cash Flow Forecast
A hands-on drill course for startup founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees outside finance who need to know where the company's cash will be next month. You take one illustrative small Indian business and build its 13-week cash flow forecast from scratch in Google Sheets or Excel: turn open invoices into expected receipts, schedule supplier payments with the MSME 45-day rule in mind, place payroll, PF, ESI, GST, TDS and advance tax on the calendar, roll the balance week by week, find the shortfall week, stress test it, close the gap, and keep the forecast alive with a weekly forecast-versus-actual review.
- How to set up a clean 13-week cash forecast template with a direct receipts-and-payments layout
- How to turn open invoices and the sales pipeline into week-by-week expected receipts using real customer payment behaviour
- How to schedule supplier payments, payroll, PF, ESI, rent, EMIs and one-off payments into the right weeks
Practice Drills: Building a Two Decade Capital Allocation Case Presentation
A hands-on drill course for CFOs, corporate development heads, pre and post IPO founders, and senior finance and strategy leaders. Working on one illustrative Indian listed company across FY2006 to FY2025, you will turn twenty years of annual reports into a consistent dataset, build a sources and uses ledger for every rupee generated and raised, split maintenance from growth capex, measure ROCE, ROIC and incremental returns by era against a cost of capital that moved with rates, post-audit acquisitions, expansions and payout decisions, and turn the whole analysis into a storyline and exhibit set that stands up to a board and to institutional investors.
- How to turn twenty years of annual reports into one consistent dataset across Indian GAAP, the Ind AS transition, demergers and restatements
- How to build a sources and uses ledger showing where every rupee of operating cash, debt and equity went over two decades
- How to separate maintenance capex from growth capex and measure incremental return on capital for each five year era
Practice Drills: Building an FP&A Variance Analysis Report
A practice-first course for corporate finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams who own the monthly budget vs actual conversation. You already know what a budget is; this course makes you explain why the numbers missed it. Working with sample data from Indian businesses, from a D2C brand selling on its own site, Amazon and Flipkart to a mid-sized manufacturer, you will structure budget and actual data for a clean comparison, split revenue variances into price, volume and mix, drill material, employee cost and opex variances, flex the budget to separate volume effects from true overspends, and build gross margin, EBITDA and cash bridges. Then you write the report itself: set materiality thresholds, draft commentary that names causes and owners, build a one-page summary with a waterfall chart, and turn variances into reforecast actions. Three full drills close the course, including reviewing and fixing a flawed variance report.
- Structure budget and actual data so every line compares like with like, across the April to March financial year
- Apply a consistent favourable and adverse sign convention across revenue and cost lines
- Split revenue variance into price, volume and mix effects, by product, channel and region
Practice Drills: Building an IPO Readiness Gap Analysis
A hands-on drill course for CFOs, finance controllers, corporate development teams, and founders of late-stage companies weighing an NSE or BSE mainboard listing. You will work through a single illustrative Indian private company and build its IPO readiness gap analysis from scratch: testing it against SEBI ICDR eligibility, stress-testing its financials, board, cap table, controls, and disclosure practices against what a DRHP and SEBI LODR will demand, then scoring, costing, and sequencing every gap into a listing roadmap you can present to a board.
- How to structure an IPO readiness gap analysis workbook with workstreams, RAG ratings, owners, and evidence
- How to test a company against SEBI ICDR mainboard eligibility and choose between the profitability and QIB routes
- How to find the financial reporting gaps a DRHP will expose, from restated Ind AS financials to audited KPIs
Practice Drills: Calculating ESOP Dilution Across Funding Rounds
A practice-first course built around one sample Indian startup and one sample employee grant, followed round by round. You start by reading a cap table properly: issued versus fully diluted shares, where the ESOP pool sits, and how pre-money, post-money and price per share tie together. Then you dilute the cap table yourself through a Seed round, a Series A and a Series B, using the one formula that explains every dilution calculation. You work through the option pool shuffle (why a pool top-up created before the round comes out of existing holders, not the new investor), size a pool refresh to hit a target, and fold a CCPS or iSAFE conversion into a round. The final chapter turns percentages into rupees: why a shrinking stake can still be worth more, what a down round does to option holders, and a capstone where you build the full four-round cap table end to end. Built for employees holding ESOPs, HR and L&D teams explaining grants, treasury and finance teams maintaining the cap table, and founders planning their next raise.
- Read a startup cap table and separate issued shares from the fully diluted count
- Tie pre-money valuation, post-money valuation, round size and price per share together in one calculation
- Dilute a cap table through Seed, Series A and Series B using the round-by-round ownership formula
Practice Drills: Comparing Corporate Bond vs Bank Loan Financing Costs
A practice-first course for treasury teams, growth-stage founders, and corporate strategy professionals who have to answer one recurring question: should we borrow from the bank or issue bonds? The headline rate on a sanction letter and the coupon on an NCD term sheet are never the real cost. You will drill every layer that sits between them and the number that matters: MCLR, EBLR and T-Bill linked resets, processing fees, prepayment charges, margin money and collateral, arranger and rating fees, stamp duty, trustee and listing costs, rating-driven spreads over G-Secs, and the EBP platform route for private placements. Then you will bring both options onto one footing with XIRR, post-tax cost, cash flow profile and refinancing risk, and weigh the non-price costs such as covenants and flexibility. Every drill uses Indian instruments, rupee figures, and the documents an Indian finance team actually works from.
- Build a single all-in cost worksheet that works for both a bank loan and a bond issue
- Convert MCLR, EBLR and T-Bill linked loan pricing into an effective annual rate, including fees and resets
- Put a rupee cost on collateral, margin money, and prepayment penalties
Practice Drills: Comparing Equity vs Debt Financing Scenarios
A hands-on drill course for non-finance team members, corporate treasury staff, HR and L&D teams, and startup founders. Working on one sample Indian manufacturer that needs INR 40 crore for a new plant, you will calculate the real post-tax cost of a bank loan and of fresh equity, compare what each option does to EPS, return on equity and interest coverage, find the break-even profit level between the two plans, measure promoter dilution, and stress test both plans in a bad year. You then run the same drills on a bootstrapped startup weighing venture debt against a seed round and on a listed mid-cap choosing between a QIP, a rights issue and NCDs, and finish by writing a one-page financing recommendation for a board.
- How to calculate the true post-tax cost of a bank loan or NCD, including processing fees
- How to estimate the cost of equity with a simple CAPM build using Indian inputs
- How to compare EPS and return on equity under an all-equity plan and a debt-funded plan
Practice Drills: Drafting an Investor Update Email for a Growth Stage Company
A practice-first course on the one document that decides how your investors feel about you between funding rounds. You will draft investor updates section by section for Indian growth stage companies: picking the metrics that matter, writing an opening summary a partner reads in thirty seconds, reporting revenue, burn and runway in INR without spin, showing unit economics and cohorts behind the headline, and writing asks that get real help. Then you drill the hard ones: a missed quarter, layoffs, a pivot or a down round, plus what should never go into an email at all. Built for growth stage founders, finance and treasury teams who prepare the monthly MIS, and strategy teams who own investor communication.
- Structure a monthly or quarterly investor update that a busy partner can read in under two minutes
- Choose and present the six core metrics a growth stage investor expects, with consistent definitions month to month
- Report revenue, gross margin, burn and runway in INR without flattering the numbers
Practice Drills: Mock Institutional Investor Relationship Review Post IPO
A masterclass drill course for CFOs, corporate development heads, founders who have just listed and senior finance leaders who now own the investor relationship. You work on one sample company, a consumer brand that listed on NSE and BSE a year ago, and run the full annual review its board should ask for. You rebuild the shareholder register from allotment to today, track every lock-in expiry, score guidance against delivery, audit four earnings calls and every investor meeting against SEBI LODR, sit through mock meetings with a mutual fund, an FPI and a hedge fund with a short thesis, handle a proxy advisor's against recommendation, run a perception study, build the IR scorecard and finish by presenting the review and next year's plan to the board. All company numbers are illustrative.
- Rebuild a listed company's shareholder register from its IPO allotment and quarterly shareholding pattern filings
- Map anchor, pre-IPO and promoter lock-in expiries against price and delivery volume
- Score a year of guidance against what the company actually delivered
Practice Drills: Modeling a Multi Entity Liquidity Stress Scenario
A hands-on drill course for CFOs, finance controllers, group treasurers, late-stage founders and corp dev teams who answer for liquidity across more than one legal entity. You take one illustrative five-entity Indian group (a listed holdco, a manufacturing opco funded by working capital lines and commercial paper, a lender ring-fenced infrastructure SPV, a distribution subsidiary and a GIFT City entity with a USD loan) and build its liquidity stress model in a spreadsheet. You forecast 13 weeks of cash entity by entity, define what really counts as available liquidity, eliminate intercompany flows, then design a combined shock drawn from IL&FS 2018 and COVID 2020: a key buyer default, a CP rollover failure and rating downgrade, and a rupee and market shock. You run it through every entity, find the first breach week, test covenants and cross-default contagion, separate cash that can move from cash that is trapped under Sections 185 and 186, FEMA and lender ring-fences, rank the response levers, size the buffer with a reverse stress test, and finish with a one-page board report and a quarterly contingency funding plan.
- How to lay out a multi-entity liquidity stress model with entity sheets, an intercompany elimination layer and a consolidated view
- How to build a 13-week base-case cash forecast for each entity and define available liquidity with sensible haircuts
- How to design a plausible combined stress scenario from real Indian episodes like IL&FS 2018 and COVID 2020
Practice Drills: Preparing a One Page Financial Summary for Leadership
A hands-on drill course for non-finance team members, corporate treasury staff, HR and L&D teams, and startup founders who are asked to 'send leadership a one-pager'. Working on one sample Indian consumer company's quarterly profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow, you will pick the handful of numbers that matter, add cash and working capital so profit does not mislead, compare against budget and last year, explain every variance in one line, format figures in crore and lakh without errors, write a headline summary leaders read first, and lay out the page with a KPI strip, one table and one chart. You then run the same drills for a startup founder's monthly board update, an HR team's people-cost summary and a treasury liquidity snapshot, and finish by building and checking a full one-page summary before you hit send.
- How to pull revenue, gross margin, EBITDA and profit from a full P&L and ignore the noise
- How to choose the five KPIs a leadership team actually uses to make decisions
- How to add cash flow and working capital so a profitable quarter does not hide a cash problem
Practice Drills: Preparing a Transfer Pricing Documentation Summary
A practice-first course for finance and treasury teams, founders and strategy professionals who have to produce, review or sign off on an Indian entity's transfer pricing documentation. You will map a group's international and specified domestic transactions, write a functional, asset and risk (FAR) analysis, characterise the Indian entity, pick the most appropriate method under Rule 10B, run a comparables search with accept-reject filters, and compute the arm's length range under Rule 10CA. Dedicated drills cover royalty and management fees, intercompany loans and guarantees, and safe harbour eligibility. The course closes with full documentation summaries for an IT services captive and a brand distributor, reconciled against Form 3CEB and the Master File. Educational content only, not tax or legal advice.
- Identify which transactions need transfer pricing documentation and which thresholds apply
- Write a FAR analysis and characterise an Indian entity in a way that survives TPO scrutiny
- Choose and defend the most appropriate method from the six recognised under Indian rules
Practice Drills: Preparing an ESG Disclosure Summary for Board Review
A hands-on drill course for CFOs, financial controllers, senior finance leaders, pre-IPO founders and corporate development teams who own the ESG number that goes to the board. You will work through one illustrative Indian listed manufacturer's sustainability data from raw plant-level inputs to a finished board summary: scoping under SEBI's BRSR and BRSR Core, building a materiality matrix, normalising energy, water, waste and GHG numbers, reconciling ESG figures to the audited financial statements, reading workforce and governance metrics, and handling value chain data gaps. The course ends with you assembling a full board ESG pack and rehearsing the questions independent directors and the audit committee will ask before they sign off.
- What a board and audit committee actually need from an ESG disclosure summary, and what they do not
- How SEBI's BRSR, BRSR Core, value chain disclosures and the reasonable assurance glide path shape what finance must sign off
- How to build a materiality matrix and map each material issue to the right BRSR principle and KPI
Practice Drills: Reading a Company Balance Sheet Line by Line
A hands-on drill course for non-finance employees, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and startup founders who need to read a balance sheet from the inside. You will work through one illustrative Indian manufacturer's two-year Schedule III balance sheet, line by line and note by note: fixed assets and capital work-in-progress, inventories and receivables, cash and investments, share capital and reserves, borrowings, payables and provisions. Every drill ends with the question a CFO, lender or board member would ask about that line, and the course closes with you reading a real listed company's balance sheet from its BSE filing on your own.
- How a Schedule III balance sheet is laid out and where to find a listed company's filing on BSE, NSE and screener.in
- What each asset line means in operating terms, from capital work-in-progress to trade receivables and other current assets
- How to read share capital, other equity, ESOP reserves and retained earnings without confusing reserves with cash
Practice Drills: Responding to a Simulated Activist Investor Letter
A hands-on drill course for CFOs, finance controllers, corporate development teams, and late-stage founders who may one day open a letter from an activist shareholder. You work through one simulated case end to end: a sample NSE-listed company with a large cash pile, a low-return subsidiary, and a history of related party contracts receives a public letter from a fund holding just over 5 percent. You will read the letter the way a board should, rebuild the activist's valuation math, map the shareholder register to see who actually decides the vote, handle the first 72 hours of disclosure and insider trading controls, and stress-test each demand on its merits. You will then choose a stance, draft the board's reply and investor presentation, prepare for an EGM requisition under the Companies Act, and negotiate a settlement. The course closes with a complete activist response pack.
- How to read an activist letter and separate its demands, its evidence, and its implied threats
- How to rebuild and test an activist's sum of the parts and value gap calculations
- How the SEBI Takeover Code, LODR, and Companies Act sections on requisitions and director removal shape an Indian activist campaign
Practice Drills: Structuring a Convertible Debt Term Sheet
A practice-first course for CFOs, finance controllers, corporate development teams and pre-IPO founders who have to structure convertible debt from the issuer's side of the table. Working from a sample late-growth Indian company raising INR 300 crore from a private equity investor, you will choose between compulsorily convertible debentures, optionally convertible debentures, FCCBs and NCDs with warrants, check the route under the Companies Act, FEMA and SEBI rules, then build the term sheet clause by clause: issue size, coupon, conversion price and premium, IPO-linked floors and ratchets, maturity, redemption premium and investor yield, anti-dilution, security, covenants, puts, calls and governance rights. Every economic term is tested in rupees against conversion and exit scenarios, including the dilution and EPS hit, the Ind AS 32 liability and equity split, and withholding tax and stamp duty. The course closes with three full end-to-end drills and a before-you-sign scorecard. Educational content only, not legal, tax or investment advice.
- Choose between CCDs, OCDs, FCCBs and NCDs with warrants for a specific issuer and defend the choice to a board
- Check the Companies Act, FEMA, ECB and SEBI route for a convertible issue before drafting a word
- Set the coupon, conversion price, conversion premium and IPO-linked floors and ratchets, and prove in rupees what each costs the promoters
Practice Drills: Structuring a Simple Business Budget
A hands-on drill course for startup founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees outside finance who are asked to build or own a budget. You take one illustrative small Indian business and build its FY budget from scratch in Google Sheets or Excel: pull last year's actuals into a clean template, build revenue from volume and price drivers, phase it across the months around festive and seasonal swings, budget direct costs, payroll with PF and ESI, operating expenses and capex, assemble the monthly budgeted P&L and break-even point, convert it into a cash budget that respects GST and credit terms, test base, downside and upside cases, and then run a monthly budget vs actual review and present the whole thing on one page.
- How to turn last year's actuals into a clean budget template with a separate assumptions sheet
- How to build revenue from volume and price drivers and phase it month by month around Indian seasonality
- How to budget direct costs, payroll including PF, ESI and increments, operating expenses and capex
Practice Drills: Structuring a Term Sheet Redline and Negotiation Response
A practice-first companion to Building a Term Sheet Negotiation Checklist and Tracker. You already know what liquidation preference, anti-dilution, reserved matters and CCPS are; this course makes you redline them. Working from sample Indian term sheets, you will triage an incoming draft, build a position sheet before touching the document, then drill the markup of every clause that matters: valuation and the ESOP pool, liquidation preference, anti-dilution, exit rights and put options under FEMA, reserved matters, board composition, founder vesting, exclusivity and conditions precedent. Then you drill the response itself: the cover note, the concession ladder, the investor's second turn and a strategic investor's term sheet from the corporate BD side. Built for growth-stage founders, CFOs and treasury teams, and corporate strategy and BD teams who have to produce the redline, not just read it.
- Triage an incoming term sheet in 30 minutes and rank which clauses deserve your negotiating capital
- Build a redline position sheet with an opening ask, a target and a walk-away for every clause before you mark up the draft
- Redline valuation, ESOP pool, liquidation preference and anti-dilution clauses and quantify what each change is worth in rupees
Practice Drills: Valuing a Sample ESOP Grant Using Black-Scholes
A practice-first course built around one sample ESOP grant that you value from scratch. You start with the grant letter itself: grant date, exercise price, vesting schedule and expiry, and why the option sitting inside it behaves like a call option with a few important differences. Then you build each of the six Black-Scholes inputs the way an Indian finance team actually does: share price for listed and unlisted companies, expected term, volatility from NSE price history or a peer set, and the risk-free rate from the G-Sec curve. You run the formula by hand, value a graded vesting grant tranche by tranche, stress test the inputs, and finish by turning fair value into the Ind AS 102 expense schedule, including forfeitures and true-ups. Built for corporate finance and treasury teams, growth stage founders managing an ESOP pool, and strategy teams who need to read an ESOP valuation report critically.
- Read an ESOP grant letter and extract every term that affects its fair value
- Explain why an ESOP is valued as a call option and where that analogy needs adjustment
- Build all six Black-Scholes inputs for a listed or unlisted Indian company and defend each one
Understanding Advanced Capital Allocation Strategy for CFOs
Over ten years, the way a company allocates its capital decides its share price more than any single quarter's results. This advanced concept course is for CFOs, finance controllers, senior corporate finance leaders, corporate development teams and late-stage founders who own that decision inside one company. It starts with the economics of value creation (ROIC against WACC, and incremental returns on new capital), then shows how to set risk-adjusted hurdle rates and size a realistic capital envelope from free cash flow and debt capacity. It covers organic investment under uncertainty, including the biases that distort capital budgeting and the real options that justify staged bets, then acquisitions and exits through Indian deals such as Tata Steel and Corus, Hindalco and Novelis, and recent demergers. It closes with dividends, buybacks and cash policy under current Indian tax rules, leverage as an allocation choice, incentive design, investor communication, and a capital allocation scorecard you can apply to your own company. Educational content only, not investment advice.
- How to measure value creation with ROIC, WACC, economic profit and incremental return on invested capital
- How to set divisional and project hurdle rates for an Indian company without double counting risk
- How to size a multi-year capital envelope from free cash flow, balance sheet cash and debt capacity at a target rating
Understanding Budgeting and Forecasting Basics
Sooner or later, almost everyone in a company is handed a budget: a sales head with a revenue target, an HR manager with a headcount plan, an L&D lead with a training spend, a founder with eighteen months of runway. Very few are ever taught what the numbers mean. This course fixes that, without assuming any finance background. You learn what a budget is and how it differs from a forecast, a plan and a target. You learn the building blocks every budget is made of: revenue, fixed and variable costs, capex and opex, and why profit and cash are not the same thing. You then follow how Indian companies actually build budgets across the April to March financial year, from top-down and bottom-up approaches to zero-based budgeting, drivers, assumptions and monthly phasing around Diwali and year-end. The second half covers forecasting: simple methods like run rate and moving averages, rolling forecasts and a first look at cash forecasting. You finish by learning to read a budget vs actual report, manage your own department's numbers, budget for people and spot the budget games that quietly destroy trust.
- Explain the difference between a budget, a forecast, a plan and a target in plain language
- Read a simple budget and understand how revenue, costs, profit and cash connect
- Separate fixed, variable and semi-variable costs, and capex from opex
Understanding Cap Tables and Equity Dilution for Founders
A plain-language, India-specific guide to the cap table from the founder's side of the table, built for startup founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees who want to understand how ownership in their company is divided and why it keeps changing. Learn what a cap table records, how authorised capital, issued shares and face value work under the Companies Act, and why fully diluted ownership is the only number that matters. Split equity among co-founders without wrecking the partnership, protect the company with founder vesting and leaver clauses, and hand out equity to early hires and advisors sensibly. See exactly how each fundraise dilutes you, why the ESOP pool is negotiated before the round, and how CCDs and iSAFEs land on the cap table. Go beyond percentages to understand control, board seats, liquidation preference, anti-dilution and secondary sales, then learn to keep a clean, compliant cap table through allotments, transfers and MCA filings. Finish with the mistakes that break due diligence and a case study following one founder's stake from incorporation to Series C.
Understanding Cash Flow Management for Businesses
A practical, India-specific introduction to managing cash inside a business, built for founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees outside finance whose decisions quietly move the company's bank balance. Understand why profitable companies still run out of money, how the cash conversion cycle works, and how Indian businesses manage receivables, payables and inventory, including TReDS and the MSME 45-day payment rule. Learn to build a simple 13-week cash forecast, plan burn and runway, choose between cash credit, overdraft and bill discounting, schedule GST, TDS and advance tax outflows, and park surplus cash sensibly. Finish by seeing how every department affects cash, spotting the early warning signs of a cash crunch, and working through a real-world style cash crisis case study.
Understanding Complex Debt Instruments: Convertibles, Mezzanine, and Structured Debt
An India-focused, advanced course on the financing instruments that sit between plain vanilla debt and common equity, built for CFOs, finance controllers, corporate development teams and late-stage founders. Map where hybrids sit in the capital stack and learn the Indian toolkit: NCDs, CCDs, OCDs, CCPS, FCCBs and warrants. Take a convertible apart into conversion price, ratio, premium and parity, value it as a bond plus a call option, and see how Ind AS 32 split accounting and diluted EPS change the reported numbers. Study the FCCB boom and bust through the Suzlon experience, and how CCDs and CCPS are used in pre-IPO and strategic deals. Price mezzanine finance through cash coupons, PIK interest and equity kickers, understand promoter and holdco funding from Indian AIFs and NBFCs, and see what subordination and intercreditor terms mean for recovery under the IBC. Work through securitisation with PTCs and direct assignment, market-linked debentures after the 2023 tax change, covenants, escrows and cash waterfalls, and SO and CE rated obligations. Finish with a framework for matching the instrument to the situation, the term sheet clauses that quietly move value, and two case studies: an illustrative comparison of three ways to fund a ₹500 crore acquisition, and the role of convertibles in Tata Steel's acquisition of Corus.
Understanding Corporate Bond Issuance and Debt Markets
A clear, practical guide to how corporate bonds actually get issued in India, written for treasury teams, growth-stage founders and corporate strategy professionals. Starting from why a company would borrow from the bond market instead of a bank, it walks through the anatomy of an NCD, the SEBI rulebook, private placements versus public issues, credit ratings, arrangers and price discovery on the NSE and BSE Electronic Book Provider platforms. It then explains how a bond is priced against the G-Sec curve, what drives the credit spread, how bonds trade and fail after issue, and where commercial paper, market-linked debentures, green bonds and masala bonds fit. It closes with a step-by-step plan for a company's first bond issue.
- Why companies choose bonds over bank loans and what an NCD term sheet actually contains
- Who buys Indian corporate bonds and what each investor class looks for
- How SEBI's NCS Regulations shape private placements and public issues
Understanding Corporate Capital Structure Decisions
An India-focused, intermediate course on how companies decide the mix of debt and equity that funds them, built for treasury and corporate finance professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams. Measure leverage the way lenders and rating agencies do, then work through the theory that drives real boardroom decisions: Modigliani-Miller, the tax shield, trade-off theory, pecking order, signalling and agency costs. Estimate the cost of equity and debt for an Indian company, build a WACC, re-lever beta and see why an optimal capital structure is a range rather than a point. Study the Indian reality of financial distress, from promoter pledging and holding company debt to lease liabilities under Ind AS 116 and the collapses of IL&FS, DHFL and Jet Airways. Understand how dividends, buybacks, rights issues and asset sales reshape the balance sheet, and finish with a practical framework for setting target leverage, a walkthrough of reading capital structure choices on screener.in and in annual reports, and a case study of two Indian companies with opposite philosophies of leverage.
Understanding Corporate Credit Ratings From an Issuer's Perspective
Built for CFOs, finance controllers, senior corporate finance leaders, pre-IPO founders and corp dev teams who sit on the other side of the rating table. Most material on credit ratings is written for investors reading a rating. This course is written for the company being rated. It covers how CRISIL, ICRA, CARE and India Ratings assess business and financial risk, what goes into the information pack and the management meeting, how to read and respond to a rating committee outcome, and how to manage surveillance, outlook changes and non-cooperation flags. It then turns the rating into a planning tool: building a shadow rating model, testing capex, acquisitions and dividends against agency thresholds, handling rating triggers in loan and bond documents, and translating rating notches into spreads on bonds, bank loans and commercial paper. It closes with downgrades, the strict Indian default definitions, and lessons from IL&FS.
- How Indian rating agencies are regulated by SEBI and what each symbol, outlook and watch actually signals
- How agencies score business risk, financial risk, management quality and group support, and where notching comes from
- How to choose an agency, prepare the information pack and run the management meeting with the rating committee
Understanding Corporate Taxation Basics for Business Owners
A plain-language, India-specific introduction to how businesses are taxed, built for founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees outside finance who want to understand the tax decisions shaping their company. Learn how your business structure changes your tax bill, how accounting profit becomes taxable income, and what the Income-tax Act, 2025 changed. Understand corporate tax rates, surcharge and cess, the concessional 22% regime, MAT, and how to read a listed company's effective tax rate on screener.in. See how advance tax, TDS, TCS, tax audits and ITR filing work through the year, get a working grasp of GST and input tax credit, and learn what salary, dividends, buybacks and ESOPs really cost the company and its people. Finish with startup tax benefits, the line between tax planning and evasion, and a case study tracing one Indian SME's tax year from profit to paid.
Understanding Cross Border Tax Structuring for Multinational Operations
Every rupee a multinational earns crosses at least two tax systems on its way to shareholders, and the structure of the group decides how much of it arrives. This course is for CFOs, finance controllers, corporate development and M&A teams, and founders preparing for scale or listing. It covers residence, source and permanent establishment, how DTAAs actually work, outbound structuring under India's FEMA overseas investment rules, inbound entry vehicles and funding, royalties and service fees, indirect transfers, transfer pricing for operating models, intangibles and financing, GAAR and the principal purpose test, the Tiger Global ruling, Pillar Two and digital taxes, startup flips and reverse flips, and how to govern tax risk at board level. Built on real Indian cases and companies. Educational content only, not tax, legal or investment advice.
- How residence, source and permanent establishment rules decide which country taxes which profit, and how DTAAs relieve double taxation
- How Indian groups set up overseas subsidiaries under FEMA rules, choose a holding jurisdiction and bring profits home efficiently
- How foreign groups choose an Indian entry vehicle, fund it with debt or equity and charge royalties and service fees without inviting disputes
Understanding ESG Reporting Requirements for Large Corporates
For India's top 1,000 listed companies, ESG reporting is no longer a glossy annual brochure. It is a SEBI-mandated filing, increasingly subject to external assurance, read by lenders, rating agencies, global customers and foreign investors. This advanced concept course is for CFOs, finance controllers, senior corporate finance leaders, corporate development teams and pre-IPO founders who own that filing. It walks through the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) section by section, then BRSR Core, the assurance glide path and value chain disclosures. It covers the hard numbers (Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, energy, water, waste and workforce metrics), maps BRSR to ISSB, GRI, TCFD, CDP and the EU's CSRD and CBAM, and shows how to build ESG data controls, board oversight and greenwashing safeguards. It closes with ESG disclosure in IPOs and M&A diligence, peer benchmarking using real Indian BRSRs, and a 12 month implementation roadmap. Educational content only, not investment advice.
- Which Indian companies must file a BRSR, when, and what SEBI's applicability rules actually say
- How to read and prepare every section of the BRSR, including essential and leadership indicators across the nine NGRBC principles
- What BRSR Core requires, how assessment and assurance differ, and how the phased glide path applies to your company
Understanding Financial Markets: A Primer for Non Finance Employees
A plain-language, India-specific primer on how financial markets work, built for employees outside finance, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and founders who keep hearing about markets in board updates, news headlines and salary conversations. Understand how money flows from savers to businesses, who the key players and regulators are, and how the equity, debt, currency and commodity markets actually operate on NSE, BSE and beyond. Learn how companies raise money through IPOs, QIPs, bonds and commercial paper, why an RBI repo rate change moves your company's borrowing costs, what credit ratings signal, and how businesses hedge rupee and input cost risk. Finish by connecting inflation, GDP and FII flows to market moves, understanding insider trading rules and trading windows at listed employers, seeing where your ESOPs, EPF, NPS and SIPs meet the markets, and tracing one RBI rate decision all the way to a company and its employees.
Understanding Investor Relations for Growth Stage Companies
A practical guide to investor relations for Indian growth-stage companies, written for founders, CFO and treasury teams, and corporate strategy professionals. It starts with what IR actually does and who the audiences are, then follows a company through its lifecycle: investor updates and board packs while private, building the equity story and KPI set before an IPO, and the SEBI rulebook that governs every word a listed company says. It then covers the quarterly earnings machine, the guidance question, analyst coverage and consensus, communicating bad news, lock-in expiries and shareholder base management, and closes with how to build and measure an IR function, using real examples from India's new-age listings.
- What investor relations does and why it matters more for growth companies than mature ones
- Who the investor audiences are in India and what each one wants from management
- How to report to private investors and build an equity story before an IPO
Understanding Pre IPO Readiness: Financial and Governance Requirements
A concept course for CFOs, finance controllers, corporate development teams and founders of late-stage Indian companies who need to know what IPO readiness actually requires before the bankers arrive. It covers the financial, controls, governance and capital structure requirements, from SEBI ICDR eligibility and restated Ind AS financials to SEBI LODR board composition, related party transactions, promoter contribution and cap table clean up. Each lesson explains why the requirement exists and where Indian companies typically fall short, so you can judge how far your company is from a fileable DRHP.
- What IPO readiness means as an operating state, and why it takes 18 to 24 months to reach
- How SEBI ICDR mainboard eligibility works under the profitability test and the QIB route, and when the SME platform fits better
- What restated financials, Ind AS policies, audit quality and KPI disclosures a DRHP will demand
Understanding Related Party Transaction Governance at Scale
In a promoter-led Indian business group, related party transactions are not an occasional exception. They run through every month's books: shared brands, intra-group loans, common suppliers, cross-guarantees, management fees and asset transfers between dozens of entities. Most governance failures that have destroyed shareholder value in India, from Fortis to Coffee Day, ran through exactly these channels. This advanced concept course is for CFOs, finance controllers, senior corporate finance leaders, corporate development teams and pre-IPO founders who have to make related party governance work across a large group, not just on paper. It covers who counts as a related party under the Companies Act, SEBI LODR and Ind AS 24, how approval thresholds and materiality actually work, what the audit committee must see and test, how to benchmark arm's length pricing, and how to build a group policy, ERP controls and continuous monitoring that hold up at thousands of transactions a year. It closes with disclosure, shareholder votes, auditor scrutiny and the special situations (royalties, intra-group funding, IPOs and restructurings) where related party risk is highest. Educational content only, not investment or legal advice.
- Why related party transactions are the main channel through which value leaks from listed Indian companies, and how to recognise each leakage pattern
- How the Companies Act, SEBI LODR and Ind AS 24 each define a related party, and how to map the full related party universe of a large group
- How board, audit committee and shareholder approval thresholds work, including materiality, omnibus approvals and material modifications
Understanding Shareholder Activism and How Companies Respond
A concept course for CFOs, finance controllers, corporate development teams, and late-stage founders who want to understand shareholder activism before they ever face it. In India, promoters often hold large stakes, so activism rarely looks like a Wall Street proxy fight. It works through institutional votes, proxy advisor recommendations, EGM requisitions, majority of minority approvals on related party transactions, and public pressure. You will learn what activists want and how they pick targets, the Companies Act, SEBI LODR, and Takeover Code provisions that set the rules of engagement, how proxy advisors and mutual fund stewardship codes shape voting, and how boards should prepare, respond, and decide whether to engage, settle, or resist. The course closes with Indian cases where shareholders changed the outcome, and a readiness plan you can apply to your own company.
- What shareholder activists want and how activism in promoter-controlled Indian companies differs from activism in widely held markets
- Which voting thresholds, EGM requisition rights, and director removal powers shareholders have under the Companies Act, 2013
- How SEBI's Takeover Code, LODR, and insider trading rules shape the way a stake is built and a campaign is run
Understanding Term Sheets: Key Clauses Founders Must Know
A clause-by-clause, India-specific guide to the venture capital term sheet, built for growth-stage founders, corporate finance and treasury professionals, and strategy and BD teams who sit across the table from investors. Learn what a term sheet binds you to and what it does not, and how it maps onto the SSA, SHA and Articles of Association that Indian deals actually run on. Decode the economic terms that decide who gets paid: pre-money valuation and the fully diluted trap, the option pool clause, why Indian VCs invest through CCPS, liquidation preference and anti-dilution. Then work through the control terms that decide who runs the company: board seats, affirmative voting rights, information rights, founder vesting and non-competes. Understand transfer and exit mechanics including ROFR, tag-along, drag-along, pre-emptive rights and the exit clauses that FEMA quietly reshapes. Finish with the regulatory overlay under FEMA and the Companies Act, the clauses worth fighting for, the red flags to walk away from, and a full case study redlining a Series A term sheet.
Understanding Transfer Pricing Basics for Multi Entity Businesses
The moment a business has two entities under common control, every invoice between them becomes a tax question. A holding company charging its operating subsidiary a brand fee, an Indian captive billing its US parent for software development, a promoter's trading firm buying raw material for the listed company: all of these are transfer pricing transactions, and the Income Tax Department will test each one against what unrelated parties would have agreed. This course teaches the mechanics from the ground up. You will learn who counts as an associated enterprise, what the arm's length principle actually requires, how the six prescribed methods work with worked Indian numbers, how the common intercompany transactions (services, royalties, loans, guarantees, captive service centres) are priced, and what compliance looks like in practice: Form 3CEB, the master file and local file, safe harbour rules, advance pricing agreements and what happens when the Transfer Pricing Officer disagrees. Built for CFOs and treasury teams, growth-stage founders setting up overseas or group entities, and corporate strategy and BD teams structuring intra-group deals.
- Identify when two entities are associated enterprises and which of their transactions fall under Indian transfer pricing rules
- Explain the arm's length principle and why tax authorities use it to stop profit shifting
- Apply CUP, resale price, cost plus and TNMM to simple Indian examples and pick the most appropriate method
Understanding Working Capital Management for Businesses
A practical, India-specific introduction to working capital, built for founders, treasury teams, HR and L&D professionals, and employees outside finance whose everyday decisions lock up or release a company's money. Learn to read the working capital lines on a balance sheet, tell gross, net and operating working capital apart, and calculate liquidity ratios and the working capital cycle step by step. See why FMCG, retail, capital goods, pharma and IT companies look so different, and track real trends on screener.in. Understand working capital policy, permanent vs temporary needs, and how to estimate requirement. Get hands-on with credit policy, receivables ageing, EOQ and ABC analysis, supplier terms and the MSME 45-day payment rule. Learn how Indian banks set drawing power, how cash credit, WCDL, commercial paper, factoring and TReDS compare, and finish by linking working capital to growth and valuation, spotting red flags, and fixing a working capital crunch in a case study.
Understanding Working Capital Optimization at Scale
Built for treasury and corporate finance professionals, growth-stage founders and corporate strategy teams who already know what working capital is and now need to move it. Learn to run the cash conversion cycle as a management KPI, translate days saved into cash released, ROCE and valuation, and benchmark against Indian leaders such as HUL, Asian Paints and Titan. Break working capital down by business unit, channel, SKU and customer to separate structural days from process leakage. Then work through the three big levers: order-to-cash (credit segmentation, dispute control, collections automation, dealer finance), procure-to-pay (term harmonisation under the MSME 45-day rule and Section 43B(h), reverse factoring, dynamic discounting, consignment stock and gold metal loans) and inventory (safety stock, SKU rationalisation, S&OP). Finish with treasury structures, 13-week cash forecasting, the funding mix at scale, negative working capital business models, governance and incentives, the line between optimization and window dressing, and a full 90-day programme case study.
- How to measure the cash conversion cycle the way a treasury team does and convert days saved into cash, ROCE and valuation impact
- How to benchmark working capital against Indian peers and decompose it by business unit, channel, SKU and customer
- Practical order-to-cash levers: credit segmentation, dispute reduction, collections automation and dealer finance programmes
Using Carta or Similar Platforms for Cap Table and Equity Management at Scale
For growth-stage founders, corporate finance and treasury professionals, and strategy and BD teams who have outgrown the spreadsheet cap table. Learn to recognise the breaking point, understand what equity management platforms like Carta, Qapita, EquityList and Trica Equity actually do, and pick one with a structured scorecard. Migrate cleanly by reconciling your spreadsheet against the statutory registers, and set up equity, CCPS, CCDs, warrants and iSAFEs correctly. Run ESOPs at scale: grants under Section 62(1)(b), vesting and leaver treatment, exercise and perquisite tax withholding, and buyback programs. Model priced rounds, conversions and exit waterfalls on the platform, then keep everything in sync with MCA filings, FEMA reporting, demat requirements and Ind AS 102. Close with pre-IPO clean-up under SEBI SBEB rules and a full case study of equity operations from Series A to pre-IPO.
- How to tell when a spreadsheet cap table has become a liability, and what a platform fixes
- How to evaluate and migrate to Carta or an Indian alternative without breaking your records
- How to run ESOP grants, vesting, exercises, tax withholding and buybacks at scale
M&A & Valuation
10 courses
Advanced M&A Integration Strategy Post Deal Close
A strategy-level course on post-merger integration for CFOs and finance controllers, senior corporate finance leaders, corp dev and M&A teams, and late-stage founders preparing to buy or be bought. Go beyond the first 100 days: choose the right integration model for the deal, write an integration thesis, design the combined operating model, organisation and decision rights, and run a synergy ledger that tracks value for three years, not three months. Work through the Indian layer that only shows up after close: post-acquisition mergers under Sections 230 to 233 of the Companies Act, Section 72A loss carry-forward, stamp duty and GST continuity, purchase price allocation and goodwill impairment under Ind AS 103 and Ind AS 36, and the SEBI rules that bind a listed target. Then study real Indian integrations, LTI and Mindtree, Air India and Vistara, and Zomato and Blinkit, and leave with a reusable integration playbook.
- Pick between absorption, preservation, symbiosis and holding models based on what the deal thesis actually needs
- Turn a deal model into an integration thesis and a value creation plan with named owners
- Design the combined operating model, leadership structure and decision rights, including for a listed or partly owned target
Case Study: Negotiating a Term Sheet, A Founder's Real Experience
A composite case study of an Indian founder raising a ₹40 crore Series A, built from typical Indian venture deal terms. Follow a Pune B2B SaaS company from its first term sheet to the final close, and learn what every clause actually costs. Work through pre-money and post-money valuation, the ESOP pool shuffle, liquidation preferences and anti-dilution, then the control terms: board seats, reserved matters, founder vesting, ROFR, tag-along and drag-along. Understand the Indian legal layer that shapes every deal here, from CCPS and FEMA pricing rules to valuation reports and how terms get rewritten in the SHA and SSA. Finish by modelling the exit waterfall yourself and walking away with a negotiation checklist you can use on a real deal.
- Read an Indian Series A term sheet and separate the economic terms from the control terms
- Calculate pre-money, post-money and founder dilution, including the effect of a pre-money ESOP pool
- Model how liquidation preferences and anti-dilution change payouts across different exit outcomes
Introduction to Business Valuation for Founders and Managers
A plain-language, India-specific introduction to how businesses are valued, built for founders, managers, treasury teams and HR professionals who deal with valuation without being finance specialists. Understand the difference between price, value and worth, and where valuation shows up in real work: fundraises, ESOP grants, acquisitions, buybacks and share transfers. Learn which numbers actually drive value, how multiples like P/E and EV/EBITDA work, how to bridge enterprise value to equity value, and how to build a simple DCF without drowning in jargon. Finish with the Indian rulebook on registered valuers, Rule 11UA, FEMA and SEBI pricing, the everyday management decisions that move your company's valuation, and a case study valuing one Indian private company three different ways.
Introduction to Mergers and Acquisitions From a Corporate Perspective
An India-specific, inside-the-company view of mergers and acquisitions, built for corporate finance and treasury teams, strategy and business development professionals, and growth-stage founders. Learn the vocabulary of mergers, amalgamations and demergers, why companies buy and why most deals disappoint, and how to decide between building, buying and partnering. Value a target the way an acquirer does: standalone value, honestly sized synergies, control premiums and EPS accretion or dilution. Understand how deals are paid for and structured, from cash and stock to slump sales, schemes of arrangement, earn-outs and escrows. Walk through the deal process and due diligence, the Indian rulebook of the Companies Act, NCLT, CCI, the SEBI Takeover Code and FEMA, and the integration work that decides whether a deal succeeds. Finish with the HDFC and HDFC Bank merger traced from announcement to completion.
- Tell mergers, acquisitions, amalgamations and demergers apart and know why companies pursue each
- Decide when buying a business beats building or partnering, and screen targets systematically
- Separate a target's standalone value from the price paid, size synergies honestly and test EPS accretion or dilution
Masterclass: Building and Leading a Corporate Development Function
A masterclass for CFOs, corporate development heads, founders around an IPO and senior finance and strategy leaders who need to build, run or oversee a corporate development function in an Indian company. Learn what corp dev actually owns across M&A, partnerships, minority stakes and divestitures, where it should report, and how its shape differs across promoter groups, professionally run companies and new-age tech. Build the team and manage bankers, lawyers and Big Four advisors. Turn strategy into an M&A thesis and a proprietary pipeline, run an investment committee with real stage gates, and handle board approvals, related party transactions and UPSI under SEBI rules. Hold the line on walk-away prices, hand deals cleanly to integration, and measure corp dev by the returns its deals earn. Finish with divestitures and demergers, UltraTech's cement acquisitions, and Zomato's acquisition of Blinkit.
- Define the scope, mandate and reporting line of a corporate development function that fits your company
- Decide when to make the first corp dev hire, build the right skills mix and manage external advisors and their fees
- Translate corporate strategy into an M&A thesis and run a proprietary deal pipeline, including CVC and minority stakes
Masterclass: Navigating a Hostile Takeover Attempt as a Leadership Team
A leadership masterclass for CFOs, corporate development heads, founders of listed and pre-IPO companies, and senior finance and strategy leaders. Hostile bids in India have been rare because promoters usually hold control, but rising institutional ownership, diluted founders, and new-age listed companies with low promoter stakes are changing that. This course covers the leadership side of a hostile approach: who decides what under the Companies Act and the SEBI Takeover Code, how management handles its own conflicts of interest, how to audit vulnerability and close the value gap before a bidder does, how to lead the first weeks after a bid lands, and how to choose between fighting, negotiating, and selling. Case studies from Indian and global contests show what boards got right and wrong, and the final lesson covers leading the company after the outcome, whichever way it goes.
- Why hostile bids have been rare in India, and which listed companies are now genuinely exposed
- How fiduciary duties split between the board, independent directors, and management once a bid is live
- How to recognise and manage your own conflicts of interest so a defense never turns into entrenchment
Practice Drills: Structuring a Hostile Takeover Defense Response Plan
A hands-on drill course for CFOs, corporate development heads, founders of listed and pre-IPO companies, and senior strategy leaders. You work through a live scenario: an unsolicited bid crosses the SEBI Takeover Code trigger on a listed Indian mid-cap. Drill by drill, you map the shareholder register and vote math, stand up a defense committee, handle disclosure under LODR and the insider trading rules, build a standalone value case against the offer price, test which defense levers actually work under Indian law, write the independent directors' recommendation, and assemble a one-page response plan and decision tree.
- How the SEBI Takeover Code triggers, offer timelines, and Regulation 26 limit what a target board can do once a bid is live
- How to map a shareholder register into realistic vote and tender math for promoters, institutions, and retail holders
- How to set up a defense committee, choose advisors, and keep disclosures compliant with LODR and the PIT Regulations
Practice Drills: Structuring an M&A Integration Plan for the First 100 Days
A hands-on drill course for CFOs, corp dev and M&A teams, senior corporate finance leaders, and late-stage founders. You will work one illustrative Indian deal, a listed acquirer buying a promoter-run private company, through its first 100 days: turning the deal thesis into an integration charter, standing up the Integration Management Office, clearing Day 1 legal, regulatory, and SEBI disclosure requirements, retaining key people, protecting customers and working capital, building and phasing a synergy tracking model, budgeting one-time integration costs, and presenting a Day 100 review to the board.
- How to convert an acquisition's deal thesis into a one-page integration charter with measurable value drivers
- How to design an Integration Management Office, workstreams, and a governance cadence that a board can hold to account
- How to build a Day 1 checklist covering CCI, SEBI LODR disclosures, MCA filings, GST, banking, and payroll continuity
Understanding ESOP Valuation: Black-Scholes and Binomial Models for Employee Options
A practical, India-specific guide to putting a number on employee stock options, built for finance and treasury professionals, growth-stage founders and strategy teams. Learn why Ind AS 102 treats every ESOP grant as a real cost, why an out-of-the-money option still has fair value, and what the six valuation inputs are. Work through Black-Scholes in plain terms, estimate volatility for listed and unlisted companies, and pick defensible inputs for expected term, risk-free rate and dividend yield. Build a binomial tree step by step, model vesting, early exercise and employee exits, and learn when each model is the right tool. Then follow the fair value into the P&L: expense over the vesting period, forfeitures, repricing, performance and market conditions, and the difference between accounting fair value and tax FMV. Finish with sensitivity analysis and a case study reading ESOP cost disclosures in the annual reports of India's new-age listed companies.
- Why Ind AS 102 requires ESOPs to be expensed at grant-date fair value
- How to value an employee option with Black-Scholes and pick defensible inputs
- How to build a binomial lattice that handles vesting, early exercise and exits
Understanding Spin Offs, Demergers, and Corporate Restructuring at Scale
An advanced, India-specific guide to separating a large business from the inside, built for CFOs and finance controllers, senior corporate finance leaders, late-stage founders and corporate development teams. Start with the strategic case: when a split creates value, how to choose between a demerger, spin-off, carve-out IPO, slump sale or trade sale, and how to measure stranded costs and dis-synergies before the board commits. Then design the transaction: the perimeter, the split of debt, cash and net worth, the entitlement ratio, and the appointed, effective and record dates. Work through the tax conditions for a tax-neutral demerger under Section 2(19AA), the slump sale alternative, and the Ind AS accounting. Follow the full regulatory road map from board approval and the stock exchange observation letter to the NCLT order and the listing of the resulting company. Finish with execution at scale: the separation office, transition service agreements, people, systems, ratings and the investor story, anchored in real NSE and BSE cases including Reliance and Jio Financial Services, ITC and ITC Hotels, the Tata Motors split and Vedanta's multi-way demerger.
Career Fundamentals
1 course
Building a Finance Resume: What Recruiters Look For
A practical, no-fluff guide to writing a finance resume that actually gets shortlisted. Covers what recruiters and ATS systems scan for, how to structure a one-page resume, and how to turn internships, certifications and coursework into achievement-based bullet points recruiters take seriously.
- What finance recruiters and ATS filters actually screen for in the first few seconds
- How to structure and format a one-page resume that survives both a bot and a human reader
- How to write achievement-based bullet points instead of restating job descriptions
Macro & Markets
51 courses
A Brief History of the Indian Stock Market
A concise, story-driven history of the Indian stock market for anyone curious about how it actually came to be, no prior market knowledge needed. Start under the literal banyan tree where the Bombay Stock Exchange began, walk through the broker rings and badla system that ran Indian markets before there was a real regulator, and see how the 1991 crisis and the Harshad Mehta scam forced India to build SEBI and the NSE almost from scratch. Then trace how the market modernised: paper shares gave way to demat accounts and the NSDL, the Ketan Parekh scam exposed the next generation of gaps, and settlement moved from a leisurely weekly cycle down to T+1. Written for general market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track who want the origin story behind the market they trade in today.
Advanced Analysis of Sovereign Debt Sustainability
A rigorous framework for assessing whether a sovereign's debt load is sustainable, built for macro-focused investors, fund managers, and senior finance professionals who need to move past headline debt-to-GDP numbers. Covers the debt dynamics equation, the IMF-World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework, market-based risk signals like bond spreads and CDS, and the mechanics of default and restructuring. Anchored throughout in India's own fiscal position (FRBM, Finance Commission, G-Sec yields, RBI) alongside real emerging-market case studies including Sri Lanka, Zambia, and Ghana.
Advanced Frameworks for Predicting Recession and Recovery Phases
A framework-driven course on identifying where the economy sits in the business cycle and what that means for markets, built for macro-focused investors, fund managers running top-down allocation calls, and senior finance professionals. Goes from the mechanics of leading, lagging, and coincident indicators through yield curve and credit signals, real-economy recession data, recovery-phase identification, and cycle-based portfolio positioning, grounded throughout in Indian data (RBI policy, IIP, PMI, NSE sector performance) and major historical cycles.
Advanced Geopolitical Risk Modeling for Investment Decisions
A rigorous, quantitative approach to treating geopolitical risk as an investable factor rather than headline noise. Built for macro-focused investors, fund managers, and senior finance professionals, this course covers the transmission channels through which geopolitical shocks hit trade, currencies, commodities, and capital flows, how to build and use a geopolitical risk index, scenario analysis and stress-testing for portfolios, and sector- and asset-class-level sensitivities. Anchored throughout in Indian market context: India VIX, Nifty drawdowns, RBI intervention, FPI flows, and real events including Balakot, Covid-19, and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Global Investing: Accessing US and International Markets from India
A practical, India-first guide to putting money into US and international markets legally and efficiently. Covers why global diversification matters for a rupee-denominated portfolio, every real route available to an Indian resident (LRS-funded direct US broking, Indian mutual fund and fund-of-fund routes, NSE-listed international ETFs), and the tax and compliance layer that trips up most first-time global investors: TCS on remittances, US withholding tax and the India-US DTAA, capital gains treatment, and Schedule FA reporting. Built for experienced retail investors and mutual fund investors who already understand Indian markets and are ready to look beyond them.
- Why and how much of a rupee portfolio should sit outside India
- How the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) actually works, including its limits and TCS
- How to open and fund a US brokerage account from India, and what it costs
Global Macro Investing: Currency, Rates, and Cross Border Flows
An advanced course for experienced Indian investors, active traders and HNIs who want to understand the global forces that move the Nifty, the rupee and G-Sec yields. Covers how interest rates, central bank policy, currency mechanics and cross border capital flows connect, with the RBI, USD/INR, FPI flows, bond index inclusion and the US dollar cycle at the centre. Ends with a practical framework for forming a macro view and expressing it through NSE-listed products.
Introduction to Behavioral Economics Beyond Investing
Behavioral finance explains why you buy high and sell low. This course goes further: it's about how the same predictable irrationality shapes EMIs, insurance, pricing, workplace incentives, government policy, and entire markets. Built for investors and finance professionals who already understand loss aversion and herd mentality in a portfolio context and want to see the same forces at work in everyday spending, business strategy, corporate India, public policy design, and macroeconomic cycles. Covers real Indian context throughout: EPF/NPS defaults, no-cost EMIs, Swiggy and Zomato pricing, UPI adoption, PMJDY, Swachh Bharat, and the behavioral roots of bubbles and bank runs.
- How behavioral economics differs from behavioral finance and where the two overlap
- Why defaults, framing, and choice architecture quietly steer everyday financial decisions
- How Indian businesses use anchoring, decoys, and loss framing in pricing and negotiation
Introduction to Famous Stock Market Crashes: 1929, 2008, and Beyond
A beginner-friendly, India-first tour of the stock market crashes that shaped modern investing, built for market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track who want to understand why markets collapse and what those collapses teach. Learn how bubbles form, why leverage and panic turn a fall into a crash, and walk through the Great Crash of 1929, Black Monday 1987, the dot-com bust and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Then turn to India's own crashes, from the Harshad Mehta scam of 1992 and the Ketan Parekh crash of 2001 to the March 2020 COVID fall on the Nifty and Sensex, and see how SEBI, RBI and the exchanges responded. Finish with the common threads behind every crash and a practical framework for building a portfolio that survives the next one.
Introduction to Geopolitics and Its Impact on Markets
A practical guide to reading geopolitical events the way markets do, built for Indian investors and finance professionals who want to understand why the Nifty gaps down on a Middle East headline or why the rupee wobbles when the US and China clash, not just react to the news. Covers the building blocks of geopolitical risk, the US-China rivalry and its supply chain fallout, energy and commodity chokepoints, and how FII flows and the RBI respond when tensions rise. Uses real events including the Russia-Ukraine war, semiconductor export controls, the 2022-23 energy shock, and India's own border tensions, with NSE, BSE, Nifty, and rupee data throughout.
Introduction to Global Stock Markets: US, Europe, and Asia Compared
A beginner-friendly, India-first tour of the world's major stock markets, built for market enthusiasts, macro curious readers, and investors from every track. Learn how the biggest exchanges compare by size and listings, how MSCI and FTSE classify developed, emerging, and frontier markets, and where NSE and BSE rank. Explore the US market through NYSE, Nasdaq, the S&P 500, and SEC rules compared with SEBI's; Europe through London, Euronext, Frankfurt, and indices like the FTSE 100, DAX, and STOXX 600; and Asia through Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore. Finish by comparing valuations, earnings growth, and sector mix across regions, understanding how currencies, time zones, and FPI flows move the Nifty, and building a simple global dashboard to check before NSE opens.
Introduction to Market Cycles Through History
A beginner-friendly, history-first tour of how markets have moved in cycles for over three centuries, built for market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track. Learn the classic cycle theories and the credit and interest rate engine behind them, walk through the global eras that shaped modern markets, from early speculative manias to the post-war boom, 1970s stagflation and Japan's lost decades, then trace India's own market history era by era, from the early Bombay brokers to liberalisation, the 2003 to 2008 supercycle, the long grind that followed and the SIP-driven era of today. Extend the lens to commodity, interest rate and sector cycles, and finish with a practical, cycle-aware way to use history without being fooled by it.
Introduction to Sovereign Debt and Country Risk
A practical on-ramp to sovereign debt and country risk for Indian investors and finance professionals who want to understand why governments borrow, how the market prices a country's creditworthiness, and what that means for portfolios. Covers the mechanics of sovereign borrowing, how credit rating agencies and bond spreads size up country risk, what happens when that risk turns into crisis, and how FIIs and Indian investors actually use country risk in decision-making. Anchored in India's own borrowing programme and sovereign rating, alongside real cases like Sri Lanka's 2022 default.
Introduction to Trade Wars and Their Market Consequences
A practical framework for understanding trade wars not as headline noise but as a macro force that moves currencies, commodities, and portfolios. Built for investors and finance professionals who want to go beyond news-cycle reactions to tariff announcements. Covers what trade wars actually are (tariffs, sanctions, currency manipulation), the history and mechanics of the 2018-19 US-China trade war, how trade tensions transmit into Indian markets through the INR, FII flows, and commodity prices, which sectors (IT, pharma, auto, metals) win and lose, and how to build a practical watchlist of indicators to track ongoing trade tensions.
Introduction to the History of Money and Banking
A story-driven history of money and banking for anyone who has ever wondered why a printed piece of paper can buy a week of groceries. Start with the problem barter never solved, move through cowrie shells, punch-marked coins and Sher Shah Suri's rupiya, and see how goldsmith receipts and Indian hundis turned into paper money and modern banking. Learn how banks actually create money, why bank runs happen, and why the world built central banks and then abandoned the gold standard. Then follow the Indian story closely: the founding of the RBI, bank nationalisation in 1969, the 1991 reforms that brought back private banks, demonetisation in 2016, and the UPI and e-rupee era. Written for general market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track who want to understand the system their money lives inside.
Macroeconomics for Retail Investors
A practical, India-specific guide to the macro forces that actually move your portfolio: GDP growth, inflation, RBI interest rate policy, the rupee, and global linkages like the US Fed and crude oil. Built for retail investors, first-time demat holders, and salaried professionals who want to read a Union Budget speech, an RBI monetary policy statement, or a GDP print and understand what it means for the Nifty, their EMI, and their FD returns, not just repeat headlines. Uses real Indian data releases, RBI and MoSPI sources, and NSE/BSE market reactions throughout.
- See why macro trends matter to your own portfolio
- Understand GDP and India's growth story in context
- Track inflation, CPI, WPI and RBI interest rate moves
Masterclass: Building an Independent Macro Research Practice
A practitioner's blueprint for turning macro insight into an independent research business. Covers positioning and edge, building an Indian and global macro data stack from RBI, MOSPI, NSE, FRED and IMF sources, a repeatable regime-based research process, designing research products that fund managers actually pay for, SEBI Research Analyst compliance, pricing, distribution, track-record discipline, and scaling from a solo newsletter to a research house. Built for senior macro investors, fund managers and top-down strategists who want to publish under their own name.
- Define a coverage universe and analytical identity that gives an independent macro shop a real edge over sell-side research
- Assemble a working Indian and global macro database from RBI DBIE, MOSPI, CMIE, NSE, FRED, IMF and BIS sources
- Run a repeatable regime-based research process that turns a macro view into expressible calls in Nifty, G-Secs, INR and sectors
Masterclass: How Top Global Macro Funds Build Their Worldview
A process-level masterclass on how global macro funds such as Bridgewater, Brevan Howard and the Soros-era Quantum Fund turn economic data into a structured worldview and then into positions. Built for senior macro investors, fund managers making top-down calls and strategists who want a repeatable method rather than opinions. Covers the growth, inflation and liquidity engine, central bank reaction functions, dollar and capital-flow dynamics, scenario trees and probability weighting, market-implied views, and the discipline of expressing, sizing and invalidating a macro call, grounded throughout in Indian markets (RBI, Nifty, G-Sec, INR, FPI flows) and major historical episodes.
Masterclass: Lessons From a Career Spent Forecasting Cycles
A masterclass for senior macro investors, fund managers, and top-down strategists who already know the indicators and now want the judgment that comes from using them through several full cycles. Instead of another indicator catalogue, this course is organised around lessons: why a forecaster's real job is positioning rather than prediction, how growth, liquidity, and sentiment cycles interact and why liquidity usually leads, how to read a turn before it is visible in reported data, and which mistakes cost the most (being early, falling in love with a thesis, confusing a liquidity cycle with an earnings cycle). Indian cycles from 2003 to 2008, 2010 to 2013, the 2018 NBFC crisis, March 2020, and the 2021 to 2024 rate cycle are used as the working material, alongside the RBI, Fed, and global liquidity backdrop that Indian markets actually trade on. The final chapters convert judgment into a repeatable practice: sizing macro views for uncertainty, rotating sectors and factors across the Indian cycle, hedging with Nifty options and duration, and grading your own forecasts. Closes with a capstone where you write your own cycle playbook.
- Separate the growth, liquidity, and sentiment cycles and identify which one is driving Indian markets at any point
- Read a cycle turn from credit spreads, RBI and Fed liquidity operations, earnings revisions, and market breadth before headline data confirms it
- Recognise the recurring forecasting errors that cost professional macro investors the most and build guardrails against them
Masterclass: Ray Dalio's Principles for Navigating the Changing World Order
A masterclass for senior macro investors, fund managers and top-down strategists who want to use Ray Dalio's Big Cycle framework as a working tool rather than a reading-list item. The course dissects the three cycles Dalio built his model on: the long-term debt and money cycle, the internal order and disorder cycle, and the external order cycle of rising and declining powers. It walks through the eight measures of national power and the archetypal stages of rise, top and decline using the Dutch, British and American reserve-currency eras, then tests the framework against China and, in depth, against India. The second half converts the framework into portfolio decisions: an All Weather style allocation built from Nifty, G-Secs, gold and international funds, the devaluation and hard-asset playbook with India's own 1991 and 2013 episodes as evidence, FII flow and rupee risk, and position sizing under geopolitical uncertainty. The final chapter takes the critiques seriously and closes with a capstone in which you score India, the US and China on Dalio's eight measures using public data sources.
- Explain the three cycles behind Dalio's Big Cycle model and how they interact to produce a changing world order
- Score any country on the eight measures of power and place it on the archetypal rise, top and decline curve
- Trace how the Dutch guilder, British pound and US dollar gained and lost reserve status, and what the debt cycle looked like at each turn
Masterclass: Ruchir Sharma's Framework for Spotting Breakout Nations
A masterclass on the top-down framework Ruchir Sharma built over two decades of running emerging market money at Morgan Stanley and later Rockefeller International, and set out in Breakout Nations (2012) and The Rise and Fall of Nations (2016). The course starts with his central warning, that growth rarely persists and most emerging market stories end in mean reversion, then works through each of his ten rules: working-age population growth, the political cycle, good and bad billionaires, the perils of the state, geographic sweet spots, factories first, the price of onions, cheap currencies, the kiss of debt, and hype watch. Each rule is turned into a measurable indicator with named data sources (IMF WEO, World Bank, BIS, RBI, Forbes), scored on real countries including China, Brazil, Turkey, Vietnam, Poland and India, and connected to what an Indian investor can actually buy through international mutual funds, ETFs, the LRS route and domestic proxies. Closes with a capstone where you build and defend your own breakout nations scorecard.
- Why almost no country sustains fast growth for more than a decade, and what that implies for every long-run emerging market thesis
- Each of Ruchir Sharma's ten rules as a concrete indicator with a threshold, a data source and a known failure mode
- How to read a country's credit growth, current account, inflation and currency together to spot a crisis two to three years early
Practice Drills: Building a Breakout Nations Style Country Scorecard
A drill course for macro investors who already know the Breakout Nations rules and now want to run them as a repeatable process. You will fix a country universe and a scoring date, translate each rule into an indicator with a threshold and a named source (IMF WEO, World Bank WDI, BIS, RBI, national statistics offices), pull and clean the data, convert indicators into scores and weight them honestly. Then you score the growth-engine rules (demographics, investment, manufacturing, politics, billionaires, the state) and the stress rules (inflation, currency, credit, current account, hype) across a panel of emerging markets, rank them on one sheet, back-test the scorecard on past breakouts and busts, and stress-test the ranking against alternative weights. The course closes with India: scoring it rule by rule, writing a watch list of the indicators most likely to move its score, translating country scores into an allocation through LRS, international feeder funds and Nifty proxies, and presenting and defending the finished scorecard.
- Fix a country universe, a scoring date and a data vintage so the scorecard can be rerun and audited
- Convert each of the ten rules into an indicator with a threshold, a named source and a known failure mode
- Pull, clean and align country data from the IMF, World Bank, BIS and national sources, including missing and revised figures
Practice Drills: Building a Business Cycle Positioning Framework
A drill-heavy course for investors and finance professionals who understand the business cycle in theory but have never turned it into a decision process. You build one framework from scratch for a sample ₹25 lakh Indian multi-asset portfolio: choose and source the indicators, score them, combine them into a phase call, test that call against sixteen years of Indian history including the years it would have got wrong, translate phases into sized allocation tilts with costs and taxes counted, and finish with a working Google Sheet and a quarterly positioning memo. Educational practice only, not investment advice.
- Pick a compact dashboard of Indian growth, inflation, rates, credit and market indicators that actually lead the cycle
- Source every indicator from free public data: MOSPI, RBI DBIE, GST releases, PMI and NSE
- Convert raw indicators into z-scores and direction signals that can be compared and combined
Practice Drills: Building a Commodity Cycle Tracking Sheet
A hands-on drill course for investors and finance professionals who want macro context they can actually check. You will build a commodity cycle tracking sheet in Google Sheets from scratch: pulling free public data for crude oil, gold, copper, and steel, converting it to rupees, measuring trend and range position, adding inventory, futures curve, and demand signals, and combining them into a phase scorecard that says recovery, expansion, slowdown, or contraction. Then you test the scorecard against the 2020 to 2022 cycle, map each phase to Indian sectors and listed companies, and run a complete monthly update. Educational content only, not investment advice.
- How to choose commodities, free data sources, and an update rhythm for a cycle tracker you will actually maintain
- How to convert dollar commodity prices into rupee prices and see how much of a move is the commodity and how much is the rupee
- How to measure trend and range position with moving averages, year-on-year change, and percentile ranks
Practice Drills: Building a Timeline of Major Market Crashes
A hands-on drill course for market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track. Instead of only reading about crashes, you build your own timeline of them. You start by fixing the rules: what counts as a crash, how to date a peak and a trough, and how to measure the fall and the recovery. Then you log India's major crashes one by one, from the 1992 Harshad Mehta scam and the 2000 to 2001 dot-com and Ketan Parekh fall to the 2004 election day crash, 2008, the 2013 taper tantrum and the March 2020 COVID crash, each in the same format. You add the big global crashes alongside, compare every entry by depth, speed and recovery, pull out the triggers that keep coming back, and finish with a complete timeline and a one-page summary you can update for the next crash.
- Tell a correction, a bear market and a crash apart using clear drawdown thresholds
- Find the peak and trough of any fall and measure its depth, speed and recovery time
- Pick the right data for the job: Sensex or Nifty, price index or total return index
Practice Drills: Building a Top Down Macro Investment Thesis
An advanced hands-on drill course for macro-focused investors, senior finance professionals and fund managers who allocate top down. You build one complete macro investment thesis on India from scratch: frame the macro question and your variant view against consensus, build a macro dashboard from RBI, MOSPI and CGA data, read the policy path from rates, liquidity and the yield curve, overlay US rates, the dollar, crude and FPI flows, trace the transmission chain from macro driver to corporate earnings, check what Nifty valuations already price in, rank sectors by macro sensitivity, pick the stocks and instruments that carry the exposure most cleanly, size and hedge the positions, build probability-weighted scenarios with signposts and kill criteria, test the process on India's 2022 rate hike cycle, and write the full thesis memo.
- How to frame a macro question and state a variant view that differs from the consensus already in prices
- How to build and read an India macro dashboard from RBI, MOSPI, CGA and NSE data, including rates, liquidity and the yield curve
- How to overlay global drivers such as US rates, the dollar, crude oil and FPI flows on a domestic view
Practice Drills: Comparing Sovereign Debt Risk Across Two Countries
A hands-on drill course for investors and finance professionals who need macro context they can defend. India carries roughly twice Indonesia's debt-to-GDP ratio, yet the rating agencies place the two within a notch of each other. Working out why is the whole skill. You take one fixed pair, India and Indonesia, and compare them drill by drill: build a clean side-by-side data sheet from IMF, RBI and Finance Ministry sources, normalise fiscal years and government definitions, then compare debt ratios, deficits, interest burdens and the debt dynamics equation. You examine who holds each country's debt, its currency and maturity mix, current accounts and forex reserves, then read 10-year yields, real yields, ratings and CDS spreads. Finally you stress both countries under growth, rate and currency shocks, calibrate your framework against Sri Lanka's 2022 default, build a weighted scorecard and write the two-country risk note. Every drill uses real Indian data sources and INR figures.
- Pick a fair comparison pair and build a side-by-side sovereign data sheet from primary sources
- Normalise fiscal years, general vs central government figures and currencies before comparing anything
- Compare debt ratios, deficits, primary balances and interest-to-revenue burdens and say which matters more
Practice Drills: Comparing Two Historical Financial Crises Side by Side
A drill course for curious investors and macro readers who know the stories of famous crashes but have never compared two of them properly. You learn one fixed comparison template and one consistent way to measure a crash, then work through four Indian pairs: the 2008 Global Financial Crisis against the 2020 COVID crash, the Harshad Mehta scam against the Ketan Parekh scam, the 1991 balance of payments crisis against the 2013 taper tantrum, and IL&FS against Yes Bank. Each pair is scored on the same rows, so the differences that matter stand out. You finish by building your own comparison and turning the common threads into a checklist you can use the next time markets fall.
- Compare any two crises with one fixed eight-row template: trigger, transmission, depth, speed, duration, policy response, recovery and lasting change
- Measure a crash consistently using peak, trough, drawdown and time to recover on the Nifty and Sensex
- Find and read the primary data yourself on NSE, RBI DBIE and SEBI
Practice Drills: Constructing a Global Macro Worldview Memo
A hands-on drill course for senior macro investors, fund managers making top-down calls, and strategists who need to put a worldview on paper and defend it. You work through one simulated assignment end to end: an India-focused multi-asset fund needs its quarterly global macro worldview memo, and you are writing it. You will assemble a macro dashboard across growth, inflation, liquidity, and external indicators, read what curves, breakevens, and FX forwards already price, place the world and India in a regime, and model how the Fed and the RBI are likely to react. You will then build a probability-weighted scenario tree, map each branch to outcomes for the Nifty, G-Secs, the rupee, gold, and crude, choose the cleanest expression for each view, size the book against a risk budget, and set invalidation triggers. The course closes with a red-team pre-mortem and a complete worldview memo written for an investment committee.
- How to structure a global macro worldview memo so every page earns its place
- How to build and score a macro dashboard of growth, inflation, liquidity, and external indicators
- How to read market-implied views from yield curves, OIS, breakevens, and FX forwards before forming your own
Practice Drills: Mapping a Fed Tightening Cycle to Emerging Market Fund Flows
An advanced hands-on drill course for macro-focused investors, senior finance professionals and fund managers who allocate top down. You map one complete Fed tightening cycle to emerging market fund flows from start to finish: lay out the transmission chain from the fed funds rate to an FPI sell order, date a tightening cycle from FOMC decisions, the dot plot and real yields, track the dollar index, the US 10-year yield and the US-India rate differential, read NSDL FPI data by equity, debt, primary and secondary flows, separate active money from passive and index flows, benchmark India against Korea, Taiwan, Brazil and Indonesia, rebuild the 2022 to 2023 cycle move by move against FPI flows, the rupee and the Nifty, see why DII and SIP money absorbed the selling, compare 2013's taper tantrum with 2022, estimate flow sensitivity with a simple regression, map which sectors and stocks FPIs sell first, build an early warning dashboard and write the full flow map memo.
- How a Fed tightening cycle travels through US real yields, the dollar and the rate differential to emerging market portfolio flows
- How to date a tightening cycle and read the FOMC dot plot, real yields and the dollar index as flow signals
- How to read NSDL FPI data and separate equity, debt, primary, secondary, active and passive flows
Practice Drills: Mapping a Geopolitical Event to Its Market Impact
A drill-heavy course for investors and finance professionals who read geopolitical headlines every day but have no repeatable way to turn them into a market view. You build one Event Mapping Worksheet and use it again and again: classify the event, trace it through crude, the rupee, bond yields, FPI flows, supply chains and risk sentiment, chain first-order effects into second-order ones, rank Nifty sectors and screen exposed stocks, then test the method against real Indian episodes and learn from the base rate of how often geopolitical selloffs fade. You finish by writing hedge, hold or ignore rules and a timed capstone impact note on a fresh event. Educational practice only, not investment advice.
- Classify any geopolitical event by type, proximity to India, likely duration and how much was already priced in
- Trace an event through the channels that actually move Indian markets: crude oil, the rupee, G-Sec yields, FPI flows, supply chains and risk sentiment
- Build first-order and second-order effect chains instead of stopping at the headline reaction
Practice Drills: Mock Portfolio Positioning Around a Simulated Central Bank Pivot
A masterclass drill course for senior macro investors, fund managers and top down strategists. You take one mock multi-asset India portfolio through a simulated central bank pivot from start to finish: break down what a pivot actually is (stance, rates, liquidity and guidance), build a pivot signal dashboard from CPI, growth, liquidity and MPC communication, read what OIS, T-bill and G-Sec curves already price in, overlay the Fed, the dollar and FPI flows, then position the fixed income book for duration, curve and credit, rank Nifty sectors by rate sensitivity, set the rupee and gold sleeves, size every trade against a risk budget, hedge the wrong-pivot scenario, run policy day with a scenario tree and execution plan, rebalance as transmission plays out, test the playbook on India's 2019 and 2025 easing cycles, and write the full positioning memo and post-mortem.
- How to break a central bank pivot into stance, rate, liquidity and guidance shifts, and which one markets trade first
- How to build a pivot signal dashboard and read what OIS, T-bill and G-Sec curves already price in before the MPC meets
- How to position duration, curve and credit in the bond book for the start of an easing cycle
Practice Drills: Modeling a Debt Sustainability Scenario for a Sovereign
A hands-on drill course for macro investors, fund managers and senior finance professionals who want to stop quoting other people's debt sustainability conclusions and start producing their own. You build one model, for India's general government, and use it in every drill. First you lay out the workbook, pull baseline inputs from the Union Budget, RBI and IMF sources, and decide what counts as debt. Then you code the debt dynamics equation year by year, back out the effective interest rate, solve for the debt-stabilising primary balance and reconcile your model to reported debt with stock-flow adjustments. You project a five-year baseline, compute gross financing needs, then shock it: growth, interest rate, primary balance, currency, contingent liability and combined scenarios, finishing with a Monte Carlo fan chart in Python. Finally you read the results as a heat map, test the model on Sri Lanka before its 2022 default, and write the scenario note an investment committee would actually read. All figures in INR with Indian sources.
- Lay out a sovereign DSA workbook with clean separation of inputs, engine and outputs
- Assemble baseline inputs from the Union Budget, RBI and IMF sources and choose the right debt perimeter
- Code the debt dynamics equation and back out the effective interest rate from interest paid and the debt stock
Practice Drills: Scoring Geopolitical Risk for a Cross Border Investment
A hands-on drill course for macro-focused investors, fund managers, and senior finance professionals who have to put a number on geopolitical risk before capital crosses a border. You work through one simulated case end to end: a sample NSE-listed Indian manufacturer choosing between three candidate countries for its first overseas plant. You will design a scoring framework with anchored scales and deal-specific weights, gather evidence and score each country on political stability, regulatory and expropriation risk, sanctions and alignment, conflict exposure, currency convertibility, and the bilateral relationship with India. You will then convert the scores into a country risk premium and a scenario-weighted NPV, test which assumptions flip the ranking, and structure the deal using political risk insurance, treaty routing, staged capital, hedging, and the FEMA Overseas Investment rules. The course closes with a trigger-based monitoring dashboard and a complete investment committee memo.
- How to design a geopolitical risk scorecard with clear dimensions, anchored 1 to 5 scales, and weights matched to the deal
- How to gather and grade evidence from public sources before assigning any score
- How to score political, regulatory, sanctions, conflict, currency, and India-specific bilateral risk consistently across countries
Practice Drills: Summarizing a Historical Scam Case Into Key Lessons
A hands-on drill course for market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track. Every big Indian scam leaves behind thousands of pages of SEBI orders, court judgments and news coverage, and almost none of it is useful until someone boils it down. This course teaches you to do that boiling down yourself. You start by building a fixed one-page template and learning how to tell proven facts from allegations. Then you apply it, case by case: the 1992 Harshad Mehta securities scam, the 2001 Ketan Parekh scam, the 2019 Karvy pledging case, the Satyam accounting fraud, the IL&FS collapse, the Saradha chit fund, the NSEL payment default and the Sahara refund case. You finish by laying your summaries side by side, pulling out the patterns that repeat, turning them into a red-flag checklist, and writing a one-page summary of a case you have never studied before.
- Use a fixed one-page template to summarise any scam case: facts, timeline, mechanism, victims, red flags, response and lessons
- Separate established facts from allegations by reading SEBI orders, court rulings and news reports for what they actually say
- Explain how a scam worked in three plain sentences that a first-time investor could follow
Practice Drills: Tracking a Macro Indicator Over a Ten Year Period
A hands-on drill course for market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track. Instead of reading headlines about one month's inflation print, you build and own a ten-year record of a single macro indicator, using India's CPI inflation as the worked example. You choose the indicator and learn where the official data lives, pull ten years of monthly numbers into a spreadsheet, deal with base year changes and revisions, and get the arithmetic of index levels and year-on-year change right. You then chart the decade, mark its highs, lows and turning points, split it into regimes, and line it up against the RBI repo rate, the 10-year G-Sec yield and the Nifty 50, learning to read those overlays without fooling yourself. You finish with a one-page decade summary, a monthly update routine, and a second indicator tracked the same way.
- Choose a macro indicator worth tracking and know exactly what it measures and how often it is released
- Find and download official Indian data from MoSPI, RBI DBIE and the NSO release calendar
- Build a clean ten-year monthly dataset and handle base year changes, revisions and gaps
Understanding Business Cycles and Their Impact on Asset Classes
An asset-allocation-focused course on how equities, bonds, gold, real estate, cash, and currencies each behave across the four phases of the business cycle, built for investors and finance professionals who want a working macro lens rather than a forecasting model. Covers sector rotation on the Nifty, how RBI rate cycles move bond prices and credit spreads, why gold and real estate follow different clocks than the business cycle, and how to build and rebalance a multi-asset Indian portfolio through a full cycle without overtrading it.
Understanding Commodity Cycles: Oil, Gold, and Industrial Metals
Commodities do not move like stocks. Oil, gold, and industrial metals each run on their own cycle, driven by supply shocks, central bank policy, and global growth, and each one leaves a distinct fingerprint on Indian inflation, the rupee, and specific sectors on the NSE and BSE. This course builds a working framework for reading commodity cycles and connects each one to the Indian instruments and stocks investors actually use to act on them.
- Why commodities move in cycles and what drives the boom-bust pattern
- How crude oil prices are set and how oil shocks transmit to Indian inflation and the rupee
- Why gold behaves differently from other commodities and how to use it as a portfolio hedge
Understanding Currency Markets and Exchange Rate Dynamics
A macro-first look at how currency markets work and why exchange rates move, built for investors and finance professionals who want the theory and the mechanics, not a trading manual. Starts with how the rupee is actually quoted and priced day to day (spot, forward, RBI reference rate, NSE currency futures), then builds the three classical frameworks economists use to explain exchange rates: purchasing power parity, interest rate parity, and the balance of payments approach. From there it moves into the real-world forces that move the rupee: FPI and FDI flows, the crude oil bill and the current account, and the US dollar index and global risk sentiment. Every concept is anchored to Indian data and events, from RBI intervention and forex reserves to the rupee's slide past 83 to the dollar.
- Read direct and indirect currency quotes and explain how the rupee's spot, forward and futures rates are actually set
- Distinguish fixed, floating and managed float regimes, and place India's own currency regime in that framework
- Apply purchasing power parity and interest rate parity to explain why currencies drift and how carry trades work
Understanding Currency Wars and Competitive Devaluation
An advanced, macro-focused look at how competitive devaluation actually works, built for macro investors, senior finance professionals, and fund managers who need to read currency conflict as a market signal rather than headline noise. Starts with what a currency war is and traces the lineage from the 1930s beggar-thy-neighbor devaluations through the 2010 'currency war' era of Fed QE spillovers. Goes deep into the mechanics: how central banks devalue through rate cuts, direct intervention, and jawboning, how the RBI defends the rupee using its forex reserves, whether devaluation actually fixes trade balances via the J-curve, and how the impossible trinity constrains every emerging market including India. Closes with real case studies, China's yuan management, Japan's yen and the carry trade, and how Indian markets, from IT exporters to oil importers to the Nifty itself, react when a currency war breaks out, ending in a practical framework for positioning a portfolio against currency war risk.
- Define a currency war and distinguish genuine competitive devaluation from normal exchange rate movement
- Trace the historical lineage from the 1930s devaluations to the 2010 currency war era and its QE spillovers
- Explain how central banks devalue in practice, through rate cuts, direct FX intervention, and forward guidance
Understanding Demographic Trends and Their Economic Implications
An intermediate-level macro framework for investors and finance professionals on how demographic change drives economic outcomes. Covers the demographic transition model, population pyramids and dependency ratios, the demographic dividend that powered East Asia's and India's growth, the aging crises unfolding in Japan, China and Europe, India's own working-age window and its risks of being squandered, and the concrete economic and market implications: growth accounting, sector winners and losers, the aging-deflation debate in monetary policy, and a practical framework for screening stocks and tracking demographic data. Anchored throughout in Indian context: Census and NFHS data, RBI and NSE/BSE sector performance, PLI-adjacent labour trends, and real comparisons with Japan and China.
- Explain the demographic transition model and read a population pyramid to identify dependency ratios and growth signals
- Understand how the demographic dividend powered growth in East Asia and India, and how it can be squandered
- Analyze the aging crises in Japan, China and Europe and their links to deflation, growth slowdown and pension strain
Understanding Global Financial Crises: A Beginner's Timeline
A beginner-friendly, India-first timeline of the financial crises that reshaped the global economy, built for market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track. Learn the difference between banking, currency and sovereign debt crises, and how credit, confidence and contagion turn a local problem into a global one. Walk through the Great Depression, the end of Bretton Woods and the oil shocks, the Latin American debt crisis, India's own 1991 balance of payments crisis, the 1997 Asian crisis, Russia and LTCM, the 2008 global banking crisis, the Eurozone debt crisis, the 2013 Taper Tantrum, the IL&FS and NBFC crisis, and the 2020 to 2023 cycle of stimulus, inflation and bank failures. Finish with a practical playbook of warning signs every Indian investor can track using RBI, SEBI and market data.
Understanding Global Liquidity Cycles and Central Bank Coordination
An advanced framework for reading the global liquidity cycle, built for macro-focused investors, fund managers, and senior finance professionals who need to move past headline Fed rate calls. Covers what global liquidity actually is beyond money supply, the mechanics of the Fed balance sheet (QE, QT, reserves, RRP, TGA), how policy from the 'core four' central banks (Fed, ECB, BOJ, PBOC) transmits into FPI flows, the rupee, and Indian markets, where central banks coordinate and where they diverge, and how gold, equities, and crypto each behave as liquidity assets. Anchored throughout in Indian context: RBI's MPC, forex reserves, FPI/FII data, NSE and BSE price action, and real episodes including the 2013 taper tantrum and the 2022 global tightening cycle.
- Define the global liquidity cycle beyond simple money supply, including credit and cross-border flow proxies
- Explain Fed balance sheet mechanics, including QE, QT, reserves, the reverse repo facility, and the TGA
- Trace how Fed and other major central bank policy transmits into FPI flows, the rupee, and Indian equities
Understanding How Central Banks Shape Markets: A Beginner's Guide
A beginner-friendly guide to the institutions that quietly set the price of money, built for market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track. Start with what a central bank is and how the RBI, its Monetary Policy Committee and India's 4% inflation target work. Open up the full toolkit, from policy rates, the SDF and MSF to CRR, SLR, open market operations, liquidity management and forward guidance. Follow policy as it flows into G-Sec yields, Nifty valuations and rate-sensitive sectors, the rupee and forex reserves, gold, real estate and your FD. Widen the lens to the US Fed, quantitative easing and tightening, and the ECB, BoJ and PBoC, then relive the crises where central banks took centre stage: 2008, the 2013 taper tantrum, demonetisation, the IL&FS liquidity crunch, COVID 2020 and the 2022 global tightening cycle. Finish with a practical framework for reading central bank signals without overreacting.
- Explain what a central bank does and how the RBI and its Monetary Policy Committee make decisions
- Distinguish the repo rate, SDF, MSF, CRR, SLR and open market operations, and what each one controls
- Trace how a policy decision moves G-Sec yields, the Nifty, rate-sensitive sectors, the rupee and gold
Understanding India's Journey From License Raj to Liberalized Markets
A 75-year tour of how India went from a planned, permit-driven economy to the open, market-led one you invest in today, no prior economics needed. Start in 1947 with the choice of a mixed economy and the Mahalanobis plan, see how industrial licensing, bank nationalisation, MRTP and FERA tightened the state's grip, and what that cost in growth, shortages and stunted markets. Follow the quiet reforms of the 1980s into the 1991 crisis, then trace each wave that followed: opening to foreign capital, disinvestment and the telecom revolution, the 2000s boom and its bad-loan hangover, and the newer toolkit of GST, IBC, UPI and production-linked incentives. Finish by reading the Nifty and Sensex of today as a map of that history, and by spotting the reforms still unfinished. Written for general market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track.
Understanding Inflation Regimes Through Different Historical Eras
A history-driven framework for reading inflation as a regime, not just a monthly print. Built for investors and finance professionals who already know what CPI is but want to understand why inflation behaves so differently across eras, and what that means for portfolios. Covers the mechanics of demand-pull, cost-push, and monetary inflation, the global classics (Weimar hyperinflation, the 1970s US stagflation, and Volcker's disinflation), India's own inflation history (the License Raj years, the 1991 BoP crisis, the 2000s moderation under inflation targeting, the 2013 taper tantrum, and the 2021-23 post-COVID inflation fight), and closes with a practical playbook for which assets tend to win in which regime and how to spot a regime shift early using Indian market signals.
- Distinguish an inflation regime from a headline CPI print, and identify demand-pull, cost-push, and monetary drivers behind it
- Explain how Weimar Germany's hyperinflation and the 1970s US stagflation unfolded, and how Volcker's Fed broke the inflation cycle
- Trace India's own inflation history from the License Raj era through the 1991 BoP crisis to RBI's formal inflation-targeting regime
Understanding Long Term Debt Cycles, A Ray Dalio Style Framework
An advanced macro framework built for fund managers, senior finance professionals, and macro-focused investors who need to place current market conditions within the arc of a long-term debt cycle rather than just the next business cycle. Built around Ray Dalio's model from 'How the Economic Machine Works' and 'Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises', this course covers the three forces that drive economies (productivity growth, the short-term debt cycle, and the long-term debt cycle), how debt bubbles build over decades, the mechanics of deleveraging and Dalio's four levers (austerity, default and restructuring, wealth transfer, and money printing), and what separates a 'beautiful deleveraging' from an ugly one. It works through real case studies including the US Great Depression, Weimar Germany's hyperinflation, the post-2008 US deleveraging, and Japan's lost decades, then applies the framework directly to India: the 2014-2020 bank NPA crisis, the IL&FS shadow banking shock, and where India's credit cycle stands today. The final chapter turns the framework into a practical toolkit for reading indicators and positioning a portfolio across debt cycle stages.
- Explain the three forces Ray Dalio identifies as driving all economies: productivity growth, the short-term debt cycle, and the long-term debt cycle
- Trace how debt-to-income ratios build into a long-term debt cycle bubble over decades, and identify warning signs near the top
- Describe the deleveraging process and Dalio's four levers: austerity, debt default and restructuring, wealth transfer, and money printing
Understanding Structural Shifts in Global Trade and Supply Chains
An advanced framework for macro-focused investors, fund managers, and senior finance professionals on the structural realignment of global trade and supply chains. Covers the end of hyperglobalization and its fracture points (2008, the US-China trade war, COVID, Russia-Ukraine), the new toolkit of economic statecraft (tariffs, sanctions, export controls, industrial policy), the leading indicators that signal supply chain stress before it hits earnings, the great manufacturing realignment across ASEAN, Mexico, and semiconductors, India's specific position as a China+1 beneficiary with its own import vulnerabilities, and a forward-looking scenario framework for translating these shifts into sector and portfolio decisions. Anchored throughout in Indian context: PLI schemes, NSE and BSE sector performance, RBI and commerce ministry data, and real episodes from the last two decades of trade realignment.
- Explain why the hyperglobalization era broke down, from the 2008 crisis through COVID and the Russia-Ukraine shock
- Understand tariffs, sanctions, export controls and industrial policy as tools of economic statecraft, and how markets price them
- Read supply chain stress before it hits earnings, using shipping rates, PMI new orders and inventory-to-sales data
Understanding the 1991 Indian Economic Liberalization and Its Market Impact
The 1991 reforms are the reason the Indian market you invest in today looks the way it does. This course explains, without jargon, what the Licence Raj economy actually was, how India ran out of foreign exchange and had to pledge its gold in 1991, and what the rupee devaluation, the July 1991 Budget and the New Industrial Policy changed. Then it follows the money into the market: the end of government-controlled IPO pricing, the arrival of foreign institutional investors, the 1992 boom and bust, and the new sectors and companies that liberalization created while older protected businesses faded. It closes with what 1991 left unfinished and how to read big policy shifts as an investor today. Written for general market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track.
Understanding the History and Evolution of Global Reserve Currencies
A macro history course tracing how the world's reserve currency has changed hands, from the gold standard and the British pound through Bretton Woods and the US dollar's rise, and what challengers like the euro and yuan (and India's own rupee internationalization push) mean for investors today.
- What actually makes a currency a global reserve currency, and why it matters for trade, debt, and geopolitics
- How the gold standard and the British pound gave way to the US dollar across two world wars and Bretton Woods
- Why the Nixon Shock, petrodollars, and SWIFT cemented dollar dominance after 1971
Understanding the History of SEBI and Indian Market Regulation
Every rule you meet as an Indian investor, from the margin your broker blocks to the insider trading window a company announces, has a history. This course tells the story of who policed Indian markets before SEBI existed, why the old mix of exchange self-regulation and the Controller of Capital Issues broke down, and how SEBI grew from a 1988 advisory body into a statutory regulator with real teeth. It then explains the core rulebook in plain English (insider trading, takeovers, IPO and listing rules, intermediaries), walks through the landmark enforcement cases that shaped SEBI's powers, from Sahara to Satyam to NSE co-location, and closes with the modern SEBI: the commodity market merger, the F&O and finfluencer curbs, and the complaint routes every investor can use today. Written for general market enthusiasts, history and macro curious readers, and investors from every track who want to know why the market's rules look the way they do.
Understanding the Interplay Between Fiscal and Monetary Policy
Fiscal policy and monetary policy are usually taught as separate subjects, but markets never react to them separately. This course builds a single framework for reading the Union Budget and the RBI's MPC decisions together, understanding how they transmit through bond yields, inflation, credit and the real economy, and using that combined signal to form a top-down macro view as an investor.
- How fiscal policy (the Union Budget, fiscal deficit, government borrowing) and monetary policy (the RBI's repo rate, OMOs, liquidity stance) actually move markets
- The transmission mechanisms linking fiscal deficits to bond yields and inflation, and repo rate changes to the real economy
- Crowding out vs crowding in, and how to tell which regime India is in at a given time
Alternative Investing
96 courses
Masterclass: Building a Multi Asset Alternative Investment Portfolio
A masterclass for serious Indian allocators who already understand individual alternative assets and now need to combine them. Instead of describing AIFs, REITs or pre-IPO shares one more time, this course treats alternatives as one portfolio problem: how much of a balance sheet they can absorb, how private equity, private credit, real assets and Category III strategies behave together, how commitment pacing and liquidity budgets stop an illiquid book from forcing a sale in a crisis, and how fees, tax and stale valuations quietly distort reported returns. Every framework is built on Indian vehicles, SEBI rules and rupee numbers, stress-tested against 2008, the 2018 NBFC crisis and March 2020, and closed with a full capstone that allocates an INR 100 crore portfolio across alternatives end to end.
- Size the alternatives budget for a given balance sheet using liquidity needs, income stability and drawdown tolerance rather than a generic percentage
- Map every alternative sleeve to its underlying equity, credit, real asset and inflation exposures so diversification is real, not cosmetic
- Build a private equity and venture programme across vintages that manages the J-curve instead of being surprised by it
Advanced Angel Investing: Leading Rounds and Structuring Syndicates
A practitioner course for angels ready to stop following and start leading. Covers what a lead investor actually owes the founder and the co-investors, how to build deal flow and run diligence that others can rely on, and how to price and negotiate a round from the lead's chair: valuation, option pools, instrument choice between CCPS, CCDs and iSAFE notes, and the handful of terms a lead must win. Devotes a full chapter to structuring the syndicate itself, comparing direct cap table entries, SPVs and SEBI-registered angel funds, with the carry and fee economics of each. Works through the tax, FEMA and Companies Act private placement rules that trip up Indian syndicates, then closes with life after the cheque: board and information rights, syndicate communication, bridge and down rounds, distributions, and building a repeatable syndicate with a real track record. Built for HNIs, family office investors and experienced angels who already understand term sheets and cap tables.
- Decide when you have earned the right to lead a round, and what leading costs you
- Build proprietary deal flow and run diligence that co-investors can rely on
- Write an investment memo that raises a syndicate instead of just describing a startup
Advanced Commodity Trading: Spread Trading and Roll Yield
Most commodity traders bet on direction. Professionals trade relationships: one contract month against another, gold against silver, crude against its refined products. This course treats the futures curve as a trading surface. You will decompose futures returns into spot return, roll yield and collateral yield, see why a buy-and-roll position in crude can lose money even when spot prices rise, and learn to price, size and execute calendar, inter-commodity, crack, crush and inter-exchange spreads on MCX and NCDEX. It closes with the risks that blow spreads up, the Indian tax treatment of commodity futures, and how HNIs and family offices can use commodity carry as a portfolio sleeve. Built for experienced traders and investors who already understand futures pricing and cost of carry.
- How to read the MCX futures curve and what contango and backwardation signal about supply, storage and demand
- How to decompose a commodity futures return into spot return, roll yield and collateral yield, and why roll yield dominates over long holding periods
- How to price a calendar spread against cost-of-carry fair value and spot when it is mispriced
Advanced Due Diligence Frameworks for Private Market Investments
A rigorous, India-specific playbook for diligencing private market deals and the funds that make them. Build a repeatable process from first screen to investment memo, then go deep on the four pillars that decide outcomes: the business, the numbers, the legal and regulatory position, and the people. Learn to rebuild revenue quality from GST returns and bank statements, run MCA and litigation searches, read a shareholders' agreement for the clauses that actually move money, test a startup's unit economics and a founder's background, and diligence an AIF manager on track record, fees and governance. Finish with a scoring framework, red-flag library and two full Indian case studies. Built for HNIs and family offices writing private cheques, angel syndicate leads running deals for co-investors, and experienced traders moving into unlisted assets.
Advanced Forex Strategies: Carry Trade and Interest Rate Differentials
A practitioner course on the carry trade as a strategy rather than a textbook anomaly. Built for HNIs, family office investors, active currency traders and experienced angels who already understand interest rate parity and want to know how carry is actually measured, built, sized, hedged and unwound. Covers how to read rate differentials from forward points and OIS curves, real versus nominal carry, single-pair and cross-sectional basket construction, volatility scaling, combining carry with momentum and value, and the anatomy of carry crashes from 2008 to the August 2024 yen unwind. Closes with what Indian residents can legally do under RBI's exchange-traded currency derivative rules on NSE and BSE, sizing and rollover costs, taxation, and treating unhedged offshore allocations as the implicit carry trade they are.
- Explain why carry earns a return even though uncovered interest parity says it should not
- Measure carry precisely from forward points, implied yields and carry-to-volatility ratios
- Read where rate differentials are heading from policy guidance and OIS curves
Advanced Real Estate Structuring: REITs, InvITs, and Fractional Ownership Compared
The same office park can reach you as a listed REIT unit, an InvIT-style yield vehicle, an SM REIT scheme or a legacy fractional SPV share, and each wrapper hands you a different cash flow, tax bill, governance position and exit. This course takes the structures apart layer by layer: trust, HoldCo, SPV, sponsor and manager. Learn SEBI's asset, leverage and distribution rules for REITs and InvITs, how concession-based InvIT NAVs run down, how the 2024 SM REIT framework reset fractional ownership, and how each distribution component is taxed in a unitholder's hands. Finish by comparing yield, NAV discount, rate sensitivity and exit cost across structures, and building a real asset income sleeve for an HNI or family office portfolio. Built for HNIs and family offices, angel syndicate leads, and experienced traders adding real assets.
- Trace a rupee of rent or toll from the tenant or road user, through the SPV, HoldCo and trust, to your bank account
- Apply SEBI's asset composition, leverage and sponsor rules to judge how safe a REIT or InvIT structure really is
- Explain why a concession-based InvIT's NAV runs down and value it without being fooled by a high yield
Building an Angel Investment Portfolio: Diversification and Follow On Strategy
A practitioner-level framework for building and managing an angel investment portfolio, for readers who already know what angel investing is and are ready to invest like a portfolio manager rather than a hobbyist. Goes beyond the basic power law story into quantifying it: how many startups you actually need, expected value math, check sizing and ownership targets, and return simulations. Covers real diversification strategy across sector, stage, geography and vintage, and treats correlation and concentration risk seriously. Devotes a full chapter to reserves and follow-on decisions, including how to actually exercise pro-rata rights and when to double down versus walk away. Closes with the operational side: tracking a portfolio, running periodic reviews, and managing exits across secondaries, M&A and IPOs. Built for experienced retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs, and angel investors actively building out a portfolio, with Indian examples throughout including SEBI-registered angel funds, AIFs, and Indian syndicates.
- Quantify the power law and work out how many startups your portfolio actually needs
- Build expected value math for check sizing, ownership targets, and capital allocation
- Diversify deliberately across sector, stage, geography, and investment vintage
Case Study: A Failed Angel Bet, Lessons From a Startup Shutdown
An intermediate case study that starts where most startup stories end. A Pune-based angel investor puts ten lakh rupees into a B2B ordering app for kirana stores at its seed round, follows on in a bridge round, and then lives through the shutdown. Each chapter works through one stage with real numbers: the original CCPS terms and liquidation preference, the unit economics that never closed, the failed fundraise and the acqui-hire offer, how Indian companies actually close (strike-off, voluntary liquidation and the payout waterfall), what the angel recovered down to the rupee, how the capital loss is treated for tax, and what the loss means for an angel portfolio built on power-law returns. Built for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angels building a portfolio who want to understand the downside before they write the next cheque.
- Read a seed-round CCPS deal for the terms that decide what you get back in a shutdown, not in a success
- Diagnose broken unit economics from contribution margin, burn multiple and runway before the founders admit it
- Decide whether to follow on in a bridge round, and recognise when pro rata rights become a trap
Case Study: A Family Office's Alternative Asset Allocation During a Market Downturn
An advanced case study that puts you inside the investment committee of a composite Indian family office as the COVID crash of 2020 unfolds. The family holds listed equity, debt, gold, REITs, real estate, private equity and venture funds, private credit AIFs and a Category III long-short fund. You start with the pre-crisis allocation and its hidden fault lines, then live through February to April 2020 as the Nifty falls by more than a third in weeks, Franklin Templeton winds up six debt schemes, the RBI announces a loan moratorium and fund managers keep sending capital calls. You examine how each alternative asset class actually behaved under stress, why illiquid holdings looked deceptively calm, and how the denominator effect pushed the portfolio outside its own limits. You then work through the committee's real decisions: funding commitments without selling at the bottom, whether to rebalance, and when to go on offence. The case closes by scoring the outcome through the 2021 recovery and distilling a downturn-ready playbook. The family and its numbers are an illustrative composite; the market events, regulations and asset-class behaviour are real.
- Read a family office's total allocation and spot liquidity, concentration and unfunded-commitment risk before a crisis
- Trace how the 2020 Indian market crash unfolded and how fast it moved through listed and unlisted holdings
- Explain why mark-to-model alternatives look calm in a crash and how the denominator effect breaks allocation limits
Case Study: Crude Oil Price Volatility During the Russia Ukraine War
Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, and Brent crude crossed $100 a barrel the same day for the first time since 2014. Within two weeks it touched nearly $140 intraday, then gave back most of the move just as fast. For India, which imports the large majority of the crude it refines, this was not a distant headline. It showed up in petrol pump prices, in excise duty cuts and a new windfall tax, in a rupee that slid past 80 to the dollar, in the RBI's first rate hike cycle in years, and in sharply diverging moves between upstream producers, refiners and oil marketing companies on NSE. This case study rebuilds the episode step by step: how crude is priced and why India is so exposed, the day by day shock of early 2022, how sanctions and discounted Russian barrels rewired India's import basket, and how each transmission channel hit Indian investors. It closes with a practical playbook for experienced investors and HNIs: measuring commodity volatility, what MCX margin changes mean for leveraged positions, which portfolio hedges actually worked, and how to think before reacting to the next geopolitical oil shock.
- How Brent, WTI and the Indian crude basket are priced, and why India's import dependence makes oil a macro risk for every Indian portfolio
- Why the oil market was already tight going into 2022, and how that set up an outsized reaction to the invasion
- The timeline of the February to June 2022 shock: the move past $100, the March spike, the reversal, and why volatility stayed elevated
Case Study: Crude Oil's Negative Price Event of 2020
On 20 April 2020, the expiring WTI crude oil futures contract on the CME did something that had never happened before: it settled at minus $37.63 a barrel. Sellers were paying buyers to take oil off their hands. Hours earlier, on India's own MCX, the May crude contract had already settled at minus Rs 2,884 a barrel, a shock that wiped out accounts and triggered a wave of broker disputes. This case study builds up from first principles, what a futures contract actually promises, why storage costs create contango, why COVID-era demand collapse filled every storage tank on earth, and then walks through exactly how and why the price went negative on both exchanges. It closes with the practical lessons for Indian retail traders: what changed in margin and circuit rules after the event, and a simple framework for deciding whether commodity futures belong in your portfolio at all.
- What a futures contract actually obligates you to do, and why expiry and physical settlement matter
- Contango versus backwardation, and how storage costs shape the futures curve
- Why COVID-era demand collapse in early 2020 filled global storage capacity to its limits
Case Study: DLF's Real Estate Debt Restructuring, A Development Financing Case Study
DLF listed in 2007 with the largest IPO India had seen, a vast land bank and a balance sheet built for a boom that ended a year later. This case study follows how development finance actually works in India (land funding, construction loans, customer advances, lease rental discounting), how DLF's debt built up and why the 2008 crisis hit a leveraged developer from every side at once, and how the group spent the next decade deleveraging through non-core asset sales, refinancing, the 2017 GIC deal on its rental arm and fresh promoter and QIP equity. Along the way it covers the governance overhangs that complicated the turnaround and how RERA changed developer financing. Built for HNI and family office investors, angel and syndicate leads who back real asset businesses, and active traders who want to read a developer's balance sheet before the market does.
- How Indian real estate development is financed, from land acquisition through construction loans, customer advances and lease rental discounting
- Why DLF's post-IPO expansion left it exposed when the 2008 crisis froze sales, prices and refinancing at the same time
- Which balance sheet and cash flow metrics flagged the stress early, and how to compute them for any developer
Case Study: Embassy Office Parks REIT, India's First Listed REIT
In April 2019, Embassy Office Parks REIT became the first Real Estate Investment Trust to list in India, giving retail investors a way to own a slice of Grade-A office space without buying an entire building. This case study walks through what a REIT actually is, how the Embassy IPO was priced and received, what the trust owns and how it earns rent, how distributions and taxation work for unit holders, and how the units have actually performed since listing. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed equity, and first-timers curious about real estate and REITs.
- What a REIT is and how it differs from buying property directly or owning a real estate stock
- Why Embassy Office Parks was chosen to be India's first listed REIT, and how its IPO was priced
- What the trust actually owns: the Grade-A office portfolio behind the units
Case Study: Gold Prices During the 2020 Pandemic, A Commodity Case Study
When the COVID crash hit in March 2020, gold did something most Indian investors had never seen it do at that scale: it kept climbing while equities fell apart, and by August it had touched an all-time high in rupee terms. This case study walks through why gold behaves this way in a crisis, the real forces (real yields, a weakening rupee, and a global scramble for safety) that drove the 2020 rally, and what the sharp pullback that followed teaches about buying into a hot trade after the fact. Along the way, you will learn the practical side too: the different ways Indians actually hold gold, from physical jewellery to Sovereign Gold Bonds and Gold ETFs, and how to weigh them against each other.
- Why Indians hold gold and where it realistically fits in a portfolio
- The practical differences between physical gold, SGBs, Gold ETFs, and digital gold
- A clear timeline of gold's move from the March 2020 crash to its August 2020 peak
Case Study: Gurugram vs Noida, Comparing Real Estate Investment Returns
Real estate is the alternative asset every Indian investor already has an opinion on, usually an untested one. This case study builds a real comparison of Gurugram and Noida as investment destinations: the metrics that actually measure return, the data behind them, and the risks a brochure will not tell you about. By the end, you will have a framework you can reuse for any two cities, not just these two.
- Where real estate fits next to equities and mutual funds in a portfolio, and what its illiquidity actually costs you
- How to compute rental yield, capital appreciation and total return for a property, not just guess at them
- A worked, numbers-first comparison of Gurugram and Noida as investment markets
Case Study: How Early Investors in Zomato's Seed Round Made Returns
A worked case study on Info Edge's early bet on Zomato, from its 2010 seed round through to the 2021 IPO. Built for retail and HNI investors curious about startup investing: how seed rounds actually work, how ownership and returns evolve across funding rounds, what the numbers looked like by the time Zomato listed, and what routes exist for Indian investors who want exposure to deals like this one.
- How Zomato's early story unfolded and why Info Edge chose to back it at the seed stage
- What a seed round actually is, and where it sits on the startup funding ladder
- How ownership, valuation and dilution work across multiple funding rounds
Case Study: How Info Edge's Early Bet on Zomato Paid Off
Info Edge, the listed company behind Naukri, wrote one of the most profitable cheques in Indian startup history when it backed Zomato as a tiny restaurant-listing site. This case study looks at the bet from the investor's side of the table. Why a profitable recruitment business went looking for startup bets at all, how it kept writing follow-on cheques through dilution and near-death years, how the stake showed up in Info Edge's own financial statements and share price, what the 2021 IPO and lock-in actually allowed it to sell, and how it recycled gains into new bets. It finishes with the power law maths behind venture returns and a practical playbook for angel and HNI investors building a startup portfolio of their own.
- Why a cash-generating listed company like Info Edge chose to invest in early-stage startups
- How follow-on investing and dilution shaped Info Edge's ownership of Zomato from seed round to IPO
- How a strategic stake is accounted for, and how it moves from associate to fair-value investment
Case Study: How a Category II AIF Structured a Real Estate Fund
Most Indian real estate AIFs do not buy buildings. They lend to developers through structured debt, under a SEBI Category II registration that shapes almost every decision the manager makes. This case study follows an illustrative, composite fund, Sahyadri Realty Credit Fund I, a close-ended Category II AIF lending to residential developers in Mumbai and Pune. You see why the manager chose Category II, how the trust, sponsor, manager and trustee fit together, what SEBI's rules on minimum investment, sponsor commitment, leverage and concentration forced into the design, what the private placement memorandum actually said, how capital calls, fees, hurdle and carry worked in rupees, how individual project deals were secured and monitored, how pass-through taxation landed on investors, and how the fund's IRR and multiple were finally measured. Built for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angel investors considering a real estate AIF commitment.
- Why real estate funds in India are usually set up as Category II AIFs, and why most of them lend rather than own property
- How a trust-based AIF is assembled: sponsor, investment manager, trustee and the investors, and what each is responsible for
- Which SEBI AIF Regulations rules shaped the fund's design: minimum investment, sponsor commitment, leverage and concentration limits
Case Study: How an Angel Investor Evaluated a Failed Startup Bet
A foundation-level case study built around Meera Iyer, a Bengaluru product manager turned angel investor, who writes an eight lakh rupee cheque into Aaranya, a D2C sustainable fashion brand, at its seed round. Each chapter follows one stage of the bet: what angel investing actually involves and how Indian deals get structured through SAFE notes and CCPS, the market, team and valuation diligence Meera ran before signing, the early warning signs that got explained away as the startup burned cash faster than it grew, and the down round and shutdown that followed. Built for retail and HNI investors curious about startup investing as an alternative asset class, with the evaluation mistakes left in rather than smoothed over.
- Understand what angel investing actually involves in India, and how it differs from public market investing
- Read a startup's early business model and market size the way an angel does during a first evaluation
- Understand how Indian angel deals get structured: SAFE notes, CCPS, valuation caps and cap tables
Case Study: Mindspace Business Parks REIT, Analyzing Commercial Real Estate Returns
Mindspace Business Parks REIT, sponsored by K Raheja Corp and listed on the NSE and BSE in August 2020, owns Grade-A office parks across Hyderabad, the Mumbai Region, Pune and Chennai. This case study uses it as a working model for analysing any commercial real estate investment: who the tenants are and how long they are locked in, how rent becomes NOI and then NDCF, how each part of the distribution is taxed, how to value units against NAV and cap rates, what the sponsor's exit meant for unit holders, and what total return investors have actually earned since listing. Built for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angel investors who want to judge a REIT on numbers rather than on its yield headline.
- How to read a REIT's portfolio and tenant book: city mix, occupancy, WALE and tenant concentration
- How Mindspace's IPO was priced during the 2020 pandemic, and what Blackstone's later exit meant for unit holders
- How rental income flows through NOI and NDCF to the distribution per unit you actually receive
Case Study: Rupee Depreciation Post 2022, A Currency Case Study
A close reading of the rupee's slide against the US dollar from 2022 onwards, and what it means for an Indian investor's money. Start with how the rupee is actually priced under RBI's managed float and how to read USD/INR, the dollar index and the REER. Walk through 2022, when Fed rate hikes, the Ukraine war and costly crude pushed the rupee to record lows, and see how RBI spent its forex reserves and changed the rules to defend it. Follow the quiet year of 2023, bond index inclusion, the policy shift that followed and the fresh lows after it. Finish with the practical side: which NSE sectors win and lose when the rupee falls, how to hold dollar assets through LRS, international funds and GIFT City, what retail hedging can and cannot do, and a currency checklist for your own portfolio.
Case Study: Sequoia India's Early Bet on Byju's, A Syndicate Structuring Lens
Sequoia Capital India, now Peak XV Partners, backed Byju's when it was a profitable test-prep business in Bengaluru. Over the next seven years the company raised money from Sofina, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Tencent, General Atlantic, Prosus and many others, reached a reported valuation of about $22 billion, and then unravelled through delayed audits, board resignations, a deeply discounted rights issue, lender litigation and insolvency proceedings. This case study reads the whole story from the investor side of the table. It looks at how each round was led and syndicated, what rights early investors held, why a fragmented syndicate struggled to enforce those rights when governance broke down, and how the down round and markdowns played out. It closes with a practical playbook for angel syndicate leads and family offices: how to structure a syndicate vehicle in India, which term sheet clauses matter most, and a capstone exercise structuring a round for a fast-growing company.
- How Sequoia India's thesis on Byju's was built and what a lead investor contributes beyond the cheque
- How a cap table fills up across many rounds and what pro rata, board seats and information rights actually give an investor
- How liquidation preferences stack across rounds and how dilution moves an early investor's ownership
Case Study: The 2013 Rupee Crash, A Forex Market Case Study
In the summer of 2013, the rupee fell from around 55 to the dollar to nearly 69 in a matter of weeks, India's steepest currency slide since the 1991 balance-of-payments crisis. This case study walks through why a single comment from the US Federal Reserve chairman could hit the Indian currency so hard, what a current account deficit actually has to do with the rupee's value, and how the RBI's emergency toolkit, including a little-known swap window for NRI deposits, pulled the currency back from the edge. Along the way, you will learn how a forex crisis ripples into equities, bonds, gold, and the wallets of ordinary importers, exporters, and NRI families.
- How the rupee is valued and traded, and what actually moves USD/INR day to day
- Why the 2013 US Federal Reserve taper tantrum hit India harder than most emerging markets
- How a widening current account deficit made India vulnerable heading into the crash
Case Study: The 2021 Lumber and Commodity Supercycle
In the spring of 2020 US lumber futures traded at multi-year lows. A year later they had gone up nearly sevenfold, and within months of that peak they had given most of it back. Lumber was the loudest signal of a much wider boom: copper hit a record, iron ore crossed $200 a tonne, steel prices in India jumped, and by 2021 Wall Street banks were openly calling a new commodity supercycle. This case study rebuilds the episode from the ground up. It explains what a supercycle actually is, why lumber became its poster child, how a thin futures contract amplified a real supply squeeze, and how the boom spread across industrial metals, energy and agriculture. It then follows the money into India: the Nifty Metal rally and the earnings peak of steel and aluminium producers, the margin squeeze on paint, FMCG, auto and plywood companies, and the export duties on steel and iron ore that the government imposed in May 2022 and rolled back that November. It closes with a working framework for experienced investors, HNIs and family offices: how to separate a structural supercycle from a temporary supply shock, how to value cyclicals near peak earnings, what roll yield does to commodity returns, and which access routes Indian investors actually have.
- What a commodity supercycle is in the economic literature, and why most commodity booms do not qualify
- How pandemic stimulus, a housing and renovation boom and cut sawmill capacity combined to send lumber futures to record highs in 2021
- How to read a futures curve in backwardation, and how limit moves and thin open interest amplified lumber's spike and its collapse
Case Study: The 2022 Gold Rally During Global Inflation
2022 should have been gold's perfect year: inflation at multi-decade highs, a war in Europe, and central banks buying gold at a record pace. Instead, gold ended the year roughly flat in US dollars, crushed by the fastest Fed hiking cycle in decades and a surging dollar. Indian investors saw a very different picture, because a sliding rupee turned a flat global year into a strong rupee return. This case study pulls apart the forces that pushed and pulled gold through 2022 (real yields, the dollar, central bank buying, safe-haven demand and India's import duty hike) and turns them into practical rules for how much gold belongs in an Indian portfolio and why.
- Why gold's 2022 return depends entirely on which currency you measure it in
- How rising real yields and a strong dollar pulled gold down even as inflation surged
- The role of central bank buying and the Russia-Ukraine war in keeping gold afloat
Case Study: The Collapse of a High Profile Startup Syndicate Deal
This case study follows an illustrative composite deal, built from patterns seen in real Indian startup failures, from the WhatsApp message that announced an oversubscribed syndicate round to the write-off letter members received eighteen months later. You will see how allocation scarcity compressed diligence, how inflated revenue and undisclosed related party dealings hid in a data room nobody read closely, how a term sheet with waived conditions left the syndicate without a voice, and how the money actually flowed back (or did not) in the wind-down waterfall. It closes with the duties a syndicate lead owes members, the regulatory and tax aftermath for investors under SEBI's angel fund framework, and a practical diligence checklist and lead-scoring framework for your next deal.
- How a syndicate round is pooled and structured in India, through SEBI angel funds, platform SPVs and direct cap table entry
- How allocation scarcity and social proof shorten diligence, and the red flags a data room shows if you actually read it
- How to test revenue quality and spot round-tripped or inflated sales before you invest
Case Study: The Swiss Franc Shock of 2015, A Forex Black Swan Event
On 15 January 2015, the Swiss National Bank scrapped the 1.20 floor it had held under EUR/CHF for more than three years, without warning and three days after a senior official had called it a cornerstone of policy. The franc jumped by double digits within minutes, liquidity disappeared, stop-losses filled hundreds of pips away, retail brokers were left with client negative balances they could not recover, and at least one hedge fund was nearly wiped out. This case study rebuilds why Switzerland capped its own currency, how the market came to treat the floor as a free option, what actually happened in the minutes after the announcement, and who was hurt and why. It then turns the event into a risk framework for HNI, family office and active currency traders: measuring tail risk that VaR misses, sizing positions to survive a gap, judging broker and counterparty risk, and reading the RBI's management of the rupee, NSE and BSE currency derivatives and offshore LRS holdings through the lens of a peg that broke.
- Why the Swiss National Bank imposed a 1.20 floor on EUR/CHF in 2011 and how it defended it with unlimited intervention
- How a credible-looking peg turned into a crowded, short-volatility consensus trade
- What happened in the minutes after the 15 January 2015 announcement, and why stop-losses failed to protect traders
Case Study: Valuing a Commercial Property Using Income Capitalization
A single, end-to-end valuation of a leased Grade-A office floor in Pune's eastern IT corridor, worked the way a disciplined buyer or a REIT's valuer would. You start with the seller's pitch and the lease deeds, build a stabilised net operating income line by line, derive a market cap rate from comparable sales, listed REIT valuation reports and the 10-year G-Sec yield, and capitalise the income into a value. You then stress that value with cap rate sensitivity and a discounted cash flow cross-check around the lease expiry, add stamp duty, registration and due diligence costs, and finish with an offer price, a walk-away price and a clear verdict. Built for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angel investors weighing a direct commercial property purchase. The property and its numbers are illustrative; the market context is real.
- How to read a commercial lease and rent roll for the clauses that actually move value: lock-in, escalation, CAM and renewal terms
- How to build a stabilised NOI from gross rent, vacancy, non-recoverable expenses and capital reserves
- How to derive a defensible cap rate from comparable sales, REIT valuation reports and the risk-free G-Sec yield
Fixed Income and Alternate Asset Classes for Beginners
A practical, India-specific introduction to everything beyond stocks and equity mutual funds: fixed deposits, government and corporate bonds, debt mutual funds, PPF, EPF and NPS, REITs, InvITs, gold, and other alternate assets. Built for first-time demat holders, college students, salaried professionals, homemakers and retirees who want a safer, more diversified portfolio without getting lost in jargon. Uses real Indian instruments and platforms throughout: RBI Retail Direct, NSE/BSE-listed bonds and REITs, Sovereign Gold Bonds, Zerodha, Groww and CDSL/NSDL.
- Go beyond bank FDs into bonds and government savings schemes
- Understand bond yields, interest rate risk, REITs and InvITs
- Build a diversified portfolio with gold and alternate assets
Introduction to Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) in India
A clear, India-specific introduction to Alternative Investment Funds: what they are, how SEBI regulates them, and how Category I, II and III AIFs actually make money through venture capital, private equity, private credit, real estate and hedge fund strategies. Learn the ₹1 crore minimum and accredited investor rules, decode the fee stack of management fees, hurdle rates and carry, read IRR, TVPI and DPI like an allocator, understand how each category is taxed, and evaluate a real AIF offering before you commit capital. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed markets, and first-timers curious about startup and real estate funds.
- Understand what an AIF is and how it works
- Learn SEBI rules across Category I, II and III AIFs
- Evaluate fees, returns and taxation before investing in an AIF
Introduction to Angel Investing: What It Means to Invest in Startups
A clear, India-specific introduction to angel investing: what it actually means to put your own money into an early-stage startup, how funding rounds from pre-seed to Series A work, and why the power law decides almost every outcome. Learn pre-money and post-money valuation, dilution, CCPS and convertible notes, the legal routes to invest in India including angel networks, syndicates and SEBI-registered angel funds, the tax and regulatory basics, and the term sheet clauses that protect or hurt you. Finish by evaluating founders and markets, sizing your allocation, and building a first angel portfolio without making the classic first-timer mistakes. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed markets, and first-timers curious about startups.
- Learn what angel investing actually means for investors
- Understand startup funding rounds and the power law
- Evaluate startups and build a diversified angel portfolio
Introduction to Commodity Trading: Gold, Silver, Crude, and Agri Commodities
A clear, India-specific introduction to commodity trading: what commodities are, why investors hold them, and how they trade on MCX, NCDEX, NSE and BSE. Learn how commodity futures and options actually work, including lot sizes, tick values, margins, mark-to-market, settlement, contango and backwardation. Then go market by market: what drives gold and silver, every way to own precious metals in India, how crude oil and natural gas trade, and how agri commodities and base metals behave. Finish with leverage and risk management, the tax treatment of commodity trades, and a practical first step on a broker like Zerodha without repeating the classic beginner mistakes. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond equities, and curious first-timers.
- Learn why commodities trade and how derivatives work
- Trade gold, silver, crude oil and agri commodities
- Understand the risk, tax and rules to get started
Introduction to Forex Trading: How Currency Markets Work
A clear, India-specific introduction to the foreign exchange market: how currencies are quoted and priced, who actually trades the rupee and why, and what really moves USD/INR, from interest rate differentials and crude oil to FPI flows and RBI intervention. Learn to read bid, ask, spreads and forward premiums, understand exactly what is legal for Indian residents under FEMA and the RBI Alert List, and see how exchange-traded currency futures and options work on NSE and BSE, including lot sizes, margins, leverage, position sizing and taxation. Finish by applying it to hedging, to your own portfolio's currency exposure, and to spotting the offshore forex scams that trap first-timers. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed equity, and first-timers curious about currency markets.
- Understand how the forex market actually works
- Read currency quotes and see what moves exchange rates
- Trade forex legally in India, managing risk and tax
Introduction to REITs: Investing in Real Estate Without Buying Property
A practical, India-specific introduction to Real Estate Investment Trusts. Learn how a REIT turns office parks and malls into units you can buy on NSE and BSE for the price of a few thousand rupees, how the sponsor, manager and trustee structure works under SEBI's REIT Regulations, and where the rent actually comes from. Understand the 90% distribution rule, why a REIT payout is split into interest, dividend and debt repayment, and how each piece is taxed. Compare India's listed office and retail REITs, see how InvITs and SM REITs differ, and learn to judge a REIT on occupancy, WALE, leverage, price-to-NAV and distribution yield before you buy. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed equity, and first-timers who want real estate exposure without a home loan.
Introduction to Real Estate as an Asset Class in India
A clear, India-specific introduction to real estate as an investment, not just a place to live. Understand how property really compares with equity, debt and gold, the difference between residential, commercial and land, and the two engines of return: rental yield and capital appreciation. Learn the true cost of buying, from stamp duty and GST to home loan interest, see how RERA and title checks protect you, explore ways to own real estate without buying a flat through REITs, SM REITs, listed developers and AIFs, and work out how property income and gains are taxed. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed markets, and first-timers deciding whether property belongs in their portfolio.
- Explore real estate as an investor, beyond just a home
- Learn how property makes and loses money over time
- Own real estate through REITs, beyond buying property directly
Masterclass Case Study: How a Global Macro Fund Managed Forex Risk During a Currency Crisis
A masterclass case study for family office investors, fund managers and institutional allocators who need to understand how professional macro money actually handles currency risk when a crisis arrives. You join the risk committee of a composite global macro fund running an emerging market currency book with a large Indian rupee position, just before Ben Bernanke's May 2013 testimony triggers the taper tantrum. You start with the fund's mandate, limits and pre-crisis carry positions, and the warning signs it partly ignored: India's record current account deficit, the Fragile Five and crowded carry trades. You then live through May to August 2013 as the rupee falls to its record low, the RBI squeezes liquidity and tightens capital controls, and the offshore NDF market breaks away from onshore prices. You work through the real-time decisions: reading VaR and stress losses when correlations break, cutting carry without paying the widest spreads, choosing between forwards, NDFs, options and proxy hedges, and managing margin and counterparty risk. The case closes with the September turn, the recovery trade, a full P&L attribution and a currency crisis playbook. The fund and its numbers are an illustrative composite; the market events, policy actions and instrument mechanics are real.
- Read a global macro fund's currency book, mandate and risk limits, and spot where carry and crowding risk are hiding
- Trace how the 2013 taper tantrum moved from a Fed testimony to a full emerging market currency crisis and the rupee's record low
- Explain how RBI liquidity tightening, capital controls and the onshore-offshore NDF gap changed the fund's risk overnight
Masterclass Case Study: How a Leading Family Office Built Its Real Estate Portfolio Over Two Decades
A masterclass case study for senior HNI and family office investors, syndicate leads and institutional allocators. We follow a composite Indian family office, built from patterns common to promoter families who turned operating-business wealth into a real estate programme, across twenty years of Indian property cycles: the 2005 to 2008 boom, the 2008 crash, the stalled-project years, demonetisation, RERA and GST, the IL&FS and NBFC credit freeze, the arrival of listed REITs and InvITs, COVID, and the Grade A office, warehousing and data centre wave that followed. At each turn you see the decision the office faced, the numbers it worked with, what it chose, and how that choice looked five and ten years later. The case is illustrative: the family, its deals and its figures are a teaching composite, while the market events, regulations and listed benchmarks are real. Closes with the office's 2025 portfolio review and the rules it would hand to the next generation.
- Trace how a family office's real estate book evolved across twenty years of Indian property cycles, and why each pivot happened when it did
- Underwrite the kinds of deals the office did, from a leased office floor to a warehousing joint venture, using cap rate, IRR and downside cases in rupees
- See how leverage, concentration and illiquidity hurt the office in 2008 and 2018, and the guardrails it built afterwards
Masterclass Case Study: Rajan Anandan's Transition From Executive to Prolific Angel Investor
A case study of one of the most-cited paths in Indian startup investing: Rajan Anandan's move from running large businesses at McKinsey, Dell, Microsoft India and Google India to backing a very large number of early-stage startups as an angel, and then to institutional venture capital at Sequoia Capital India, now Peak XV Partners, where he leads the Surge seed programme. The course reconstructs the decisions behind that transition from the public record: how an executive's platform view becomes an investment thesis, why a prolific small-cheque strategy can make sense, how ecosystem work and personal reputation compound into deal flow, what changes when the money becomes a fund's, and how you would measure an angel record you can only partly see. It closes with a 24-month transition plan for senior executives, HNIs and family office principals who want to build their own angel practice. Built from public information only; where portfolio figures are not public, the course uses clearly labelled illustrative models. Educational content, not a recommendation to invest in any company or fund, and not affiliated with or endorsed by Rajan Anandan or Peak XV Partners.
- Trace how operating roles at Microsoft India and Google India shaped a specific view of where Indian internet value would be created
- Handle the real constraints of angel investing while employed: conflicts of interest, disclosure, insider information and time
- Work out the arithmetic behind a prolific small-cheque strategy and when volume beats selectivity
Masterclass: How Top Family Offices Approach Real Estate and Private Markets
A masterclass for senior HNI investors, family office principals, syndicate leads and institutional allocators who already understand the alternatives menu and now want to see how the best family offices actually run real estate and private markets programmes. The course reverse-engineers the playbooks of top single and multi family offices, Indian and global, and turns them into working rules: how they size illiquid exposure against the family balance sheet, why they prefer direct deals, co-investments or funds in specific situations, how they underwrite Indian commercial real estate, residential development and land, how they access private equity, venture, private credit and secondaries through SEBI-regulated AIFs, GIFT City vehicles and offshore structures, and how they handle liquidity, pacing, tax and governance across a decade. Every module uses Indian examples: Grade A office in Bengaluru and Mumbai, warehousing along Bhiwandi and NH-48, listed REITs and InvITs as pricing benchmarks, Category II and III AIFs, LRS limits, and the tax treatment that decides after-tax outcomes. Closes with a full private markets investment policy for a hypothetical Rs 500 crore Indian family office.
- Size real estate and private market exposure against a family balance sheet using the liquidity, income and legacy buckets top family offices use
- Choose between direct deals, co-investments, club deals and funds for a specific opportunity, and understand what each choice costs in fees, control and effort
- Underwrite Indian commercial real estate, warehousing, residential development and land the way institutional family offices do, with cap rates, IRR and downside cases
Masterclass: Institutional Approaches to Forex and Commodity Risk Management
How Indian corporate treasuries, funds and family offices actually manage currency and commodity risk, taught the way a treasury head would teach a new hire. Starts with the risk mandate: what a hedging policy exists to protect, how RBI, FEMA and SEBI carve up the market into bank OTC forwards, NSE currency derivatives and MCX commodity contracts, and why the NDF market matters even to those who never touch it. Builds a full exposure map across transaction, translation and economic exposure, then quantifies it with VaR, cash-flow-at-risk and stress tests. Works through every hedging instrument in detail: forwards and the interest rate parity behind the forward premium, USDINR futures and options, cross-currency swaps, MCX and NCDEX futures, options on commodity futures, basis and roll risk. Closes with programme design: hedge ratios, layered hedging, Ind AS 109 hedge accounting, treasury governance, and case studies of Indian hedges that worked and hedges that blew up. Built for HNIs, family offices, fund managers and allocators who need to judge, run or oversee a hedging programme.
- Write a hedging policy that states what is protected, how much, for how long, and who decides
- Map transaction, translation and economic exposure for an Indian importer, exporter or commodity user
- Quantify exposure with VaR, cash-flow-at-risk and stress tests, and know where each one lies
Masterclass: Lessons From India's Most Successful Angel Investors
A masterclass built from the public track records of India's best-known angel investors: Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Info Edge's Zomato and PolicyBazaar bets, Ratan Tata's RNT Associates portfolio, Kunal Shah, Anupam Mittal, Rajan Anandan, Sanjay Mehta, Titan Capital's Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, and Nithin Kamath's Rainmatter. Each lesson extracts one transferable principle from a documented outcome: how the power law shaped their portfolios, how they sourced deals with an edge instead of at scale, how they underwrote founders and fund-returning outcomes, how they sized cheques and followed on, and how they actually got paid through IPOs, secondaries and strategic sales. Closes with the Indian tax treatment of angel exits and a playbook for HNIs, family offices and syndicate leads who want to apply these lessons to their own capital. Educational analysis of public information only, not a recommendation to back any company or fund.
- Read India's best angel portfolios through the power law and stop judging deals by hit rate
- Break down the Info Edge and Zomato outcome into decisions you can copy and luck you cannot
- Source deals with an edge, comparing the Shark Tank, operator and thesis-led models
Masterclass: Raising and Managing an Angel Syndicate or Micro VC Fund
The general partner's course. Built for experienced angels, syndicate leads and family office investors who want to move from investing their own money to managing a pooled vehicle: a platform syndicate, a SEBI-registered angel fund, or a Category I micro VC fund of ₹50 crore to ₹300 crore. Starts with the decision itself, what changes when you become a fiduciary, which vehicle fits which ambition, and the fund size math that decides whether the management fee can even pay a team. Walks through the SEBI AIF framework from the manager's chair: registration, sponsor and manager obligations, angel fund rules, and the GIFT City option. Then the economics and documents of the fund: fees, carry, hurdle, waterfalls, clawback, GP commitment, the PPM, contribution agreement and indenture of trust. A full chapter on raising from Indian LPs, from HNIs and family offices to SIDBI's Fund of Funds, including how to build an attributable track record before you have a fund. Closes with running the fund: portfolio pacing, investment committee, valuation and NAV, the compliance calendar, LP reporting, exits and distributions, Section 115UB pass-through taxation, winding down, and the DPI and TVPI numbers that decide whether Fund II gets raised.
- Decide whether a platform syndicate, a SEBI angel fund or a Category I VCF fits your ambition and LP base
- Model fund size, fee income and team cost so the fund is a viable business, not just a portfolio
- Navigate SEBI AIF registration: sponsor, manager, trustee, PPM filing and continuing obligations
Practice Drills: Building a Carry Trade Position Using Interest Rate Differentials
A hands-on drill course for HNI and family office investors, active currency and commodity traders, and experienced angels who already understand carry in theory. You will work one sample carry book end to end: turn policy and money market rates into a carry estimate, back the implied differential out of USD/INR forward points and NSE currency futures, adjust for inflation, write a single-pair carry ticket, compute breakeven spot moves and carry-to-volatility ratios, rank exchange-listed pairs by carry, size the book by volatility and margin, roll and mark it, stress it against the 2013 taper tantrum and the August 2024 yen unwind, price an option tail hedge, and write exit rules and a tax record sheet. Every number is worked, every step is repeatable with live quotes from NSE and RBI.
- Convert RBI, MIBOR, T-bill and SOFR rates into an annualised carry estimate for a currency pair
- Back out the implied rate differential from USD/INR forward points and NSE futures prices
- Adjust nominal carry for inflation and decide whether a differential is worth harvesting
Practice Drills: Building a Convertible Note Term Sheet for a Startup Deal
A practice-first companion to Understanding Convertible Notes and SAFEs in Startup Investing. You already know what a valuation cap, a discount and a maturity date are; this course makes you draft them. Working from a sample Indian seed deal, you will check eligibility under the Companies (Acceptance of Deposits) Rules and FEMA, pick between a convertible note, a CCD and an iSAFE, then build the term sheet clause by clause: principal and tranches, cap, discount, interest, maturity, the qualified financing trigger, change of control, MFN, pro-rata, information rights and events of default. Every economic term is tested against conversion scenarios in rupees before it goes into the draft. The course closes with two full end-to-end drills and a before-you-sign scorecard. Built for angel syndicate leads, family office investors and HNIs who write the term sheet, not just sign it. Educational content only, not legal or investment advice.
- Check a deal's eligibility for a convertible note under the deposit rules, DPIIT recognition and FEMA before drafting a word
- Choose between a convertible note, a CCD and an iSAFE for a specific deal and defend the choice
- Set a valuation cap and discount from comparable rounds and prove in rupees which one binds in each scenario
Practice Drills: Building a Family Office Style Alternative Asset Allocation Model
A hands-on drill course for HNI and family office investors, angel syndicate leads and active commodity and currency traders who want to run alternatives like an institution. Working from one sample INR 150 crore family balance sheet, you will build a spreadsheet allocation model tab by tab: honest return and risk assumptions for private equity, private credit, real assets and Category III AIFs, unsmoothed volatility, an illiquidity budget tied to the family's cash needs, a factor map of what the book really owns, a commitment pacing engine for capital calls and distributions, liquidity stress tests, and a gross-to-net layer for fees, carry and Indian tax. The course ends with an investment committee memo built from your own model.
- How to lay out an allocation model with clean input, assumption, engine and output tabs
- How to set defensible return, volatility and correlation assumptions for Indian alternatives and why reported AIF returns must be unsmoothed first
- How to size an alternatives sleeve from the family's liquidity needs rather than from a target return
Practice Drills: Building a Forex Trade Plan Using Technical Levels
A hands-on drill course for experienced investors, HNIs and angels who already read currency charts and now want a repeatable, written process before risking capital. You will work one USD/INR futures trade on NSE from a blank chart: map and grade support and resistance across timeframes, mark round numbers and RBI defence zones, choose an entry trigger, place an ATR and structure-based stop, set a target from the next level, size the position in lots from a fixed rupee risk, cost the round trip on Zerodha, filter for RBI and US event risk, write if-then branches for failure cases, repeat the whole plan on EUR/USD futures, and score it in a trade journal. Every number is worked and every template is reusable.
- Fill a complete forex trade plan template before placing a single order
- Map support and resistance on USD/INR weekly, daily and hourly charts and grade each level objectively
- Treat round numbers, prior extremes and RBI defence zones as tradeable levels
Practice Drills: Calculating Cap Rate and Cash on Cash Return
A hands-on drill course for experienced retail investors, HNIs, and angel investors adding income property to their portfolio. Using a set of sample Indian properties (a leased office unit, a residential flat, and a high-street retail shop), you will rebuild NOI from a broker's pitch, calculate cap rate forwards and backwards, count the full cash that actually leaves your bank account including stamp duty and registration, work cash-on-cash return at different loan-to-value levels and home loan rates, and finish by ranking and stress-testing deals the way a disciplined buyer would.
- How to turn a broker's rent and price pitch into a clean, honest NOI sheet
- How to calculate cap rate on Indian residential, office, and retail property, and back-solve a fair price from a target cap rate
- How to count the full cash invested, including down payment, stamp duty, registration, brokerage, and fit-out
Practice Drills: Calculating Fair Value of a Commodity Futures Contract
A hands-on drill course for experienced retail investors and HNIs who want to check a commodity futures quote instead of trusting it. You will build the landed spot price for gold from international prices, the rupee, and import duty, compute fair value for MCX gold and silver with financing, storage, and insurance costs, back out the implied convenience yield from a backwardated MCX crude oil curve, price an NCDEX agri contract with warehousing charges, and finally wrap every fair value in a no-arbitrage band that accounts for brokerage, CTT, margins, and tax before deciding whether a mispricing is real.
- How to collect and clean every input a fair value calculation needs: spot, interest rate, days to expiry, and contract specifications
- How to derive the landed Indian spot price of gold from international prices, USD/INR, and import duty
- How to compute fair value for MCX gold and silver futures with simple and continuous compounding, including storage and insurance
Practice Drills: Calculating Rental Yield on a Sample Property
A practice-first drill for anyone treating real estate as an investment, not just a home. Using one sample Indian property, you will work through gross yield, net yield, and how to tell whether the result is actually worth the capital tied up, instead of relying on broker pitches or gut feel.
- Tell apart the two ways real estate returns money: rental yield and price appreciation
- Set up a full property income and cost sheet for a sample flat
- Calculate gross rental yield step by step
Practice Drills: Comparing Two AIF Category Structures
A hands-on drill course for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angel investors weighing their first or next AIF commitment. You take one sample one crore rupee commitment and run it through two illustrative funds: a close-ended Category II private credit fund and an open-ended Category III long-short fund. You read both term sheets side by side, compute management fees, a hurdle and catch-up waterfall and a high-water mark performance fee, map capital calls against NAV-based returns, stress-test leverage and redemption terms, work out pass-through versus fund-level taxation, and finish with a scored comparison and a one-page decision memo.
- How to read two AIF private placement memorandums side by side and extract the terms that actually drive your outcome
- How to compute management fees on committed versus invested capital and see what each basis costs you in rupees
- How to run a distribution waterfall with a preferred return, GP catch-up and carried interest, step by step
Practice Drills: Comparing Two REITs Using Basic Metrics
A hands-on drill set for comparing two listed Indian REITs using the metrics that actually matter, instead of just looking at distribution yield in isolation. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNI investors diversifying beyond equity and debt, and first-timers curious about real estate without buying property. Walks through what a REIT actually owns and pays out, the five comparison metrics worth trusting (distribution yield, NAV premium or discount, occupancy rate, WALE, and gearing ratio), where to actually pull these numbers from in India, and then puts that knowledge to work on a real side-by-side drill comparing two listed office REITs.
Practice Drills: Constructing a Multi Asset Alternative Portfolio Allocation
A hands-on drill course for HNI and family office investors, syndicate leads and fund managers, and institutional alternative asset allocators. Working on one sample INR 250 crore book, you will map the Indian alternatives menu to underlying risk factors, unsmooth private market returns, build net-of-fee and net-of-tax assumptions, size private equity, private credit, real asset and liquid alternative sleeves, model commitment pacing and liquidity, stress test the whole book against real Indian market episodes, and write rebalancing rules that work when half the portfolio cannot be sold.
- How to map Category I, II and III AIFs, REITs, InvITs, gold and unlisted shares to equity, credit, real and inflation risk factors
- How to unsmooth reported private market returns so volatility and correlation estimates stop flattering the alternatives sleeve
- How to convert gross return assumptions into net-of-fee, net-of-tax figures across pass-through and fund-level-taxed vehicles
Practice Drills: Estimating Fair Value of a Currency Pair Using PPP
A hands-on drill course for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angel investors who already know what purchasing power parity says and now want to use it. You will work one currency pair, USD/INR, end to end: source CPI series and exchange rate averages from RBI, MOSPI and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, estimate absolute PPP from price baskets and World Bank conversion factors, pick a defensible base year, project relative PPP fair value, measure misalignment, extend the method to EUR/INR, GBP/INR and JPY/INR, read the RBI REER index, apply a simple productivity correction, estimate how long a gap takes to close, and turn the result into a hedge ratio for an offshore allocation. Every number is worked and every step is repeatable with public data.
- Pull and align CPI series and exchange rate averages for India and the US from official sources
- Estimate absolute PPP for USD/INR from price baskets and World Bank PPP conversion factors
- Choose a base year and show how that choice moves the fair value estimate
Practice Drills: Evaluating a Pre IPO Unlisted Share Opportunity
A hands-on drill course for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angel investors who have been offered pre IPO or unlisted shares. You take one illustrative dealer quote for an unlisted company and work it end to end: build the evidence file from MCA filings and annual reports, read three years of financials with no screener.in page to lean on, rebuild the fully diluted cap table, value the business against listed peers, price the illiquidity discount, check the transfer mechanics and dealer spread, model the post IPO lock-in, compute post-tax returns across exit scenarios, and finish with a scored checklist and a one-page buy, pass or wait memo.
- How to assemble an evidence file for an unlisted company from MCA filings, annual reports, funding disclosures and any DRHP
- How to read three years of unlisted financials and stress-test the growth and cash burn story yourself
- How to rebuild a fully diluted share count including ESOPs, CCPS and convertibles, and see what it does to the per-share price
Practice Drills: Evaluating a Startup Pitch Deck as an Angel Investor
A practice-first course for retail and HNI investors exploring angel investing. Instead of another lecture on how startups raise money, this course puts a real-looking pitch deck in front of you slide by slide and drills you on what to check, what to question, and what should make you walk away. Every drill uses Indian startup context: SAFE notes and CCPS, DPIIT recognition, AIF structures used for angel pooling in India, and the kind of numbers Indian founders actually put on slides.
- Spot structural red flags in a pitch deck before you even get to the numbers
- Sanity-check TAM, SAM and SOM claims instead of taking them at face value
- Read unit economics slides: CAC, LTV, burn rate and runway
Practice Drills: Hedging a Sample Commodity Position Using Futures
A hands-on drill course for experienced retail investors, HNIs, and business-owning investors who hold real commodity exposure and want to protect it. You will take three sample positions (physical gold held by a family, a fleet operator's diesel bill, and a trader's stored jeera) and hedge each one on MCX or NCDEX: map the exposure to a contract, size it in lots, estimate a minimum variance hedge ratio from price data, fund margins and daily mark-to-market through adverse moves, roll across expiries, measure basis at the exit, and compute the effective price the hedge actually locked in. The course closes with the tax treatment of hedge gains and losses in India and a complete hedge plan worksheet in Google Sheets.
- How to translate a physical commodity exposure into the right MCX or NCDEX contract by quantity, quality, location, and timing
- How to size a short hedge on physical gold and a long hedge on a future fuel purchase, including rounding to whole lots
- How to estimate a minimum variance hedge ratio from price changes when the exposure and the contract are not the same commodity
Practice Drills: Reading a Currency Pair Quote and Calculating Pips
A practice-first companion for anyone exploring currency markets alongside their usual equity or fund investments. Instead of re-explaining forex theory, this course puts you through real quote-reading and pip-calculation drills using actual USD/INR and EUR/INR examples, so you can read a quote and work out what a price move is actually worth without hesitating.
- Read a currency pair quote and identify the base and quote currency
- Tell a direct quote from an indirect quote, and why USD/INR is direct for an Indian trader
- Read a bid-ask spread and work out what it costs on a trade
Practice Drills: Structuring a Commodity Spread Trade
A hands-on drill course for active commodity traders and HNI or family office investors who already understand futures pricing and spreads. You will structure three spread trades on MCX from scratch: a gold calendar spread priced against cost-of-carry fair value, a gold-silver ratio trade with rupee-matched leg sizing, and a crude oil calendar spread in a backwardated curve. For each one you set the thesis, entry, target and stop, work out margin and return on capital, and then stress-test it against legging slippage, correlation breaks, curve flips and expiry traps. The course closes with a one-page trade ticket and the Indian tax treatment of commodity futures P&L.
- How to turn MCX contract specifications into spread arithmetic: lot values, tick values and spread P&L per point
- How to price a calendar spread against cost-of-carry fair value and decide whether to buy or sell it
- How to size an inter-commodity spread so both legs carry matched rupee exposure using full and mini lots
Practice Drills: Structuring a Micro VC Fund's Investment Thesis
A hands-on drill course for family office investors, syndicate leads and emerging fund managers, and institutional allocators who back first-time funds. Working on one sample INR 150 crore Category I venture capital fund, you will turn a sector hunch into a written investment thesis that an LP can test: size the fundable pipeline bottom-up, define the wedge and prove the why-now with Indian data, build the portfolio construction model from fund size to cheque size to reserves, run the power-law math that shows what the best outcome must return, write the investment criteria and decision rules, score sample deals against the thesis, and finish with a two-page thesis memo stress-tested against the objections Indian LPs actually raise.
- How to separate a real investment thesis from a sector slogan, using the questions an LP's investment committee asks
- How to size a fundable deal pipeline bottom-up instead of quoting a top-down market size
- How to define a defensible wedge of sector, stage and geography, and back the why-now with verifiable Indian data
Practice Drills: Structuring a Real Estate Development Financing Deal
A drill-heavy course for family office investors, angel syndicate leads and active traders moving into private real estate credit and equity. You work on one sample residential project in Thane from land purchase to possession. You build its cost stack and sales forecast, find the month by month funding gap, size a bank construction loan, price a credit AIF mezzanine NCD, split the equity between developer and investor, write the waterfall, covenants and security package, stress test the whole structure against delay, price and cost shocks, compute every party's returns, and finish by writing the term sheet and IC memo. All deal numbers are illustrative.
- Build a development project's full cost stack and month by month cash flow
- Forecast sales and collections under RERA's 70 percent escrow rule
- Find the funding gap and size senior construction finance against it
Practice Drills: Structuring a Sample Angel Investment Term Sheet
A drill-based course for angel investors, HNIs and experienced retail investors moving into startup deals. You work one sample Indian seed deal from start to finish: a deal brief, a starting cap table and a founder's ask. Each lesson is a drill that makes you set one set of terms yourself, run the numbers, and write the clause: instrument and holding vehicle, pre-money valuation, ESOP pool, price per CCPS, liquidation preference, anti-dilution, pro-rata and transfer rights, exit rights, information and governance rights, founder vesting, and the FEMA, valuation, stamp duty and Companies Act checks every Indian angel round needs. The course closes with full end-to-end drills: writing the complete term sheet, handling the founder's pushback, and scoring the final draft before you wire money. Educational content only, not investment or legal advice.
- How to turn a startup's deal brief into a complete angel term sheet, clause by clause
- How to set pre-money valuation, ESOP pool and price per CCPS, and build the post-money cap table
- How to test liquidation preference and anti-dilution choices against real exit and down-round scenarios
Practice Drills: Tracking a Commodity Price Trend Over a Quarter
A practice-drill course, not a lecture course. Over one quarter, you build and run a real tracking log on MCX gold: setting it up, reading price action, confirming trends with moving averages, telling a real trend from a whipsaw, and reviewing what the data actually showed you at the end. Every lesson pushes you back to your own log, not just the reading.
- How to set up a weekly commodity price tracking log from scratch
- How to read price action on a commodity chart without relying on indicators first
- How to use moving averages to confirm a trend rather than just eyeball it
Practice Drills: Valuing a Property Using Comparable Sales and Cap Rate
A hands-on drill course for experienced retail investors, HNIs, and angel investors who want to put their own number on a property instead of trusting the seller's or the broker's. Using sample Indian properties (a residential flat, a pre-leased office unit, and a high-street retail shop), you will build a clean comparables sheet from registrar data and portal listings, convert everything to a like-for-like carpet area rate, adjust for floor, age, amenities and timing, derive a market cap rate from recent leased sales, value an income-producing unit from its NOI, measure how sensitive that value is to the cap rate, and finally reconcile the two methods into a price range and a walk-away number you can take into a negotiation.
- How to assemble a comparables sheet from IGR registrar records, RERA filings, and portals like MagicBricks and 99acres
- How to convert super built-up, built-up, and carpet area quotes into one comparable carpet area rate
- How to apply percentage adjustments for floor, age, amenities, and time of sale, and weight comparables into a value range
Practice Drills: Verifying a Real Estate Project on RERA's Portal
A practical, step by step drill course for verifying a real estate project's RERA registration before you invest. You will learn what RERA registration actually guarantees, how to search and read a project's listing on your state's RERA portal, how to cross check the promoter and professional certificates on file, and how to spot red flags before signing anything.
- What a RERA registration number actually guarantees, and what it does not
- How to search for and open a project's listing on your state's RERA portal
- How to read a project page: promoter details, land title, approvals, and timelines
Real Estate Valuation Methods: Comparable Sales, Income Capitalization, and Replacement Cost
A practical, India-focused course on how real estate is actually valued, built for investors who already own or are evaluating property and want more than a broker's gut feel. Learn the three standard approaches valuers use: comparable sales, which prices a property against what similar properties recently sold for; income capitalization, which prices a property against the rental income and cap rate it commands; and replacement cost, which prices a property against what it would cost to rebuild today. See where each method is pulled from in the Indian market, from registrar and RERA data to cap rates on pre-leased offices and REIT portfolios like Embassy, Mindspace and Nexus Select, to construction cost tables and depreciation schedules. Work through full numerical examples for a residential flat, a pre-leased office unit and a standalone warehouse, learn why the three methods often disagree and how to reconcile them, and finish with a decision framework and checklist for valuing any property you are about to buy, sell or lend against.
Setting Up an MCX Trading Account for Commodity Trading
A practical, hands-on guide to opening and understanding a commodity trading account on the Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX). Learn what actually trades on MCX, how a commodity contract differs from an equity trade, and who regulates the exchange and protects your money. Walk through the real process of activating the commodity segment with a broker like Zerodha, the documents and eligibility checks involved, and what to compare before choosing one. Understand margins, contract specifications, and how to read a live commodity contract before placing your first order. Built for retail investors, HNIs looking to diversify beyond equities, and anyone curious about commodities who wants to set up correctly instead of guessing their way through a broker's app.
- What MCX is, what commodities trade on it, and how it differs from NSE/BSE equity trading
- How commodity contracts, lot sizes, and expiries work
- How to activate the commodity trading segment with your broker, and what documents you need
Understanding AIF Categories: Category I, II, and III Explained
A deep-dive comparison of Category I, II and III Alternative Investment Funds for investors who already know what an AIF is and want to go further. Go past the basic definitions into the investment conditions, leverage limits and structural nuances that actually separate a venture capital fund from a hedge fund from a real estate AIF, compare how each category is taxed under the pass-through and fund-level regimes, and build a practical framework for choosing between categories as an HNI, angel investor or experienced retail investor moving into alternatives.
Understanding Commodity Futures Pricing: The Cost of Carry Model
A rigorous but practical look at how commodity futures actually get priced, built for experienced retail investors, HNIs, and angel investors who already trade or hold commodities and want the mechanics underneath the price. Covers the cost-of-carry formula step by step: interest, storage, insurance, and convenience yield, then uses it to explain contango, backwardation, and the shape of the MCX futures curve. Applies the model across gold, silver, crude oil, and agri commodities with real MCX data, and closes with how cash-and-carry arbitrage and calendar spreads actually use the mispricing the model reveals.
Understanding Commodity Futures and Hedging Mechanisms
Description coming soon.
Understanding Commodity Market Manipulation and Regulatory Safeguards
An advanced course on how commodity prices get manipulated, and what stands in the way. Starts with the mechanics: corners, squeezes, spoofing, wash trades and settlement price games, and why thin, delivery-linked commodity markets are easier to push around than large-cap equities. Works through the cases that rewrote the rules, from the Hunt brothers' silver corner and Sumitomo's copper squeeze to the NSEL collapse, the 2012 guar spike on NCDEX, the JPMorgan spoofing desk and the LME nickel cancellation of 2022. Then maps India's defences in detail: the FMC to SEBI merger, the PFUTP Regulations, position limits, margins, price bands, warehousing and exchange surveillance on MCX and NCDEX. Closes with a practical toolkit for spotting manipulation in price, volume and open interest data, judging platform and counterparty risk, and knowing where aggressive trading crosses the legal line. Built for HNIs, family offices and active commodity traders who already understand futures and hedging.
- Explain why commodity markets are structurally more exposed to manipulation than large-cap equities
- Recognise corners, squeezes, spoofing, layering, wash trades and banging the close from market data
- Draw the real lessons from the Hunt brothers, Sumitomo, NSEL, guar, JPMorgan and LME nickel cases
Understanding Convertible Notes and SAFEs in Startup Investing
An advanced, India-specific deep dive into the instruments that fund most early-stage rounds before a price is set. Learn why startups delay pricing, how convertible notes, SAFEs, iSAFEs and CCDs differ, and how the Companies Act deposit rules, DPIIT recognition and FEMA shape what Indian and NRI investors can actually sign. Master the valuation cap, discount, interest and maturity terms, run full conversion maths for notes and pre-money vs post-money SAFEs, and see what happens when several convertibles stack into one priced round. Work through down rounds, shutdowns, tax treatment on conversion and exit, then read a convertible term sheet clause by clause and follow a syndicate lead's ₹50 lakh note through two rounds to exit. Built for HNI and family office investors and experienced angel syndicate leads.
Understanding Currency Pairs and Exchange Rate Basics
A ground-floor primer for Indian retail and HNI investors who have never looked at currencies as something you can understand, let alone invest around. Before any talk of NSE currency futures, RBI reference rates, or parity theories, this course answers the questions a first-timer actually has: what is a currency pair, why does INR/USD look different from USD/INR, why isn't the rupee 'worth less' in any meaningful sense, and where do exchange rates actually show up in an ordinary Indian's financial life. No trading mechanics, no macro theory, no formulas. Just the vocabulary and mental models needed before moving on to how currency markets actually work.
- Explain what a currency pair is and why every exchange rate is really a ratio between two currencies
- Read INR/USD and USD/INR correctly and know which one you will actually see quoted in India
- Understand why the rupee and the dollar are not 'worth' different amounts in any meaningful sense
Understanding Currency Valuation: Purchasing Power Parity and Interest Rate Parity
A focused, technical deep dive into the two classical theories economists use to value currencies: purchasing power parity and interest rate parity. Built for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angel investors who already know what an exchange rate is and want the actual mechanics, not a repeat of the basics. Covers absolute and relative PPP, the real effective exchange rate (REER), the law of one price, covered and uncovered interest rate parity with worked INR/USD arbitrage math, the carry trade, the forward premium puzzle, and how to apply both frameworks when sizing currency risk in an offshore or alternative-asset portfolio. Anchored throughout in RBI data, NSE currency futures and real Indian examples.
- Explain the law of one price and how it underpins both PPP and interest rate parity
- Distinguish absolute PPP from relative PPP and apply each using real INR/USD and Big Mac Index data
- Calculate REER and interpret what it says about whether the rupee is over- or undervalued
Understanding Family Office Allocation to Alternative Assets
An advanced, India-specific guide to how family offices think about, size and run allocations to alternative assets. Learn what separates a single family office from a multi-family office or a promoter treasury, why long horizons and patient capital tilt these portfolios toward private markets, and how to write an investment policy statement with liquidity buckets and risk budgets. Work through the alternatives menu from the allocator's desk: PE and VC fund commitments and co-investments, private credit, real assets, Category III AIF strategies and commodity and currency hedges. Master the mechanics that decide outcomes in a private markets programme: commitment pacing, capital calls, the denominator effect, vintage diversification, manager dispersion and fee drag. Map the Indian regulatory and tax terrain across AIFs, PMS, LRS, GIFT City and holding structures, then apply it all in two full case studies. Built for HNIs and family office investors, angel syndicate leads managing co-investor capital, and experienced traders stepping into multi-asset allocation.
Understanding Forex Market Interventions by Central Banks
An advanced course on central bank currency intervention as it actually works, not as it is headlined. Built for HNIs, family office investors, active currency and commodity traders and experienced angels who already understand what moves the rupee and now want to understand the hand that leans on it. Covers why central banks intervene, the full instrument set (spot, forwards, NDFs, buy/sell swaps and verbal guidance), sterilisation and its liquidity consequences, the portfolio balance and signalling channels, reserve adequacy, and the politics of the US Treasury monitoring list. Goes deep on the RBI's managed float, its forward book and swap windows, with case studies from 2013 and 2022, then compares the SNB, Japan's Ministry of Finance, the PBoC and the Hong Kong currency board. Closes with how to read RBI data, detect intervention in real time, price and trade around it, and hedge offshore allocations when the RBI is in the market.
- Explain why a central bank intervenes and what it is actually trying to control
- Distinguish spot, forward, NDF, swap and verbal intervention and what each does to reserves and liquidity
- Trace how sterilised and unsterilised intervention flow through to money market rates and bond yields
Understanding Fractional Real Estate Ownership Platforms
A practical, India-specific guide to fractional real estate platforms like Strata, PropertyShare, hBits and Assetmonk. Learn how SPV and LLP-based co-ownership actually works, how SEBI's 2024 SM REIT regulations reshaped a once-unregulated market, and how to tell a registered platform from one that isn't. Go inside deal structuring to read rental yield, cap rate and exit assumptions the way platforms present them, and see where fees and waterfalls quietly eat into returns. Build a due diligence process for both the underlying property and the platform itself, understand why liquidity is the biggest risk in this asset class and how secondary markets and buybacks really work, and learn how rental income and capital gains from fractional holdings are taxed. Finish by working out how much of a portfolio should go into fractional real estate and how it compares to other alternative assets. Built for experienced retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying into private real estate, and angel investors rounding out a broader portfolio.
Understanding Fundamental Drivers of Currency Movements: Interest Rates and Trade Balances
A practical framework for how currencies actually move, built for experienced retail investors, HNIs, and angel investors who hold or are considering cross-border exposure. Covers exchange rate mechanics and the RBI's managed float, interest rate parity and the India-US rate differential, the carry trade, India's trade and current account deficit, capital flows and RBI intervention, and how to size and hedge currency risk in an offshore or alternative-asset portfolio. Anchored throughout in Indian data (RBI, CAD prints, FII/FPI flows) and real INR/USD examples.
Understanding MCX and Commodity Exchanges in India
A structural look at how commodity exchanges in India actually work, built around MCX. Understand how an exchange functions as an institution: order matching and price discovery, MCX's corporate structure and public listing, and the Clearing Corporation and Settlement Guarantee Fund that stand behind every trade. Then go inside the regulatory layer, from the 2015 FMC-SEBI merger to membership structures, position limits, circuit filters and market surveillance. Finish by placing MCX in context against NCDEX, ICEX and global exchanges like CME, ICE and LME, and how liquidity and open interest actually behave in the Indian market. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond equities, and curious first-timers who want to understand the exchange itself, not just how to place a trade.
Understanding Pre IPO Investing and Unlisted Shares
A practical guide to buying and holding shares of Indian companies before they list, built for investors who already understand listed equity and now want exposure to the unlisted market. Learn what pre-IPO and unlisted shares actually are, why Indian unicorns are staying private for longer, and how the informal grey market differs from the more formal unlisted-share ecosystem. Go deep on the actual mechanics of access: ESOP secondary sales, pre-IPO placements, dealer platforms, and the SEBI and Companies Act boundaries that govern all of it, plus the red flags that separate a legitimate deal from a scam. Finish with how to actually value a company with no listed market price, how cap tables and dilution affect your stake, how these shares are taxed in India, and the real exit routes once you're in.
- Tell a legitimate unlisted-share deal apart from a grey market trap
- Value a company that has no listed market price to anchor on
- Know how unlisted shares are taxed in India and what your real exit routes are
Understanding Real Estate Cycles and Timing the Market
An intermediate, India-specific guide to the boom-bust rhythm of real estate and what it means for your buy and sell decisions. Learn the four-phase cycle of recovery, expansion, hypersupply and recession, and why property cycles run longer and slower than stock market cycles. Track the signals that actually move a cycle: interest rates and home loan affordability, unsold inventory and months to sell, absorption and job growth, and developer credit stress. Read RBI HPI, NHB RESIDEX, launch-to-sales ratios and rental yield compression like a practitioner, and see why Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad rarely move in sync. Finish with a honest look at whether timing the market actually works, cycle-aware buying strategies, and the mistakes that trap investors who chase the peak or panic at the trough. Built for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angel investors who already understand property basics and want to time their next move.
Understanding Real Estate Investment Analysis: Cap Rate and Cash on Cash Return
A rigorous, numbers-first guide to the two metrics serious property investors actually underwrite with: cap rate and cash-on-cash return. Learn to build a clean NOI from gross rent down through vacancy and operating expenses, calculate cap rate the way institutional buyers do, and see why Indian commercial cap rates sit where they do across Mumbai, Bengaluru and the Tier-2 cities. Then bring in debt: build cash flow after debt service, see exactly how loan-to-value and interest rate move your cash-on-cash number, and learn to tell positive leverage from negative leverage before you sign anything. Use both metrics together to screen and compare real deals, stress-test your assumptions, and spot the red flags behind a cap rate or cash-on-cash figure that looks too good. Built for HNIs, experienced alternative-asset investors and angel investors who already know the basics of real estate and want to underwrite a deal properly instead of trusting a broker's pitch.
Understanding Real Estate Private Equity and Development Financing
An advanced course on how Indian real estate projects are really funded, and where a private investor can sit in that funding. Starts with the capital stack of a development project, from land and approvals through construction and sales, and explains why developers turn to NBFCs, real estate credit AIFs and private equity when bank funding runs short. Covers the instruments in detail: construction finance, lease rental discounting, structured NCDs, mezzanine debt and preferred equity, along with the escrow, cash sweep and security structures lenders use and the RERA escrow rule that reshaped project funding. Unpacks how real estate private equity funds are built, from core to opportunistic strategies, Category II AIF structures, hurdle rates, carried interest and distribution waterfalls, and the platform deals global and domestic investors strike with Indian developers. Then works through underwriting a development deal end to end, with a full pro forma, IRR and equity multiple, and sensitivity to price, absorption and delay. Closes with risk and distress, including the 2018 to 2020 credit crunch, SWAMIH and IBC resolution, exit routes, fund due diligence, taxation of returns, and a decision checklist before committing capital. Built for HNIs, family office investors and experienced syndicate leads evaluating real estate AIFs and structured deals.
- Map every layer of a development project's capital stack and who funds each one in India
- Explain why developers pay 16 to 22 percent for private capital when banks charge far less
- Compare construction finance, LRD, structured NCDs, mezzanine debt and preferred equity
Understanding Rental Yield vs Capital Appreciation
A focused, India-specific guide to the two ways property makes money: the rent it pays you every month and the price it gains over years. Learn to calculate gross and net rental yield properly, understand why Indian residential yields sit far below home loan rates while offices and warehouses pay more, and separate genuine capital appreciation from inflation, listing-price hype and hidden costs. Combine both engines into one honest number using cap rate, price-to-rent, CAGR and XIRR, see how leverage and tax change the answer, and decide whether a yield-first or growth-first strategy, or a REIT, suits your goals. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed markets, and first-timers weighing their first property purchase.
- Learn the two ways property actually pays investors
- Calculate rental yield and capital appreciation in depth
- Measure combined returns and choose your investing strategy
Understanding Residential vs Commercial Real Estate Investing
A practical, India-specific comparison of the two biggest segments of property investing: homes you rent to families and offices, shops and warehouses you lease to businesses. See how the Indian housing, Grade A office, retail and warehousing markets actually work, why residential yields sit near 2 to 3 percent while commercial assets pay 7 to 9 percent, and what you give up for that extra income. Learn how 11-month rent agreements differ from long commercial leases with lock-ins and escalations, what pre-leased property and lease rental discounting mean, and how ticket size, GST, tax, liquidity and vacancy risk change the answer. Finish with a Hyderabad case study, a decision framework, and the lower-ticket routes to commercial exposure through REITs, SM REITs and fractional ownership. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed markets, and first-timers deciding which kind of property to buy.
- See residential and commercial real estate as different businesses
- Compare residential and commercial investing head to head
- Choose the real estate route that fits your goals
Understanding Seasonality in Agricultural Commodity Prices
Agricultural commodities do not move like stocks or even like gold and crude. Their prices run on a calendar set by sowing windows, the monsoon, and harvest arrivals, layered with MSP policy and global crop cycles from the US, Brazil and China. This course builds a working method for reading that calendar: how to construct a seasonality chart, tell a real pattern from noise, act on it through MCX and NCDEX contracts, agri-linked equities and funds, and size the risk correctly when a drought or an export ban breaks the pattern. Built for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angel investors who already understand commodity trading basics and want to go deeper into agri-specific seasonality.
- Why agri commodity prices move on a predictable calendar tied to sowing, monsoon and harvest, not just news flow
- How to build and read a seasonality chart, and how to tell a genuine pattern from random noise
- Which Indian instruments, MCX and NCDEX contracts, agri-linked equities, AIFs and PMS, let you act on seasonality
Understanding Startup Equity, Valuation, and Cap Tables for Investors
A practical, India-specific guide to what you actually own when you invest in a startup. Learn how share capital, CCPS and fully diluted ownership work, how early-stage startups are valued using the scorecard, Berkus and VC methods, and how Indian rules like Rule 11UA and FEMA pricing shape the numbers. Build a cap table round by round, see how ESOP pools and convertibles quietly dilute you, track your stake from seed to Series C, and understand down rounds, anti-dilution and pro-rata rights. Finish by learning why a headline valuation is not what your stake is worth, how liquidation preferences split exit proceeds, and follow one angel cheque from first round to exit. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying into private markets, and first-timers curious about startups.
- Understand what you actually own in a startup
- Read and build a cap table with confidence
- Protect your stake through dilution and down rounds
Understanding Technical Analysis Applied to Forex Markets
A focused, India-specific guide to reading currency charts the way a forex trader actually needs to, not a repeat of generic stock-market technical analysis. Learn why the forex market's 24-hour structure, session overlaps and lack of a central exchange change how you read candles, volume and support and resistance, then apply trend lines, moving averages, chart patterns, RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, Fibonacci and Ichimoku directly to USD/INR, EUR/INR and major currency pairs. Built for experienced retail investors, HNIs and angel investors who already understand forex basics and want a systematic way to read currency charts.
Understanding Term Sheets From an Angel Investor's Perspective
A clause-by-clause guide to the term sheet, built for angels who already understand cap tables and valuation and now need to read the document that actually governs their investment. Learn what makes a term sheet binding versus non-binding, how the format differs across SAFE, CCD and CCPS instruments, and how to read a real Indian angel term sheet line by line. Go deep on the economic terms that decide your payout: participating versus non-participating liquidation preference, redemption and buyback clauses, conversion triggers, and how anti-dilution and pro-rata protections are actually worded and negotiated. Finish with the control terms that determine how much say you get after the cheque clears: board seats and observer rights, protective provisions and veto rights, and information and inspection rights.
- Read a real Indian angel term sheet clause by clause
- Understand which economic terms actually decide your exit payout
- Know which control and governance rights an angel can realistically negotiate
Understanding the Risk Return Profile of Alternative Assets vs Traditional Assets
A clear, India-specific guide to comparing alternative assets with the traditional trio of equity, debt and gold on equal terms. Learn why risk in alternatives goes far beyond volatility: liquidity, valuation, leverage and manager risk, the illiquidity premium, and the smoothed, appraisal-based returns that make private assets look calmer than they are. Benchmark long-run Nifty, fixed income and gold behaviour, then profile physical real estate, REITs and InvITs, PE, VC and angel investing, private credit and P2P lending, and commodities, collectibles and crypto. Compare them fairly using CAGR, IRR and yield after fees and tax, build a side-by-side scorecard, and decide how much of a portfolio alternatives deserve. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed markets, and first-timers curious about real estate and startups.
- Compare traditional and alternative assets on one question
- View risk through a wider lens than usual
- Add alternative assets into your portfolio the right way
Using AngelList India for Startup Investing Opportunities
A practical, platform-focused guide to investing in Indian startups through AngelList India. Learn how the platform is structured under the AIF route, what eligibility and KYC actually involve, and the real differences between syndicates, funds and direct deals on AngelList India. Walk through the fees and carry you will actually pay, how to read a deal memo and cap table, and a due diligence checklist for evaluating early-stage startups before you commit capital. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed markets, and first-timers curious about startup and real estate investing who want to actually use the platform, not just understand angel investing in theory.
Using Groww or Similar Platforms for Investing in REITs
A practical, platform-level walkthrough of investing in Indian REITs through apps like Groww, Zerodha and similar brokers, for anyone who already has a demat account and wants to add real estate exposure without buying property. Starts with what a REIT actually is and how India's listed REITs (Embassy Office Parks, Mindspace Business Parks, Brookfield India, Nexus Select Trust) work, then moves into the mechanics: opening the order screen, reading the listing page, and telling REIT-specific data apart from a regular stock quote. Covers how to judge a REIT before buying using distribution yield, NAV premium or discount, occupancy and WALE, walks through how REIT distributions and capital gains are actually taxed in India, and closes with sizing a position, judging liquidity, and the mistakes first-time REIT investors on these platforms tend to make. Written for retail investors exploring alternatives to direct equity and mutual funds, HNIs diversifying beyond stocks, and anyone curious about real estate exposure without the down payment.
Using LetsVenture for Angel Investment Deals in India
Angel investing in unlisted startups has moved from founder networks onto platforms like LetsVenture, but the mechanics, the paperwork and the risk are very different from buying a stock on NSE or BSE. This course walks through how LetsVenture actually works: the AIF and syndicate structures your money moves through, the regulatory rules SEBI places on angel funds, how to read a pitch deck and cap table, what due diligence the platform gives you versus what you have to do yourself, and what really happens after you wire the money, including the long odds of any single startup returning your capital.
- How LetsVenture's AIF and syndicate structures actually move your money into a startup
- The SEBI angel fund rules that govern who can invest and how much
- How to read a startup pitch deck, cap table and term sheet before committing capital
Using MagicBricks and 99acres for Real Estate Market Research
Real estate is one of the largest asset classes for Indian households, but most retail investors and HNIs have no repeatable process for researching it the way they do stocks or mutual funds. This course teaches you to use MagicBricks and 99acres, India's two largest property portals, to read locality price trends, verify listings, and build a shortlist before you ever contact a broker.
- Where real estate fits alongside equities and mutual funds when you're diversifying
- How to navigate MagicBricks and 99acres and know which platform to use for what
- How to read locality price trends, rental yields, and appreciation data on both platforms
Using MetaTrader for Forex Trading Basics
A practical, India-specific walkthrough of the MetaTrader platform (MT4 and MT5): what it actually is, how retail forex trading works through it, and exactly where the legal line sits for Indian residents under FEMA and RBI rules. Learn to install and configure the platform, read its charts and Market Watch window, place and manage market, limit and stop orders, and use stop-loss and take-profit levels to control risk, all practiced on a demo account before any real money is at stake. Builds directly on the legal and market-structure grounding from Introduction to Forex Trading, focused entirely on the mechanics of the tool itself. Built for retail investors exploring alternatives, HNIs diversifying beyond listed equity, and first-timers curious about how a live trading platform actually works.
Using RERA's Website to Verify Real Estate Projects
Every real estate project sold in India is supposed to be registered with its state's RERA authority, and that registration page holds more useful information than any broker's brochure: the promoter's track record, the actual land title, approved layout plans, the promised completion date, and any extensions or complaints filed against the project. This course walks you through finding a project on your state's RERA portal, reading what each section of its filing actually means, and spotting the red flags that separate a legitimate project from one you should walk away from.
- Understand what RERA registration actually guarantees, and what it doesn't
- Find and search for any project on your state's RERA portal
- Read a project's promoter details, land title status and approved plans
Using Smallcase for Alternative Asset Thematic Portfolios
Smallcase lets you invest in ready-made, professionally curated baskets of stocks and ETFs through your existing broker, without opening a new account. This course walks you through how smallcase actually works, the alternative asset themes available on the platform such as gold, REITs, InvITs and global equity, and how to evaluate a thematic smallcase before putting money into it.
- What a smallcase is and how it differs from a mutual fund or a stock
- How to invest in and exit a smallcase through your existing broker
- The alternative asset themes available on smallcase, including gold, REITs, InvITs and global equity
Tax & Wealth Planning
72 courses
Advanced Charitable Giving and Tax Efficient Philanthropy Structures
A practitioner-level course on how serious philanthropy actually gets structured in India: which deductions survive scrutiny, when a private foundation makes sense over ad hoc giving, and how CSR, trust law and cross-border rules interact for HNIs, business owners and family offices.
- How to claim Section 80G deductions correctly and avoid the documentation gaps that trigger scrutiny
- How CSR obligations under Section 135 interact with a business owner's personal giving and 80G claims
- When anonymous donations lose their tax shelter under Section 115BBC
Advanced Estate Planning: Cross Border Inheritance Considerations
An advanced course for high net worth individuals, business owners with complex income and family offices whose wealth, heirs or assets now span more than one country. Start with why residency, domicile and citizenship each pull in a different direction under Indian and foreign law, and what the RNOR window actually lets a returning NRI do. Work through how Indian succession law behaves when an estate crosses a border: intestate succession under personal law, will validity and probate recognition abroad, and the specific collision between forced heirship regimes overseas and testamentary freedom under Indian law. Finish with the structuring layer, trusts, power of attorney, nomination and family office governance, and what each vehicle actually achieves once more than one jurisdiction is involved. Country-specific corridors and treaty detail build on this foundation in later chapters.
- Tell residency, domicile and citizenship apart and know which one governs which decision
- Use RNOR status correctly in a cross-border wealth transfer plan
- Map a family's assets, heirs and jurisdictions before a succession event forces the issue
Advanced GST Planning for Business Owners
An advanced, India-specific GST course for owners and promoters who already file returns and now want to manage GST as a lever on margin, working capital and risk. Starting from the post-September 2025 GST 2.0 rate structure, you will work through place and time of supply, turnover thresholds, and the conditions and blocks that decide whether input tax credit is real money or a write-off. Learn to protect credit with GSTR-2B and the Invoice Management System, recover cash stuck in inverted duty structures, choose between one GSTIN and many, handle mandatory Input Service Distributor rules and value related-party supplies correctly. Then apply it to pricing and contracts, discounts and credit notes, reverse charge, exports under LUT, business transfers, bundled supplies and e-commerce TCS. Finish by building a monthly GST close, preparing for GSTR-9 and 9C, reading notices under Sections 73, 74 and 74A, calculating real exposure, and deciding when an appeal to the GST Appellate Tribunal is worth the pre-deposit.
- Map every invoice to the correct supply type, place of supply, time of supply and post-2025 rate
- Test each input tax credit against Section 16 conditions and the Section 17(5) blocked list
- Use GSTR-2B, IMS and vendor controls to stop losing credit you have already paid for
Advanced NRI Taxation: Residential Status and Global Income Rules
An advanced, India-specific course for NRIs, returning Indians, globally mobile professionals, business owners and family offices who need to get residential status right before anything else. Work through the 182-day and 60/365-day tests, the exceptions for Indians leaving for employment and visiting PIOs, the ₹15 lakh Indian-income trigger and deemed residency. Use the RNOR window deliberately when you return. Count days correctly, build year-of-departure and year-of-return timelines, and assemble the evidence the tax department asks for. Then map exactly what India can tax: income received or accruing in India, deemed accrual, NRE, NRO and FCNR interest, rent, salary and business connection, plus global income and Schedule FA once you turn resident. Finish with capital gains and TDS for NRIs: Section 195 withholding, equity and mutual fund rates after July 2024, selling Indian property, lower-deduction certificates, repatriation, refunds and the NRI return. Section references follow the Income-tax Act, 2025, with the 1961 Act equivalent shown where it helps.
- Determine residential status for any tax year using the day-count tests, exceptions and deemed residency rules
- Plan the year of departure and the year of return to use the RNOR window deliberately
- Count days of stay correctly and assemble the documents that prove your status
Advanced Tax Planning for High Net Worth Individuals
An advanced, India-specific course for high net worth individuals, business owners and family offices who have outgrown basic tax saving. Work out your real effective rate once surcharge and marginal relief kick in, and decide between the old and new regimes at high incomes. Plan capital gains at scale after the 2024 reset, harvest losses properly and use Sections 54, 54F and 54EC within their caps. Compare how direct equity, PMS, mutual funds, AIFs, debt instruments, REITs, InvITs, GIFT City funds and high-premium ULIPs are taxed. Structure how a business owner draws money out of a company or LLP, and use HUFs, gifts and private trusts without falling foul of the clubbing rules. Understand succession, inherited cost basis and family offices, then handle residency, LRS, TCS and foreign asset disclosure. Finish with GAAR, the scrutiny triggers for HNI returns, and a full-year tax plan for a ₹5 crore family.
- Calculate your true effective tax rate including surcharge, cess and marginal relief
- Plan large capital gains using harvesting, set-off and reinvestment exemptions
- Choose between direct equity, PMS, mutual funds, AIFs and other wrappers on a post-tax basis
Case Study: A Benami Transaction Case and Its Regulatory Fallout
An advanced case study that walks through a benami matter from the first quiet name-lending decision to the final bill. A composite Indian business family spent fifteen years parking assets in other people's names: a flat registered to the company driver, farmland in a farm manager's name, listed shares in a relative's demat account and cash routed through friends. You see how the tax department's data trail surfaced it, how the paper owner received the first notice, and how the Initiating Officer moved to show cause and provisional attachment. You then follow the defence before the Adjudicating Authority asset by asset, the appeal route, and the retrospectivity question the Supreme Court reopened in the Ganpati Dealcom litigation. The fallout spreads beyond the benami law into an income tax reassessment, money-laundering exposure, broker and SEBI consequences, and the banking and reputational costs nobody budgets for. The case closes by totting up the full cost, looking at the exposure of the people who lent their names, pricing what a clean structure would have cost, and distilling a clean-up playbook for families and their advisors. The family and its numbers are an illustrative composite; the laws, procedures and court rulings are real.
- Trace how a family's informal name-lending habits turn into benami arrangements under the 2016 law
- Explain how the tax department's data trail (AIS, SFT reporting, property registration and demat records) surfaces benami holdings
- Follow the full enforcement sequence from show cause notice and provisional attachment to adjudication, confiscation and appeal
Case Study: A First Time Filer's ITR Mistakes and Corrections
Follow a first-time salaried taxpayer through their first ITR filing season in India, from a Form 16 they barely understood to a return that needed correcting after the fact. Each chapter walks through a real category of first-timer mistake, why it happened, and the exact fix, so you can spot and avoid the same errors in your own filing.
- How to read a Form 16 and know what each part means for your return
- How to pick the correct ITR form for a salaried income profile
- Why Form 26AS and AIS matter and how to reconcile them before filing
Case Study: A Freelancer's Journey Through Presumptive Taxation
Follow Rohan, a fictional Pune-based software developer, from the year he quits his salaried job to the year his freelance practice outgrows presumptive taxation. Year by year you watch him handle a transition year with both salary and fees, decide whether the professionals' scheme (old Section 44ADA, now Section 58 of the Income-tax Act, 2025) beats actual expenses, scramble to pay his single advance tax instalment by 15 March, get paid by foreign clients and register for GST, file ITR-4, and then hit the limits: cash receipts, the ₹75 lakh ceiling, books of account, a tax audit and the question of an LLP or company. Every decision is worked through with real numbers and every mistake is costed. Built for freelancers, consultants and anyone with income from several sources. Educational content only, not tax advice; confirm figures for your own tax year with a chartered accountant.
- Handle the transition year when salary and freelance fees land in the same return
- Check whether a freelance profession qualifies for the professionals' presumptive scheme
- Compare 50 percent deemed income against actual expenses and pick the cheaper route with numbers
Case Study: A Small Business Owner's First Year Under GST
Follow a small hand block-print textile business in Jaipur through its first full year under GST, from the moment marketplace sales and out-of-state orders made registration unavoidable to the year-end reconciliation and annual return. Each chapter is one stretch of that year: the registration call, repricing and invoicing, chasing input tax credit, a missed deadline and a mismatch notice, and closing the books. You see the real numbers behind every decision, so you can run the same year for your own business with fewer surprises.
- How to tell when GST registration stops being optional for a small seller, including marketplace and interstate triggers
- How to run the composition vs regular scheme decision on your own turnover and margins
- How to reprice a catalogue and raise correct intrastate, interstate and B2C invoices
Case Study: An ESOP Exit's Tax Planning During a Startup Acquisition
An acquisition is usually the single largest tax event in an ESOP holder's life, and most of the planning has to happen in the weeks before closing, not at return-filing time. This case study follows Vistarlok Technologies, an illustrative Pune B2B SaaS startup built from real Indian deal practice, as it is bought by a listed Indian acquirer for a mix of cash, acquirer shares, an escrow holdback and an earn-out. You meet four employees whose ESOP positions could not be more different: an early engineer holding exercised shares for years, a manager with vested but unexercised options, a recent joiner whose unvested options are rolled into the acquirer's plan, and a senior executive who used the eligible startup tax deferral. You read the deal documents through a tax lens, decide whether to exercise before closing or take a cash-out, time the sale around the 24-month long-term line, fund advance tax on consideration that has not all arrived, and tax each leg of the price, including acquirer shares and contingent payments. The course closes with surcharge and marginal relief on a crore-plus payout, reinvestment and loss set-off, gifting to family, a side-by-side scorecard of the four after-tax outcomes, and a pre-signing checklist. Built for HNIs with large ESOP holdings, founders and business owners with complex income, and family offices managing startup wealth. Educational content only, not tax advice.
- Read an acquisition term sheet and map every component of the price, and every option treatment, to the tax it triggers
- Decide between exercising options before closing and accepting a cash-out, with the after-tax numbers to back the choice
- Work out when tax deferred under the eligible startup rules falls due on an exit, and plan the cash to pay it
Case Study: An NRI's Tax Planning Using DTAA Between India and the US
An NRI working in the US still earns in India: FD interest, dividends, rent, capital gains. Both countries want a share, and the India-US treaty decides who gets what. This case study follows one engineer in Seattle through a full year, income stream by income stream, from Indian TDS to the US foreign tax credit, and shows the restructuring that cut her combined tax and compliance risk.
- How to establish residency in both India and the US, and when the treaty tie-breaker applies
- How each Indian income stream (interest, dividends, rent, capital gains) is taxed under the India-US treaty
- How Indian tax paid becomes a credit on the US return, and where credits get lost
Case Study: Comparing Tax Outgo Under Old vs New Regime for a Salaried Individual
A single running case study follows one salaried professional's CTC through both the old and new income tax regimes, line by line, to show exactly where the tax outgo diverges and why. Ends with a decision framework you can apply to your own salary slip.
- How the old and new tax regime slabs and deductions actually differ, not just in headline rates
- How to compute tax payable under both regimes for a real salary structure
- Which deductions and exemptions swing the decision, and by how much
Case Study: Cross Border Inheritance Planning for an NRI Family
A single running case study follows the Rao family: a Hindu NRI couple in Dubai preparing to return to Bengaluru, a son who is a US citizen with an OCI card, and a daughter who has lived in London for nine years. Their wealth sits in a Bengaluru flat, ancestral farmland in Karnataka, a Zerodha portfolio, Indian mutual funds, NRE and NRO deposits, a Dubai apartment and a US brokerage account. First stress-test what happens if the head of the family dies today with no plan, asset by asset and country by country. Then map the tax exposure in India and in each heir's home country, including TDS on NRI property sales, the USD 1 million repatriation route and foreign estate tax traps. Finish by building the plan: mirror wills, aligned nominations, a private trust decision and the timing of the return to India, ending with a reusable checklist for any NRI family.
- Build a complete family file: residential status, citizenship and domicile for every member, and the legal location of every asset
- Trace exactly what happens to each asset class when an NRI dies without a plan, and which law governs each one
- Apply FEMA rules on what NRI and OCI heirs can inherit, hold and repatriate, including agricultural land
Case Study: How a Business Family Structured a Multi Generational Trust
Most Indian business families know they need a succession plan. Far fewer know what it actually takes to build one that survives the founder, a family quarrel and the arrival of a third generation. This case study follows an illustrative, composite promoter family, the Kulkarni family of Pune, whose patriarch controls a listed engineering company, a family holding company, commercial property and a large investment portfolio. You see what triggered the plan, which vehicles the family rejected and why, how the private discretionary trust was designed to last across generations, which deed clauses mattered, how promoter shares and property were moved in under SEBI's takeover rules, stamp duty and tax, how the trust is taxed and runs its distributions year by year, and how the structure held up when the founder died, siblings disagreed and grandchildren came of age. Built for HNIs, business owners and family office advisers who want to see a trust work end to end before building one of their own.
- How a business family maps its assets, people and fault lines before choosing a succession vehicle
- Why the family chose a private discretionary trust over a will, an HUF or a holding company alone, and what each alternative would have cost them
- How a trust is designed to last across generations, within the limits Indian property law puts on gifts to unborn beneficiaries
Case Study: How a Family Used a Trust to Structure Inheritance
An illustrative case study of an Indian family with a small business, a listed portfolio, property and three very different heirs, and how they designed, funded, taxed and ran a private trust to pass on their wealth cleanly.
- How to diagnose what goes wrong when a family with mixed assets has no succession plan
- Why this family chose a private trust over a will alone, nominations or outright gifts
- How the trust was designed, drafted and funded, including gift tax, capital gains and stamp duty checks
Case Study: How a Salaried Professional Structured CTC to Save Tax
Most salaried employees leave money on the table simply because their CTC is structured badly. This case study follows one professional's payslip from a generic, tax-inefficient package to a restructured one, showing exactly which components to negotiate, which exemptions to claim, and which regime to pick.
- How a CTC breaks down into basic, allowances, and employer contributions
- How to compare the old and new tax regimes for your own numbers
- Which salary components are worth negotiating for tax efficiency
Case Study: Structuring Charitable Giving Through a Family Foundation
A single running case study follows the Kapadia family: a Pune promoter family whose listed auto-components company also carries a CSR obligation, and who want to move from scattered cheque donations to one organised family foundation. Start with the brief and what the family really wants from its giving. Compare direct 80G giving, a registered public charitable trust and a Section 8 company, and watch the family pick one. Then build it: the charter, the registration sequence under Section 12AB, Section 80G and CSR-1, funding with cash and listed shares, and routing company CSR money without breaking the rules. Finish with the compliance engine that keeps the exemption alive, the traps that cost families their registration, a five-year numbers review and a reusable playbook for any family.
- Turn a family's loose wish to give into a written brief with causes, budget, control and legacy goals
- Cost the family's current ad hoc giving and see exactly what a structure would change
- Compare direct 80G giving, a public charitable trust and a Section 8 company on tax, control, cost and permanence
Case Study: Tax Loss Harvesting During a Volatile Market Year
A case study for investors with more than one income source, freelancers and small business owners, and anyone building long-term wealth. You follow an illustrative freelancer with a Zerodha portfolio of NSE-listed stocks and mutual funds through FY 2024-25: a year in which the Nifty 50 swung from the election-day crash to a record high in September and then into a long sell-off led by midcaps and smallcaps, while the 23 July 2024 Budget changed capital gains rates, the LTCG exemption and holding periods partway through the year. You see how the gains booked before and after Budget day were taxed, why booking gains near the peak used the exemption well, how losses were found and harvested in the fall without leaving the market, how the trades were timed around the last trading days of March, what the final computation and real saving looked like after costs, how it was reported in ITR-3 so the losses carried forward, and how the same year would play out under the Income-tax Act, 2025.
- How a volatile year creates both gains worth booking and losses worth harvesting, and how to spot each as the market moves
- How the 23 July 2024 Budget split one year's capital gains into two rate regimes, and how that changed which gains a loss should be set against
- How to book long-term gains inside the annual exemption near a market peak, and why that resets your cost base usefully
Case Study: Understanding a Real Form 16 Line by Line
You already know what Form 16 is. This case study puts that knowledge to work on one real, fully filled-out Form 16 belonging to Rohan, a Bengaluru software engineer, and reads it field by field the way a careful taxpayer should. Verify the employer and TAN details in Part A, work through the quarterly TDS table, and trace Part B's gross salary breakup down to the exemptions and Chapter VI-A deductions actually claimed on this form. Cross-check every number against Form 26AS and AIS, catch a real error planted in this document before it becomes a tax notice, and follow the final figures through to a filed ITR. Built for salaried professionals and first-time taxpayers who want to read their own Form 16 with the same confidence by the end.
- Verify employer, TAN and PAN details in Part A before trusting the rest of the form
- Read the quarterly TDS summary table and confirm it adds up correctly
- Trace a real gross salary breakup through to the exemptions and deductions claimed in Part B
Introduction to Advance Tax and Who Needs to Pay It
A plain-language, India-specific guide to advance tax for salaried professionals, first-time taxpayers and anyone starting their financial planning. Understand why the government collects tax during the year, how advance tax fits alongside TDS and self-assessment tax, and what the Income-tax Act, 2025 and the new tax year mean for you. Learn the 10,000 rupee threshold, why a salaried employee with capital gains, rent, FD interest or freelance income can still owe advance tax, and how investors, F&O traders, freelancers on presumptive taxation and senior citizens are treated. Estimate your liability, follow the 15%, 45%, 75% and 100% instalment schedule, pay online through the e-filing portal and check it in AIS and Form 26AS. Finish by working out the interest for missed or short instalments, avoiding the most common mistakes, and following a case study of one Indian professional planning a full year of advance tax.
- Explain what advance tax is and how it differs from TDS and self-assessment tax
- Decide whether advance tax applies to you using the 10,000 rupee threshold
- Identify the income that makes salaried employees, investors and freelancers liable
Introduction to Capital Gains Tax on Different Asset Classes
A practical, India-specific guide to how capital gains are taxed across every asset class an ordinary investor is likely to own, built for salaried professionals, first-time taxpayers and anyone starting their financial planning. Understand what a capital asset is, how holding periods decide whether a gain is short-term or long-term and how to compute a gain from sale value, cost and expenses under the Income-tax Act, 2025. Work through listed shares, equity mutual funds, ETFs and SIPs, grandfathering for pre-2018 holdings and the tax effect of bonuses, splits and buybacks. Learn how debt funds, bonds and every form of gold are taxed, then move on to property, unlisted shares and ESOPs, US stocks and crypto. Cut your tax legally with loss set-off, tax-loss harvesting, reinvestment exemptions and the basic exemption limit, then report it all correctly in your ITR using your broker P&L and CAS. Finish with the mistakes that trigger notices and a case study of one salaried investor's gains across five asset classes.
- Identify capital assets and classify any gain as short-term or long-term
- Compute capital gains on shares, mutual funds, debt funds, bonds and gold
- Apply grandfathering and handle bonus shares, splits and buybacks
Introduction to Estate Planning: Wills and Nominations
A practical, India-specific guide to passing on your wealth cleanly. Learn what actually happens to bank balances, demat holdings, mutual funds, insurance, EPF, PPF, NPS and property when someone dies with or without a will, and why a nominee is usually not the final owner. Understand intestate succession under the Hindu Succession Act and the rules for Muslims, Christians and Parsis, the difference between self-acquired and ancestral property, and where an HUF fits. Set up nominations correctly across every account, draft a legally valid will clause by clause, and avoid the mistakes that send Indian families to court. Finish with probate, succession certificates, transmission of shares and funds, the tax position of heirs, special cases for minors, business owners and blended families, when a private trust makes sense, and a full case study of one family's estate plan.
- Explain what happens to each type of asset when a person dies with or without a will
- Distinguish a nominee from a legal heir and know when each one ends up owning the asset
- Apply intestate succession rules for Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Parsis
Introduction to Filing Income Tax Returns (ITR) in India
A practical, step-by-step guide to filing your own Income Tax Return in India, built for salaried professionals, first-time taxpayers and anyone starting their financial planning journey. Learn what an ITR is, who must file and why filing pays off even when it is not mandatory. Get your PAN, Aadhaar and income tax portal account in order, read Form 16, Form 26AS and AIS with confidence, and understand the five heads of income, the old vs new tax regime choice and the deductions that actually reduce your tax. Pick the right form from ITR-1 to ITR-4, file and e-verify your return on the income tax portal, then track your refund, handle intimations and notices, and fix mistakes through revised, belated and updated returns. Real Indian numbers, forms and workflows throughout.
Introduction to GST Basics for Freelancers and Small Business Owners
GST touches almost every freelancer and small business owner in India the moment their income crosses a threshold, yet most learn it the hard way, through a notice or a rejected input tax credit claim. This course builds GST from the ground up: what it actually is, when you must register, how to invoice correctly, how to claim back tax you have paid, whether the composition scheme suits you, and how to file GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B without missing a deadline. Every example uses Indian context, real thresholds, and real portal steps.
- What GST is, how CGST, SGST and IGST split between the Centre and states, and whether you are liable to pay it
- Whether you need to register for GST, at what turnover, and when voluntary registration works in your favour
- How to find the correct HSN or SAC code and GST rate for what you sell
Introduction to NRI Taxation Basics
A practical walkthrough of how Indian tax law treats non-resident Indians: how residential status is actually determined, what income gets taxed here versus abroad, how NRE, NRO and FCNR accounts differ in tax treatment, and how TDS and DTAA work on capital gains.
- How to determine your residential status under the Income Tax Act, including the day-count tests
- Why residential status can change from year to year and what that means for your return
- Which income is taxable in India for an NRI versus what stays out of scope
Introduction to Trusts as a Wealth Planning Tool
A practical, India-specific introduction to trusts: what they are, when they beat a will or direct ownership, how to set one up under the Indian Trusts Act, and how trust income is actually taxed.
- When a trust is the right tool versus a will, HUF, or direct gifting
- The core roles in a trust and how private and public trusts differ
- How to set up a trust under the Indian Trusts Act, 1882
Masterclass Case Study: A Family Office's Cross Border Tax Residency Planning Journey
A long-form case study for family office principals, senior HNIs and wealth professionals who serve UHNW families. You follow a composite, fictional Indian business family, built from patterns common among real promoter families, over eight years of cross-border residency planning. It starts in 2018 with an auto-components promoter in Chennai, a son eyeing Dubai and a daughter heading to Singapore. Along the way the rules move under the family's feet: the Finance Act 2020 residency amendments, COVID-era stranded days, the 2023 LRS tax collected at source changes, UAE corporate tax, the abolition of the UK non-dom regime and, from 1 April 2026, the Income-tax Act, 2025. You see how the family office proved treaty residence, built substance abroad, kept its holding company's management in India, handled foreign tax credit and disclosure, moved wealth to non-resident heirs and re-papered everything for the new Act. Each chapter ends with what the family got right, what it got wrong and what it cost. All family figures are illustrative; the rules and regulatory events are real and stated as at the date of last review.
- Trace how one family's residential status changed year by year as members moved and the law changed
- See how the Finance Act 2020 deemed residency and 120-day rules forced a live plan to be rewritten
- Understand what it actually took to prove UAE treaty residence and Singapore substance in practice
Masterclass Case Study: How a Leading Indian Business Family Structured Global Succession
A masterclass case study for senior HNIs, family office principals and UHNW wealth advisers. We follow the Vardhan family, a composite built from patterns common to Indian promoter groups: a third-generation patriarch, a listed manufacturing flagship on NSE and BSE, unlisted group companies, overseas subsidiaries in Singapore, the UAE and the UK, and heirs who now live in Mumbai, London, New York and Dubai. A health scare forces the question every such family postpones. We first stress-test what breaks if nothing is done: intestate succession across several countries, promoter shares stuck in transmission, Takeover Code and SEBI disclosure triggers, and the foreign tax exposure of heirs abroad, read against public Indian family disputes. We then build the answer in the order the family did: a family constitution first, then the Indian holding architecture (inter se transfers, a private family trust at the apex, a family investment company), then the global layer (ODI under the 2022 Overseas Investment Rules, the choice between Singapore, Dubai and GIFT City, UK and US rules for non-resident heirs, and Indian reporting of foreign assets). The course closes with a three-year execution timeline, liquidity for the branch that leaves the business, market communication, a comparison with the Godrej realignment of 2024, and a capstone where you design global succession for your own family group. Educational content only, not legal, tax or investment advice.
- Map a promoter group's listed, unlisted, overseas and personal assets to the law and tax regime that governs each one
- Stress-test a business family's position if the patriarch dies without a plan, across Indian and foreign jurisdictions
- Sequence a succession correctly: family constitution first, holding structure second, transfers third
Masterclass: Building a Multi Generational Succession and Governance Framework
A masterclass for senior HNI individuals, family office principals and UHNW wealth advisers who need to move a family's wealth, business and values across generations without litigation, tax leakage or a split. You will learn why most Indian family fortunes fail by the third generation, how Indian succession law actually transfers ownership (wills, nominations, the Hindu Succession Act, HUF), how to use private family trusts, holding companies and LLPs to consolidate control, and how to write a family constitution, run a family council and draft shareholder agreements that survive a dispute. The course closes with operating business succession, family office design for the next generation, liquidity and insurance planning, cross border heirs under FEMA, and a twelve month implementation roadmap, anchored throughout in real Indian cases including Reliance, Bajaj, Murugappa, Godrej, TVS and Raymond.
- Diagnose why wealth fails across generations and map your own family's ownership, management and stakeholder fault lines
- Know exactly what transfers ownership in India: wills, nominations, joint holdings, intestate rules under the Hindu Succession Act and the Indian Succession Act
- Use HUFs, private family trusts, holding companies and LLPs to consolidate control and decide who benefits, when and how
Masterclass: How Ultra High Net Worth Families Structure Global Wealth
A structural, not a product, view of how ultra high net worth Indian families hold wealth across the operating business, listed promoter stakes, liquid portfolios, real assets and offshore holdings. You will learn why these families separate ownership, control and benefit, how HUFs, private family trusts, holding companies and family constitutions fit together, and what FEMA, LRS, ODI, residential status rules and GIFT City allow when wealth crosses the border. The course covers Singapore, Dubai and Jersey structures, the anti-avoidance net of GAAR, POEM, the Black Money Act and CRS, cross-border succession and estate tax exposure, residency migration, liquidity events, and the operating model of a modern family office. Built for senior HNI individuals, family office principals and wealth professionals serving UHNW clients. Educational content only, not legal, tax or investment advice.
- Map a global family balance sheet and separate ownership, control and benefit across every asset
- Choose between HUF, private family trust, holding company and LLP for each layer of Indian wealth
- Apply FEMA, LRS, ODI and residential status rules before moving any capital abroad
Masterclass: Lessons From India's Leading Family Offices on Tax and Estate Structuring
A masterclass for senior HNIs, family office principals, and the advisers who serve them. It studies how India's leading family offices actually structure wealth: which holding vehicle owns what, why a private family trust sits at the centre of most modern structures, how the Hindu Undivided Family still earns its place, and how a family investment company, an LLP, or an AIF feeder is chosen for a given asset. It then works through the tax mechanics that drive those choices, from capital gains and dividend tax across vehicles to gift tax under Section 56, clubbing, GAAR, and the LRS and RBI rules that govern offshore holdings. The estate half covers wills, nominations, trusts, and succession in a country with no estate duty today but a live debate about one tomorrow, including cross-border heirs and NRI beneficiaries. Every chapter closes with the practical decisions a smaller family can copy, and the ones it should not.
- Map the holding structure of a modern Indian family office: trust, holding company, LLP, HUF, and individual accounts, and what each layer is for
- Compute the after-tax return of the same investment held through an individual, an HUF, a company, and a trust, and see why vehicle choice matters
- Apply Section 56 gift tax, clubbing under Section 64, and the relative exemption correctly before moving assets between family members
Masterclass: Navigating International Tax Residency for Globally Mobile Families
A masterclass for Indian families whose members, businesses and assets sit in more than one country. Start with the Section 6 day-count tests, deemed residency, RNOR status and the FEMA definition that runs on a different clock from the Income Tax Act. Then fix the scope of what India taxes once status is settled: NRI rent and capital gains, TDS under Section 195, foreign salary and ESOPs for returning residents, and foreign tax credit through Form 67. Learn to read a tax treaty article by article, apply the Article 4 tie-breaker, and assemble the TRC and Form 10F paperwork without which no treaty relief exists. Cover Schedule FA, the Black Money Act, CRS and FATCA data flows, LRS limits and the NRE, NRO and FCNR banking layer. Finish with country playbooks for the UAE, Singapore, the UK and the US, cross-border trusts and gifts, estate tax exposure, the returning NRI window and a 12-month family residency calendar that turns all of it into a repeatable system.
- Determine every family member's Indian tax residency for a year using the day-count, deemed residency and RNOR rules, and see where FEMA gives a different answer
- Work out which income India taxes for a resident, an RNOR and a non-resident, and apply the correct TDS, rate and foreign tax credit treatment
- Read a DTAA, run the Article 4 tie-breaker for a dual resident and assemble the TRC and Form 10F file that makes the treaty usable
Old Tax Regime vs New Tax Regime: Which One to Choose
A practical, India-specific guide to choosing between the old and new income tax regimes, built for salaried professionals, first-time taxpayers and anyone starting their financial planning. Understand why India runs two regimes side by side, how the new regime became the default, and what the slabs, standard deduction and rebate look like under each. Learn exactly which deductions and exemptions you give up in the new regime, from Section 80C, 80D and NPS to HRA and home loan interest, and which benefits survive in both. Compare your tax step by step, work out the breakeven level of deductions where the old regime starts to win, and follow worked examples across salary levels. Finish by learning how to declare your choice to your employer, the switching rules for salaried and business income, how to pick your regime while filing your return, and a case study of three Indian taxpayers who make three different choices.
- Explain how the old and new tax regimes differ in slabs, rebate and deductions
- Identify which deductions and exemptions you lose by choosing the new regime
- Calculate your tax under both regimes and compare them side by side
Practice Drills: Advising on a Simulated Family Office Tax Residency Case
A simulation course for advisers, family office principals and senior HNIs who already know the residency rules and now want to apply them to a messy, real-world file. You are handed the case of a fictional Indian business family spread across Bengaluru, Dubai, Singapore and London: a patriarch who still runs the operating company, a son relocating to the UAE, a daughter on a Singapore employment pass, a grandchild studying in the UK and a family investment company plus private trust sitting above them all. Working as the family office's tax adviser, you build the day-count ledger, fix each member's residential status under Indian law and FEMA, run treaty tie-breakers, test the plan against the principal purpose test and GAAR, map every income stream to its taxing country, compute foreign tax credit, complete foreign asset disclosures, re-paper bank accounts, check gifts and trust distributions to non-resident beneficiaries and test where the holding company is effectively managed. You finish by writing the residency advice memo and running a full case on a new family. All family figures are illustrative; the rules are real and stated as at the date of last review, under the Income-tax Act, 2025.
- Build a day-count ledger and fix residential status, including deemed residency and RNOR, for every family member
- Separate FEMA residential status from income-tax status and see where the two clocks diverge
- Run the treaty tie-breaker for a UAE relocation and assemble the paperwork a treaty claim needs
Practice Drills: Applying DTAA Benefits to a Sample NRI Tax Case
A hands-on drill course built around a single sample case: a US-resident NRI with interest on NRO deposits, dividends from NSE-listed shares, capital gains on equity and mutual funds, and rent from a flat in Pune. You confirm residential status and treaty eligibility first, then apply the India-US DTAA to each income stream, compare the treaty rate with the Indian domestic rate, sort out the TRC and Form 10F paperwork, recover excess TDS through the ITR, and finish with a complete start-to-finish tax computation for the year.
- Confirm residential status and treaty eligibility before applying any DTAA rate
- Compare the treaty rate with the domestic rate for interest, dividends, capital gains and rent, and pick the lower one correctly
- Spot which income streams the treaty does not help with, so you do not claim relief that is not there
Practice Drills: Building an LRS Compliant Overseas Investment Plan
A drill course for HNIs, business owners and family office teams who understand the LRS and its tax rules but have never built a full overseas investment plan end to end. You work on one sample family throughout: setting the plan template, mapping and classifying every remittance, sizing and sequencing transfers across members and years, modelling TCS cash flow, choosing between routes on cost, stress-testing estate and withholding exposure, and projecting tax, foreign tax credit and Schedule FA reporting. You finish by auditing a deliberately flawed plan and writing the family's one-page LRS investment policy and compliance calendar. Educational content only, not investment or tax advice.
- Turn a family's overseas allocation goal into a written, checkable LRS investment plan
- Map every proposed remittance to its limit, purpose code and permitted route before money moves
- Classify proposed holdings as OPI or ODI and spot the ones that need a different structure
Practice Drills: Calculating Tax Liability Under Both Regimes
A hands-on practice course for salaried taxpayers who already know that India has two tax regimes and want to get fast and accurate at computing their actual liability under each one. Every lesson works through real salary scenarios, building from a single straightforward payslip to full side-by-side comparisons that account for deductions, exemptions, and the Section 87A rebate.
- How to gather the income, exemption, and deduction inputs you need before calculating either regime
- How to compute tax liability step by step under the old regime, including standard deduction, HRA, and Chapter VI-A deductions
- How to compute tax liability step by step under the new regime, including the current slabs and the Section 87A rebate
Practice Drills: Calculating Tax Under Presumptive Taxation Schemes
A practice-first companion to Understanding Presumptive Taxation for Freelancers and Small Businesses. You already know what the presumptive schemes for professionals, small businesses and goods carriage owners are; this course makes you run the numbers. Each drill starts from a realistic Indian taxpayer's receipts, bank statement split and fleet register, checks eligibility first, computes presumptive income at the right rate, then carries it all the way through other income, the old and new regimes, rebate, cess and advance tax to a final payable figure. You will test the turnover and receipts limits at their edges, work the five-year lock-in, handle vehicles bought and sold mid-year, and decide when declaring above the presumptive floor or keeping regular books makes more sense. The course closes with two end-to-end capstones. Built for freelancers, small business owners and anyone filing with income from several sources. Educational content only, not tax advice; confirm figures for your own tax year with a chartered accountant.
- Check eligibility for each presumptive scheme before computing a single rupee of income
- Compute presumptive income for a professional at 50 percent of gross receipts and test the receipts limit and cash condition
- Split a small business's turnover into digital and cash receipts and apply the 6 and 8 percent rates correctly
Practice Drills: Calculating Tax on an ESOP Exercise and Sale Event
A practice-first course for employees with large ESOP and RSU holdings, founders and business owners with complex income, and family office teams who plan around equity liquidity events. You work through a set of sample employees and grants and calculate every rupee of tax yourself. First the exercise event: the perquisite value using listed-share FMV or a merchant banker valuation, slab tax, surcharge and marginal relief, employer TDS, and the deferral available to employees of eligible startups. Then the sale event: cost of acquisition, holding period, short-term versus long-term classification for listed, unlisted and foreign shares, and the effect of sell-to-cover and same-day sales. You then handle the special cases that trip up high earners: RSUs from a US parent with exchange-rate conversion and foreign tax credit, selling foreign shares and reporting them, and company buybacks or liquidity programmes. The course closes with three full drills that run a grant from exercise to exit and reconcile the result against Form 16, AIS and the return. Educational content only, not tax advice.
- Compute the taxable perquisite on an ESOP exercise for a listed company and an unlisted startup, using the correct FMV rule for each
- Calculate slab tax, surcharge, marginal relief, cess and employer TDS on a large perquisite year
- Work out when deferred perquisite tax at an eligible startup falls due, and what triggers it early
Practice Drills: Comparing ELSS, PPF, and NPS for Tax Efficiency
A drills course for taxpayers who already know what ELSS, PPF and NPS are and now want to compare them properly. You work through the tax saved at entry under each regime and slab, the extra NPS deduction and employer contributions, the tax treatment at exit for ELSS redemptions, PPF maturity and the NPS lump sum and annuity, and then build a full post-tax corpus comparison that prices in lock-in, liquidity and a weak equity decade. The course ends with allocation drills for a salaried taxpayer in the top slab, a freelancer with uneven income and a household with several income sources. All taxpayer figures are illustrative; the tax rules are stated as at the date of last review, under the Income-tax Act, 2025. Educational content only, not investment advice.
- Check which deductions each tax regime allows before choosing a product
- Compute the real tax saved by an ELSS, PPF or NPS investment at every slab
- Stack the additional NPS deduction and employer NPS contributions correctly
Practice Drills: Filling Out a Sample ITR Form
A hands-on walkthrough of filing your Income Tax Return in India, from gathering documents to e-verification. Built for salaried professionals and first-time filers who want to file their own ITR-1 correctly and confidently, without hiring a CA.
- Which documents you need before you start filing: Form 16, AIS, 26AS, bank interest certificates
- How to pick the right ITR form for your income type
- How to compare the old and new tax regimes and choose correctly
Practice Drills: Harvesting Tax Losses on a Sample Portfolio
A hands-on drill course for investors with more than one income source, freelancers and small business owners, and anyone building long-term wealth who already knows what tax-loss harvesting is and now wants to do it properly. You take one illustrative investor's portfolio of NSE-listed stocks, equity, debt and international mutual funds, plus a few intraday and futures and options trades, and work through a full year-end harvest: build the lot-level holdings register from a broker tax P&L, mark every lot to market, net the gains already booked, rank harvestable lots by the set-off rules, size the harvest around the annual LTCG exemption, harvest gains as well as losses, handle the asset classes that follow different rules, stay invested without walking into the stripping rules, time the trades around settlement and 31 March, measure the real saving after costs, and report it all so the carried-forward losses survive.
- How to build a lot-level holdings register with FIFO cost, purchase dates and grandfathered cost from a broker tax P&L
- How to split unrealised gains and losses into short-term and long-term buckets and net them against gains already booked this year
- How to rank harvestable lots using the set-off rules, so short-term losses go where they save the most tax
Practice Drills: Reconciling Form 26AS With Form 16
A practical, India-specific drill for salaried professionals and first-time taxpayers on reconciling Form 16 against Form 26AS before filing a return. Learn what each document actually shows, why TDS deducted by your employer can differ from TDS reflected against your PAN, and how to work through a line-by-line reconciliation using real Indian salary slip and Form 26AS examples. Cover downloading Form 26AS, AIS and TIS from the income tax e-filing portal, the most common causes of mismatch such as late TDS deposit, PAN errors and other deductors' entries, what to do when a mismatch turns up, and how to reconcile across multiple Form 16s after a job change.
- Read Form 26AS and Form 16 and know exactly what each one is telling you
- Explain why TDS in your Form 16 can differ from what shows against your PAN in Form 26AS
- Download Form 26AS, AIS and TIS from the income tax e-filing portal
Practice Drills: Structuring a Basic Will and Nomination Plan
A practice-first course for taxpayers with several income sources, freelancers and small business owners, and anyone structuring wealth for the long term. You take four sample Indian households and build their estate plans yourself. First you map every asset, liability and account into a register, then audit the nominations on bank accounts, demat accounts, mutual fund folios, insurance policies, EPF, PPF and NPS, and find where a nominee, a joint holder and a will point to different people. Next you draft the will itself: the distribution schedule, executor and guardian clauses, residuary and contingency clauses, and the execution checklist for witnesses, registration and storage. You then handle the situations that break simple plans: a freelancer's receivables and digital accounts, a business owner's partnership share or private company shares, second marriages, minor children and dependants with special needs. The course closes with three full drills, including fixing a badly drafted sample will. Educational content only, not legal or tax advice.
- Build a complete asset and liability register that an executor could act on without guesswork
- Audit nominations across bank, demat, mutual fund, insurance, EPF, PPF and NPS accounts and record every gap
- Identify conflicts between a nominee, a joint holder and a will, and decide which one controls each asset
Practice Drills: Structuring a Family Trust for Succession
A simulation course for HNIs, business owners and family office advisers who already understand how private trusts work in India and now want to build one. You are handed the file of a fictional Pune promoter family: a founder in his late sixties holding a stake in a listed auto-components company, an unlisted holding company, commercial and residential property, a son running a leveraged side business, a daughter settled in Singapore and two minor grandchildren. Working as the family's succession adviser, you map every asset to its succession risk, choose the right vehicle, assign the trust roles, draft the deed clauses that matter, settle listed promoter shares without triggering an open offer, move unlisted shares and property into the trust, test every transfer for gift tax, capital gains and clubbing, compute trust tax, handle distributions to the non-resident beneficiary, stress-test asset protection against a creditor claim and tie the trust to a family constitution. You finish by writing the structuring memo and running a full case on a new family. All family figures are illustrative; the rules are real and stated as at the date of last review, under the Indian Trusts Act, 1882 and the Income-tax Act, 2025.
- Map every family asset to its succession risk and pick the vehicle that actually solves it
- Choose between specific and discretionary, revocable and irrevocable structures and defend the choice
- Assign settlor, trustee, protector and beneficiary roles without creating control or tax leaks
Practice Drills: Structuring a Multi Jurisdiction Succession Plan
A practice-first masterclass for senior HNIs, family office principals and wealth professionals advising UHNW families whose heirs and assets sit in more than one country. Working from a sample Indian promoter family with a resident founder, children in the UK, UAE and Singapore, a US citizen grandchild, and assets spread across listed Indian shares, Mumbai real estate, a Dubai apartment, a London flat and overseas portfolios, you will map domicile, residence and citizenship for every family member, build an asset register by situs and governing law, and work out which succession law actually decides who inherits each asset. You will then measure US estate and gift tax, UK inheritance tax and Indian tax and FEMA exposure in rupees, test treaty relief, and choose between an Indian private trust, an offshore holding structure, situs wills and lifetime gifts. Every drill ends with a decision you can defend to the family. The course closes with three end-to-end drills and a before-you-sign scorecard. Educational content only, not legal, tax or investment advice.
- Map domicile, tax residence and citizenship for every family member and spot who drags which country's tax net into the plan
- Build a cross-border asset register by situs and governing law, and tell movable from immovable property the way a court will
- Work out which succession law governs each asset under Indian personal law, conflict of laws rules and UAE default rules
Practice Drills: Structuring a Sample Salary for Tax Efficiency
A hands-on companion to Understanding Tax Implications of Salary Structuring. Instead of more theory, you work a single sample CTC of eighteen lakh rupees from raw numbers to a finished, tax-efficient structure: sorting every component into taxable, exempt or flexible, computing the HRA exemption step by step, building the full tax computation under both the old and new regimes, and reshuffling the structure using NPS, flexi-benefits and meal cards to see the take-home difference. Every drill uses real numbers you compute yourself, not a narrated case study, and the final lesson hands you a second CTC to structure on your own.
- Sort a full CTC into taxable, exempt and flexible components
- Calculate HRA exemption for a real salary figure step by step
- Build the tax computation under both the old and new regimes for the same CTC
Practice Drills: Structuring a Tax Efficient Charitable Giving Plan
A practice-first course for high-net-worth individuals, business owners with complex income and family office teams who give seriously and want every rupee of it to work. You work through a set of sample donors and calculate the outcome yourself. First personal giving: the deduction across each donee category, the qualifying limit on adjusted gross total income, the old versus new regime decision, cash limits and matching your claim to the donee's statement. Then business and promoter giving: a company's CSR obligation, how CSR spend sits alongside a promoter family's personal giving, and the tax result of donating shares or property instead of cash. Then your own giving vehicle: when a family trust beats direct giving, and how to test a trust's books against the application and related-party rules that decide whether its exemption survives. The course closes with three full drills that build and review complete giving plans. Educational content only, not tax advice.
- Compute the deduction on a donation for each donee category, with and without the qualifying limit
- Calculate adjusted gross total income and apply the 10 percent qualifying limit correctly
- Decide whether a large giving year changes the old versus new tax regime choice, with the numbers to prove it
Taxation and Regulatory Basics for Indian Investors
A practical, no-jargon guide to how India actually taxes and regulates your investments, built for first-time demat holders, salaried professionals, homemakers and retirees who want to understand their money, not just track it. Covers how capital gains on equity, mutual funds, debt funds, FDs and bonds are taxed, how dividends and TDS work, which ITR form and schedule to use for reporting gains, and the roles SEBI, the exchanges and the depositories play in protecting you. Uses real Indian numbers, forms and workflows throughout: Form 26AS, AIS, Schedule CG, SCORES, and current CBDT and SEBI rules.
- Understand how equity, debt funds and gold get taxed
- Learn to file your income tax return as an investor
- See how SEBI, exchanges and KYC rules protect you
Understanding Benami Transactions and Regulatory Risk
An advanced, India-specific course on the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988, as overhauled in 2016, built for HNIs, business owners and family offices. Understand exactly what makes a transaction benami, the statutory exceptions that protect genuine family holdings, and why paying for an asset from unexplained money is the fault line. Work through the enforcement machinery from provisional attachment to confiscation, the penalties, and the Supreme Court's turn on retrospective application. See how benami risk overlaps with the income tax law on unexplained investments, the Black Money Act, PMLA and SEBI's actions against mule and name-lending demat accounts. Finish with the everyday situations where legitimate families drift into benami exposure, including property in a relative's name, promoter shares parked with associates and cash-funded purchases, and a practical framework for documenting source of funds and cleaning up legacy holdings.
- Identify the elements that make a transaction or arrangement benami under Indian law
- Apply the statutory exceptions for HUF, fiduciary and family holdings to real situations
- Trace the enforcement process from notice and provisional attachment to confiscation and appeal
Understanding Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAA)
For Indian taxpayers with income from more than one country: NRIs, remote workers paid abroad, freelancers billing international clients, and investors holding foreign assets. Walks through India's Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements from first principles, how residential status decides which country taxes you first, how to claim relief under Section 90/90A using the exemption or tax credit method, and what a Tax Residency Certificate and Form 10F actually need to show on your ITR. Uses real treaty mechanics from India's DTAA with the US and UAE, and works through complete examples combining NRI salary income, foreign dividends, and Indian rental income.
- Determine your residential status and whether DTAA even applies to your income
- Claim DTAA relief correctly using Form 10F and a Tax Residency Certificate
- Choose between the exemption method and the tax credit method under Section 90/90A
Understanding Family Trusts and Succession Structuring in India
An advanced, India-specific course on private family trusts and succession structuring, built for HNIs, business owners and family offices. Understand how a private trust works under the Indian Trusts Act, 1882, the roles of settlor, trustee, beneficiary and protector, and how a trust compares with a will, an HUF and a holding company. Learn the choices that decide everything else: revocable or irrevocable, specific or discretionary, living or testamentary. Work through the tax treatment of settling assets into a trust, of income earned inside it, and of distributions to beneficiaries, including the maximum marginal rate trap for discretionary trusts and clubbing on revocable transfers. Cover the practical mechanics of drafting a trust deed, stamp duty and registration, moving listed shares, unlisted shares and property into a trust, and the SEBI and FEMA angles for promoter holdings and NRI beneficiaries. Finish with succession structures for family businesses, family constitutions, asset protection limits, the disputes that break structures, and case studies of how Indian families have planned, or failed to plan, their succession.
- Explain how a private family trust works and the legal roles of settlor, trustee, beneficiary and protector
- Choose between a will, an HUF, a holding company and a trust for a given family goal
- Distinguish revocable from irrevocable and specific from discretionary trusts, and the tax result of each
Understanding Form 16, Form 26AS, and AIS
A plain-language, India-specific guide to the three documents every salaried professional and first-time taxpayer should check before filing an income tax return. Learn how your employer, bank, broker and mutual fund house report your income and tax to the Income Tax Department, and what Form 16, Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement (AIS) each show. Read Part A and Part B of Form 16 line by line, see how the old and new tax regimes appear in it, and handle a job switch or a missing Form 16. Download and read Form 26AS, trace every TDS, TCS and advance tax credit, and fix missing TDS with the deductor. Use AIS and TIS to spot interest, dividends, share and mutual fund sales and high-value transactions, and submit feedback on wrong entries. Finish by reconciling all three documents against your pre-filled ITR, understanding mismatch notices, and following a case study of one Indian professional doing the full reconciliation.
- Explain what Form 16, Form 26AS and AIS are, who issues each and when
- Read Part A and Part B of Form 16 and check your salary, exemptions and deductions
- Download Form 26AS and verify every TDS, TCS and advance tax credit against your records
Understanding Gift Tax Rules in India
A practical walkthrough of Section 56(2)(x) and India's gift tax rules: which gifts are taxable, which relatives and occasions are exempt, how to value and report a gift correctly, and the documentation that keeps you audit-ready.
- Which gifts of money and property are taxable under the Income Tax Act
- The full legal definition of a relative for gift tax purposes
- Which occasions and categories are exempt from gift tax regardless of who gives
Understanding House Rent Allowance (HRA) Tax Exemption
A practical, India-specific guide to the House Rent Allowance exemption, built for salaried professionals, first-time taxpayers and anyone starting their financial planning. Understand what HRA is, why it appears in your salary slip, who can claim the exemption and how it works under the Income-tax Act, 2025. Master the three-limit rule, learn what counts as salary for HRA, how the metro and non-metro percentages apply and how to handle rent changes, city moves and job switches during the year. Work through special situations such as paying rent to your parents, claiming HRA alongside a home loan, shared flats and claiming rent under Section 80GG when your salary has no HRA. Get your rent receipts, rent agreement and landlord PAN in order, declare rent to your employer, claim a missed exemption while filing your ITR and meet your TDS duties on high rent. Finish with the most common HRA mistakes that trigger tax notices and a case study of one Indian professional working out HRA across a mid-year move.
- Explain what HRA is and check whether you are eligible to claim the exemption
- Calculate the exempt portion of HRA using the three-limit rule
- Apply the correct salary definition and metro or non-metro percentage
Understanding Presumptive Taxation for Freelancers and Small Businesses
A practical, India-specific guide to presumptive taxation for freelancers, consultants and small business owners who want to spend less time on bookkeeping and audits. Understand exactly who qualifies under Sections 44AD, 44ADA and 44ADE, how the presumptive income is computed under each, and when the scheme actually saves you tax versus when maintaining regular books works out better. Work through the digital-receipts versus cash-receipts split under 44AD, the 5-year lock-in if you opt out early, and how presumptive income interacts with advance tax and GST registration thresholds. Finish with real Indian scenarios, a consultant, a kirana store owner and the common mistakes that trigger scrutiny.
- Determine whether you qualify for presumptive taxation under Section 44AD, 44ADA or 44ADE
- Compute presumptive income correctly under each section, including the digital-receipts split
- Decide when presumptive taxation saves you money and when regular books work out better
Understanding Section 80C and Common Tax Saving Investments
A practical, India-specific guide to Section 80C and the most common tax saving investments, built for salaried professionals, first-time taxpayers and anyone starting their financial planning. Understand what Section 80C is, who can claim it, why it only works under the old tax regime, and how the Rs 1.5 lakh limit translates into actual tax saved at each slab. Work through every major 80C option, from PPF, EPF, VPF, NSC, tax-saver FDs, Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana and SCSS to ELSS mutual funds, NPS and life insurance, along with expenses like tuition fees and home loan principal that also qualify. Compare lock-ins, returns, risk and tax treatment side by side, look beyond 80C at deductions such as 80CCD(1B) and 80D, and finish by learning how to declare investments to your employer, avoid the classic March rush mistakes, and build an 80C plan through a case study of three Indian taxpayers.
- Explain how Section 80C reduces taxable income and who is eligible to claim it
- Calculate the actual tax saved from 80C investments at your tax slab
- Compare PPF, EPF, ELSS, NPS, NSC, tax-saver FDs and other 80C options
Understanding TDS: Tax Deducted at Source Explained
A plain-language, India-specific guide to Tax Deducted at Source for salaried professionals, first-time taxpayers and anyone starting their financial planning. Understand why TDS exists, how money flows from the deductor to the government and back to you as a tax credit, and what the Income-tax Act, 2025 and the new tax year change. See how your employer calculates TDS on salary every month, how investment declarations and your regime choice affect it, and how to avoid short deduction after a job switch. Learn the TDS rules on FD interest, dividends, EPF withdrawals, rent, freelance fees, property purchases, crypto and online gaming winnings. Use Form 15G and 15H, keep your PAN operative and apply for lower deduction certificates to stop excess TDS legally. Finish by checking credits in Form 26AS and AIS, claiming TDS and refunds in your ITR, fixing deductor errors, telling TDS apart from TCS, and following a case study of one Indian professional tracking TDS across a full tax year.
- Explain what TDS is, who deducts it and how it becomes a credit against your final tax
- Work out how your employer calculates monthly TDS on salary under either regime
- Identify the TDS rates and thresholds on interest, dividends, rent, fees, property and winnings
Understanding Tax Efficient Investment Vehicles: ELSS, PPF, NPS
A focused, India-specific course for taxpayers who already understand Section 80C and want to go deeper into ELSS, PPF and NPS specifically. See how ELSS's three-year lock-in and equity LTCG taxation compare to PPF's guaranteed, government-backed EEE status and NPS's extra Section 80CCD(1B) deduction. Work through fund selection for ELSS, the mechanics and withdrawal rules of PPF, and the Tier I vs Tier II and asset allocation choices inside NPS, then bring all three together into one coherent tax-saving plan suited to your income, liquidity needs and time horizon. Built for taxpayers with multiple income sources, freelancers and small business owners, and anyone structuring long-term wealth.
- Understand how Section 80C ties ELSS, PPF and NPS together as tax-saving options
- Evaluate ELSS funds and understand the three-year lock-in and LTCG taxation on redemption
- Use PPF effectively, including its 15-year tenure, loan and withdrawal rules and EEE tax treatment
Understanding Tax Implications of ESOP Exercises and Startup Exits
An advanced, India-specific guide to the tax consequences of employee equity, built for HNIs with large ESOP holdings, founders and business owners with complex income, and family offices managing startup wealth. Master the two tax events in every ESOP, perquisite tax at exercise and capital gains at sale, and the fair market value, cost and holding period rules that decide how much each one costs you. Learn to time an exercise, fund tax on gains you have not yet received, and use the eligible startup deferral correctly. Work through every major exit route, from buybacks taxed as deemed dividend and secondary sales to investors, to acquisitions with share swaps, earn-outs and escrows, and IPOs followed by a sale on NSE or BSE. Handle foreign parent RSUs, Schedule FA reporting, foreign tax credit and residency changes mid-vesting. Finish with planning for large gains: surcharge caps, loss set-off, reinvesting exit proceeds in a house, gifting shares to family and trusts, and a case study of one ₹5 crore exit with three very different tax outcomes.
- Calculate perquisite tax at exercise and capital gains at sale for listed, unlisted and foreign shares
- Apply fair market value, cost of acquisition and holding period rules without the common errors
- Decide when to exercise and how to fund tax on gains that are still on paper
Understanding Tax Implications of Multiple Income Sources
A practical walkthrough of Indian income tax for people whose income doesn't fit in one box: a salary plus freelance or consulting work, rental income, or gains from equity and mutual funds. Covers the heads of income, what's already taxed at source versus what isn't, presumptive taxation for freelancers, and how to pick the right ITR form when multiple income streams collide.
- How India's heads of income and slab system work together, and why residential status changes the whole calculation
- What's already deducted at source on salary versus what you're responsible for reporting yourself
- How presumptive taxation under Section 44ADA works for freelancers and consultants, and when regular books make more sense
Understanding Tax Implications of Overseas Investments Under LRS
An advanced, India-specific course for HNIs, business owners and family offices who invest abroad under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme and need to get every rupee of tax and every disclosure right. Start with how LRS works, the USD 250,000 annual limit, what the Overseas Investment Rules 2022 permit and how the OPI vs ODI distinction shapes your tax position. Understand TCS on outward remittances, why it is a prepaid tax and not a cost, and how to plan remittances across family members and financial years. Work through the taxation of foreign shares, international funds and ETFs, dividends, interest, RSUs, ESPPs and overseas property, including currency conversion rules. Claim foreign tax credit correctly through DTAAs and Form 67, and avoid withholding and US estate tax traps. Master Schedule FA, FSI, TR and AL, understand Black Money Act exposure and handle residential status changes. Finish with holding structures, succession planning for foreign assets and a full case study of one family's global portfolio from remittance to ITR.
- Use the LRS limit and the Overseas Investment Rules 2022 to invest abroad through the right route
- Plan remittances so TCS is recovered in full and never becomes a permanent cost
- Compute tax on foreign shares, funds, dividends, RSUs, ESPPs and overseas property in INR
Understanding Tax Implications of Salary Structuring
A practical, India-specific guide to how your salary structure decides how much tax you pay, built for salaried professionals, first-time taxpayers and anyone starting their financial planning. Learn why your CTC is not your take-home pay, what basic pay, HRA, special allowance, bonus and employer contributions to PF, NPS and gratuity really mean, and how the new Labour Codes and their 50% wage rule reshape salary structures. Understand which components are fully taxable, partly exempt or fully exempt, work through the HRA exemption calculation, and see how allowances, reimbursements and perquisites like a company car or rent-free housing are taxed under the Income-tax Act, 2025. Discover why structuring matters less in the new tax regime and where it still counts, from employer NPS to the retirement contribution cap. Finish by taking apart a real salary breakup, using flexi benefit plans, negotiating a tax-efficient offer, avoiding common mistakes and following a case study of three salary structures with three different take-home outcomes.
- Break down a CTC into gross salary, deductions and in-hand pay
- Explain how each salary component is taxed under the Income-tax Act, 2025
- Calculate your HRA exemption and the taxable value of common perquisites
Understanding Tax Loss Harvesting Strategies
Learn how to use tax-loss harvesting to reduce your capital gains tax liability under Indian tax law. This course covers how STCG and LTCG are taxed across equity, debt and other assets, the set-off and carry-forward provisions under Sections 70 to 74 of the Income Tax Act, and practical execution using broker reports and screener.in, with real Indian portfolio examples and the common traps, like bonus stripping, to avoid.
- How STCG and LTCG are taxed differently across equity, debt, and other assets in India
- How to use Sections 70 to 74 to set off and carry forward capital losses
- How to identify harvestable losses in your own portfolio before the financial year ends
Understanding Tax on Capital Gains From Equity, Debt, and Real Estate Together
Most investors learn capital gains tax one asset class at a time, and end up with rules that contradict each other in their head. This course puts equity, debt instruments, and real estate side by side, using the same framework of holding period, cost of acquisition, indexation, and set-off throughout, so you can see exactly where the rules diverge and why. Built for anyone with income from more than one asset class who needs to plan a sale, not just understand it in theory.
- How holding period, cost of acquisition, and indexation work as a common framework across equity, debt, and real estate
- Current STCG and LTCG rules for listed equity and equity mutual funds, including the LTCG exemption threshold and grandfathering
- How the 2023 reform changed debt mutual fund taxation, and how bonds and G-Secs are still taxed
Understanding Wealth Tax Equivalent Structures and Compliance Globally
An advanced course for HNIs, business owners with complex income and family offices who hold or plan to hold wealth across borders. India abolished its wealth tax in 2015, but wealth is still taxed here through surcharge, disclosure schedules, deemed rent, gift rules, stamp duty and transaction taxes. Learn how those wealth tax equivalents work, then see how other countries tax wealth directly: annual net wealth taxes in Switzerland, Norway and Spain, narrow asset taxes in France and Italy, the Dutch deemed return model, and estate and inheritance taxes in the US, UK and Japan. Understand exit taxes, the global billionaire minimum tax debate and why wealth taxes succeed or fail. Finish with the compliance an Indian resident with foreign assets cannot skip: Schedule AL, Schedule FA, the Black Money Act, CRS and FATCA reporting, and LRS with TCS.
- Distinguish a tax on wealth from a tax on income and identify where Indian law taxes wealth indirectly
- Explain how India's Wealth Tax Act, 1957 worked, why it was abolished and what replaced it
- Compare annual net wealth taxes, narrow asset taxes, deemed return systems and death taxes across major jurisdictions
Understanding the Indian Income Tax Slab System
A clear, India-specific guide to how the income tax slab system actually works, built for salaried professionals, first-time taxpayers and anyone starting their financial planning. Understand progressive taxation, the tax year, residential status and how gross income becomes taxable income before any slab is applied. Walk through every rate band in the new and old regimes, the higher exemption limits for senior citizens, and the crucial difference between your marginal rate and your effective rate. Learn what sits on top of the slabs: the rebate that makes income up to 12 lakh tax-free under the new regime, marginal relief near the threshold, surcharge for high earners and the 4% health and education cess. See which incomes, like capital gains and lottery winnings, are taxed outside the slabs, then compute tax on a real salary from start to finish, bust the most common slab myths and finish with a case study of four Indian taxpayers.
- Explain how progressive slab taxation works and why only the income inside each band is taxed at that band's rate
- Apply the new and old regime slabs, including the age-based limits for senior citizens
- Distinguish your marginal tax rate from your effective tax rate
Using ClearTax for Tax Filing and Planning
A hands-on, screen-by-screen guide to filing your Income Tax Return and planning your taxes using ClearTax, built for salaried professionals, first-time taxpayers and anyone starting their financial planning journey. This course assumes you already know the basics of ITR filing and focuses entirely on the ClearTax platform itself: setting up your account and picking the right plan, letting ClearTax auto-read your Form 16, reviewing and correcting pre-filled income and deductions, comparing the old and new tax regimes with ClearTax's calculator, importing capital gains from your broker and mutual fund statements, e-verifying your return, and using ClearTax's planning tools for tax-saving investments and advance tax. Real Indian screens, forms and numbers throughout.
Using EPFO's Portal to Track Provident Fund Contributions
A practical, India-specific walkthrough of the EPFO member portal for salaried professionals who want to see exactly where their provident fund money goes. Understand what EPF is, how your Universal Account Number (UAN) ties your job history together, and how the 12% employee and 12% employer contribution actually splits between EPF and EPS. Activate your UAN, log into the EPFO e-Sewa portal, and link Aadhaar, PAN and your bank account for KYC. Download your EPF passbook, read it line by line, understand how interest is credited and why the wage ceiling can make your numbers look smaller than expected, and learn what to do when an employer's contribution is missing or delayed.
- Explain what EPF is and how the employee and employer contributions are split between EPF and EPS
- Activate a UAN and understand why it is the single identifier across every employer
- Log into the EPFO e-Sewa member portal and link Aadhaar, PAN and bank details for KYC
Using Excel to Build a Personal Tax Saving Tracker
A hands-on course for salaried professionals and first-time taxpayers who want a spreadsheet that actually tells them where they stand. You will build a working Excel or Google Sheets tracker from scratch: income and deduction inputs, an old-regime versus new-regime tax calculator, and a dashboard that shows how much more you can invest before the financial year closes.
- How to decide between the old and new tax regimes for your own income
- How to structure an Excel sheet to capture salary, HRA, and other income cleanly
- How to track Section 80C, 80D, and other deductions without missing anything
Using Form 26AS and AIS to Verify Tax Credits
A hands-on guide to Form 26AS, AIS and TIS for salaried professionals and first-time taxpayers who want to confirm their tax credits before they file. Walks through downloading each document from the income tax e-filing and compliance portals, reading every section without confusion, and catching mismatches between what your employer or bank reported and what actually reflects in your account. Built around real Indian workflows: TRACES, the e-filing portal, AIS/TIS categories, and the entries that most often go unclaimed or unmatched.
- What Form 26AS, AIS and TIS each track, and how they differ from one another
- How to download Form 26AS and AIS/TIS from the income tax portals
- How to read every part of Form 26AS without missing a TDS or TCS entry
Using the Income Tax Portal for Filing ITR
A hands-on, practical guide to the Income Tax Department's e-filing portal (incometax.gov.in) for salaried, first-time filers. This course walks through the portal itself, screen by screen, from creating your account to submitting and e-verifying your return, tracking your refund, and downloading your filed ITR later. It focuses on how to operate the portal correctly and confidently, not on tax theory or planning.
- How to register on and log in to the Income Tax e-filing portal
- How to navigate the portal's dashboard, services and document library
- Where to find your pre-filled data (Form 26AS, AIS, TIS) on the portal
Forensic Accounting & Compliance
60 courses
Introduction to Forensic Accounting: What It Is and Why It Matters
The starting point for anyone curious about how financial fraud is found, proven and prevented, no accounting degree needed. Learn what a forensic accountant actually does and how that differs from a statutory audit, then see why the discipline moved to the centre of Indian markets through Satyam, IL&FS, DHFL and the bank fraud cases that followed. Understand the fraud triangle and the three families of occupational fraud, walk through the common ways numbers get manipulated, and get a first look at the forensic toolkit: tracing money and related parties, analytical tests like Benford's Law, evidence and interviews, and how to read a forensic audit report. Finish with a map of who polices fraud in India (SEBI, NFRA, SFIO, ED, RBI), the legal provisions that matter, the career paths and certifications open to you, and a ten-minute red flag check you can run on any listed company. Written for commerce and finance students, compliance career aspirants, and investors who want to spot trouble before it shows up in the share price.
Understanding Common Types of Accounting Fraud
A field guide to how accounting fraud actually works, scheme by scheme. Start by drawing the line between honest error, aggressive accounting and fraud, and learn why every manipulation leaves a trail between profit and cash. Then work through the main families one at a time: fake and premature revenue, round-tripping, capitalised expenses, invented cash, cookie jar reserves, inflated inventory and receivables, hidden debt, related-party siphoning and promoter-level fund diversion, plus the inside jobs of skimming, billing schemes, payroll ghosts and kickbacks. Every scheme is tied to a real Indian case, from Satyam and DHFL to Fortis, Cox and Kings and Manpasand, and to the specific red flags it leaves in an annual report. Finish by matching fraud types to warning signs and diagnosing a scheme from the numbers alone. Written for commerce and finance students, compliance career aspirants, and investors who want to recognise a fraud pattern before the market does.
Understanding Earnings Management vs Outright Fraud
Every reported profit is a set of judgement calls. This course maps the full spectrum, from conservative accounting through legitimate earnings management and aggressive choices to outright fraud, and shows exactly where the line is crossed. Learn the accrual levers Ind AS leaves in management's hands (provisions, useful lives, impairment, revenue timing), the real-activity games that change the business to hit a quarter, and the legal test that turns a choice into a crime under the Companies Act, SEBI's PFUTP Regulations and LODR. Then learn to tell them apart in the numbers: accrual quality, suspiciously small beats, estimate revisions in the notes and what auditors flag under SA 240. Built around Indian cases from bank NPA divergence to Satyam. Written for aspiring forensic auditors, compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, and risk and compliance professionals.
Introduction to Whistleblower Mechanisms in Corporate Governance
Most corporate frauds are not caught by auditors or regulators. They are caught because someone on the inside spoke up. This course explains how whistleblower mechanisms work in Indian corporate governance, starting with why tips matter and the Indian cases where a single email or letter changed the course of events, from Satyam to Infosys and ICICI Bank. Learn exactly what the law requires: the vigil mechanism under Section 177 of the Companies Act, SEBI LODR rules for listed companies, SEBI's informant reward scheme for insider trading, auditor fraud reporting, and the public sector channels. Then see how a well-designed policy actually runs, from intake and protection against retaliation to investigation and audit committee oversight, why so many mechanisms exist only on paper, and how India compares with the US, UK and EU. Finish by learning to read whistleblower disclosures in annual reports and exchange filings, to judge how markets react to allegations, and to raise a concern safely yourself. Written for commerce and finance students, compliance career aspirants, and investors who want to judge governance quality before it shows up in the share price.
Advanced AML Program Design for Financial Institutions
A concept course for chief compliance officers, senior forensic auditors and financial crime investigators who already know the basics of KYC and suspicious transaction reporting and now need to design the program itself. It treats an AML program as a system rather than a binder of policies: a risk assessment that drives every downstream decision, a governance model with clear accountability for the Designated Director and Principal Officer, customer due diligence that scales across digital onboarding, and a detection architecture of monitoring scenarios, screening and case management that is calibrated with data instead of vendor defaults. You work through the Indian architecture of the PMLA, the PML (Maintenance of Records) Rules, FIU-IND and the RBI, SEBI and IRDAI requirements, what India's 2024 FATF mutual evaluation means for program design, and how to measure effectiveness, manage model risk, prepare for independent testing and learn from Indian enforcement actions. The course closes with the threats the next generation of programs must handle: mule account networks, virtual digital asset service providers and AI-driven monitoring.
- Diagnose why AML programs fail inspections even when every required policy exists
- Design an enterprise-wide ML and TF risk assessment and a customer risk rating model that actually drive controls
- Set clear accountability for the board, the Designated Director, the Principal Officer and the three lines of defence
Advanced Corporate Governance Failures: Board Level Complicity in Fraud
Most large Indian frauds were not hidden from the board. They were presented to it, minuted, and approved. This course studies board level failure as a spectrum, from passive oversight through wilful blindness to active collusion, and maps each stage to the liability tests in the Companies Act, 2013 and SEBI's LODR and PFUTP regulations. It works through Satyam, IL&FS, PMC Bank, Yes Bank, DHFL, ICICI Bank and Videocon, Fortis and Gensol Engineering from the boardroom's point of view, then builds the investigator's toolkit: forensic reading of board and committee minutes, director network mapping from MCA21 and exchange filings, resignation and auditor exit signals, and assembling a knowledge and consent evidence file. It closes with audit committee design and an escalation playbook for compliance officers when the board itself is the problem. Written for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigation professionals.
- Place a board's conduct on the complicity spectrum and match it to the legal liability test that applies
- Read the Satyam, IL&FS, PMC Bank, Yes Bank, DHFL, ICICI Videocon, Fortis and Gensol failures from inside the boardroom
- Analyse board and committee minutes, attendance and dissent records for evidence of knowledge or consent
Advanced Financial Statement Fraud Detection: Beneish M-Score and Altman Z-Score
A concept course on the Beneish M-Score and the Altman Z-Score for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigators. Most practitioners can plug numbers into both formulas; far fewer can explain where the coefficients came from, why the cutoffs sit where they do, what error rates they carry, or why a company can pass one test and fail the other. This course goes underneath both models: Beneish's probit study of earnings manipulators, Altman's discriminant analysis of failed manufacturers, the economic story each variable tells, and how Ind AS and Schedule III reporting changes the inputs for NSE and BSE listed companies. You will then use the two scores together through a manipulation-distress matrix, see how fabricated profits push a Z-Score into the safe zone, work through Satyam and Ricoh India, learn where both models break (banks, NBFCs, holding companies, young companies) and how manipulators stay under the cutoffs, and finish by designing a screening and escalation programme whose evidence holds up before an audit committee.
- Explain how Beneish and Altman built their models, what each coefficient means and what the original studies did and did not prove
- Read every M-Score and Z-Score variable as an economic signal, not just a ratio
- Choose cutoffs and model variants deliberately, based on error costs and the type of company
Advanced Regulatory Investigation Processes: SFIO, ED, and CBI Roles Explained
A practitioner's guide to how financial crime is investigated in India. You learn the legal basis, powers and process of the Serious Fraud Investigation Office under the Companies Act 2013, the Directorate of Enforcement under PMLA, FEMA and the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, and the Central Bureau of Investigation under the DSPE Act and the Prevention of Corruption Act. The course traces how a case reaches each agency, how predicate offences chain one agency's case into another's, and how SEBI, the Income Tax Department and the agencies run parallel proceedings on the same facts. Real Indian cases anchor every chapter: IL&FS, DHFL, ABG Shipyard, PNB and Nirav Modi, and Satyam. The course closes with a practitioner's playbook: responding to a summons or search, preserving documents, running an internal investigation alongside an agency probe, and making a forensic audit report stand up as evidence. Educational content only, not legal advice. Built for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigation professionals.
- Map which agency investigates which offence and the statute that gives it power
- Explain how SFIO is assigned a case under Section 212 and what Section 447 fraud requires
- Follow an ED case from ECIR through attachment, adjudication, arrest and bail under PMLA
Advanced Techniques in Off Balance Sheet Fraud Detection
The most damaging Indian frauds of the last decade were not hidden in the revenue line. They sat outside the balance sheet: shell companies that were never consolidated, guarantees and letters of comfort that never reached the contingent liabilities note, supplier credit dressed up as trade payables, loans to promoter vehicles routed through inter-corporate deposits, and evergreening through structures built to look like investments. DHFL, IL&FS, Coffee Day, Fortis and the Essel group all ran through these channels. This advanced concept course is for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigators who need to find what the financial statements deliberately leave out. It covers where Ind AS draws the consolidation and derecognition boundary and how that boundary is gamed, how to map a group's real perimeter using MCA21, AOC-1 and director networks, how to read guarantees, contingent liabilities and hidden debt in operating lines, how siphoning works through the periphery of a group, and how to prove it using implied interest tests, charge registers, credit rating rationales and network analysis, to an evidence standard that holds up under RBI and SEBI processes. Educational content only, not investment or legal advice.
- Why off balance sheet structures are the preferred hiding place for debt, losses and diverted cash in Indian promoter-led groups
- How Ind AS 110, Ind AS 109, Ind AS 116 and Ind AS 37 draw the accounting boundary, and the specific judgements fraudsters exploit to stay outside it
- How to map a group's true perimeter using MCA21 filings, Form AOC-1, director networks and shared addresses
Case Study: A Bank's STR Filing Process During a Suspicious Transaction Investigation
A narrative case study of how a suspicious transaction investigation actually unfolds inside an Indian bank. You follow a single current account at a fictional mid-sized private sector bank as three monitoring alerts fire, a cyber crime complaint lands on the same account, and the AML team has to decide what it is looking at. Watch the Level 1 analyst triage the alerts, the investigation team pull the statement apart and trace money through a network of linked accounts, enhanced due diligence test the customer's story against GST records and a site visit, and the relationship manager push back on commercial grounds. Then sit in on the Principal Officer's decision meeting, read the grounds of suspicion as written, and follow the filing to FIU-IND. The case closes with what happens after: restricting the account without tipping off the customer, law enforcement requests and freezes, an RBI inspection that tests the whole STR trail, and a post-mortem of what the bank did well and badly. The bank, customer, people and figures are fictional and for training only; the law, regulators and processes are real. Built for compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, risk and compliance professionals, and aspiring forensic auditors.
- Trace how an AML function is organised inside an Indian bank and who owns each step of an STR
- Read a customer onboarding file critically and spot what KYC captured and what it missed
- Follow alert triage and escalation the way a Level 1 analyst records it
Case Study: A Basic Introduction to the Punjab National Bank Fraud Case
A ground-up walkthrough of India's biggest banking fraud, the roughly 14,000 crore rupee Punjab National Bank scam uncovered in 2018. Meet the people involved, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and the PNB branch officials who enabled them, and understand the two banking tools at the centre of it, Letters of Undertaking and the SWIFT messaging system, and how they were misused for years without showing up in the bank's own core systems. Walk through how the fraud was finally discovered, what RBI, the CBI and the ED did afterwards, and what the case teaches about internal controls, reconciliation and compliance culture in Indian banking.
Case Study: A Cross Border Shell Company Network Investigation
An advanced case study that follows one cross-border shell company investigation from the first red flag to the enforcement fallout. A composite NSE-listed mid-cap reports a growth story that its cash flows do not support. An auditor's qualification and a bank's cross-border alert open the file. You scope the mandate, then map the domestic shell layer through MCA21 filings, common directors, shared addresses and related party transactions, and build the first network graph. You trace the money out through bank statements, SWIFT messages, import advances and an overseas subsidiary in a free zone, and back in as FDI and opaque FPI holdings that supported the share price. You then work the foreign layer: secrecy jurisdictions, nominee structures, open-source registry research abroad, and the official channels for evidence from other countries. The case closes with the forensic report, the split of threads between ED, SEBI, SFIO, DRI and the Income Tax Department, the fallout for the listed company and its investors, asset tracing, the control failures at banks, auditors and boards, and a reusable investigator's playbook. The company, its people and its numbers are an illustrative composite built from patterns in public Indian cases; the laws, systems and procedures are real.
- Scope a cross-border shell network investigation with a clear mandate, hypotheses and an evidence plan
- Map a domestic shell layer from MCA21 filings, director and address overlaps, and related party disclosures into a network graph
- Reconstruct outbound and inbound fund flows from bank statements, SWIFT messages, import advance records and overseas investment filings
Case Study: A Digital Payment Fraud Ring and How It Was Detected
A forensic case study of a digital payment fraud ring, reconstructed as a composite from the patterns in public Indian enforcement actions, I4C advisories and RBI and FIU-IND guidance. The ring ran a fake stock tips and trading app scheme: WhatsApp and Telegram groups, a fake institutional trading app showing paper profits, and a network of rented mule accounts that moved victims' money through UPI and IMPS layers to cash and crypto within hours. The course follows the money stage by stage, then switches sides and shows how it was caught: 1930 helpline complaints on the NCRP portal, a bank's transaction monitoring rules for velocity and pass-through behaviour, device and KYC linkages across unrelated accounts, and a network graph that tied victims to cash-out points. It then covers the response, from lien marking and account freezes to STRs, FIRs and victim refunds, and ends with the control failures that let the ring in and a reusable detection playbook for bank, NBFC and fintech compliance teams. All transaction figures are illustrative.
- Explain how a modern Indian investment scam ring is organised, recruited and financed
- Trace victim money through mule accounts, UPI and IMPS layers and cash-out channels
- Identify the complaint, transaction, device and KYC signals that expose a mule network
Case Study: Adani Group Stock Volatility and Governance Concerns
A ground up case study on the Adani Group Hindenburg episode, covering promoter holding, share pledging, related party transactions, short selling mechanics, circuit limits, index concentration risk, SEBI's investigation, and a practical governance checklist every Indian retail investor can run on screener.in.
- Trace the Adani Group's story before the Hindenburg report
- Understand the crash and the governance concerns it raised
- Apply these lessons to your own investing decisions
Case Study: Board Level Complicity in the Satyam Fraud Revisited
A forensic case study of Satyam Computer Services, India's fourth largest IT services company, whose chairman confessed in January 2009 to a balance sheet inflated by more than ₹7,000 crore, most of it cash that did not exist. Built for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigators, it revisits the fraud through the record that emerged after 2009: the CBI chargesheets and the 2015 special court judgment, SEBI's orders, the SFIO findings and the SEC and PCAOB actions against the auditors. The focus is the board. You examine how a board of globally credentialed independent directors approved the Maytas related party acquisition in December 2008, what the audit committee did and did not ask about years of idle cash, how the statutory auditor relied on bank confirmations routed through management, and where the line runs between complicity, negligence and capture. The course traces the aftermath from government supersession and the Tech Mahindra rescue to the Companies Act 2013 reforms it triggered, and closes with a board complicity diagnostic you can apply to any listed Indian company using exchange filings, annual reports and Screener.in.
- Reconstruct how the Satyam fraud worked, from fabricated bank statements and fixed deposit receipts to fake invoices generated outside the normal billing system
- Analyse the 16 December 2008 Maytas board meeting and identify the questions independent directors failed to ask about a related party deal
- Distinguish complicity, negligence and capture when assessing the conduct of independent directors, the audit committee and the statutory auditor
Corporate Governance: Evaluating Management Quality
A practical course on judging the people running the companies you own. Learn to read promoter holding and pledges, board and auditor disclosures, related party transactions, capital allocation records, and SEBI and exchange filings for Indian listed companies, then turn it all into a repeatable governance scorecard using annual reports, BSE/NSE filings, and screener.in.
- Why governance quality drives long-term returns and valuation multiples in Indian markets
- How to read promoter holding, pledged shares, and group structures for warning signs
- How to evaluate board independence, auditor remarks, and managerial remuneration
Deep Dive into Financial Statement Fraud and Forensic Red Flags
A forensic course for investors who already read financial statements and now want to catch the ones that lie. Learn how Indian listed companies inflate revenue, hide expenses, fake cash, and dress up balance sheets, and how to detect it using annual report notes, auditor reports, BSE/NSE filings, screener.in data, and quantitative screens like the Beneish M-Score. Built on real Indian cases: Satyam, Manpasand Beverages, Brightcom, Gitanjali Gems, CG Power, DHFL, Ricoh India, and more.
- Why companies commit accounting fraud and where the pressure points sit in Indian promoter-led firms
- How revenue gets inflated through channel stuffing, round-tripping, and fake customers, and how to test it against receivables and cash
- How expenses get parked in the balance sheet through capitalisation, inventory games, and related party structures
Introduction to Anti Money Laundering (AML): Concepts and Terminology
A ground-up introduction to anti money laundering for Indian students, investors and anyone considering a compliance career. Learn what money laundering actually is, the three stages of placement, layering and integration, and the predicate offences that generate dirty money in the first place. Walk through the common laundering methods seen in India, from cash structuring and benami accounts to shell companies, trade-based laundering, hawala and crypto. Then map India's AML framework: the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002, the roles of FIU-IND, the Enforcement Directorate, RBI, SEBI and IRDAI, and how FATF shapes it all. Finally, master the core terminology, KYC, CDD, EDD, beneficial ownership, PEPs, STRs and CTRs, red flags and transaction monitoring, and see how it all shows up in practice at your broker, your bank and in real Indian enforcement cases.
- Explain what money laundering is and walk through placement, layering and integration with Indian examples
- Recognise the common laundering methods, from structuring and money mules to shell companies, trade-based laundering and hawala
- Describe the PMLA 2002 and the roles of FIU-IND, the Enforcement Directorate, RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and FATF
Introduction to Forensic Audit Methodology
A concept course on the method behind a forensic audit: what makes it different from a statutory or internal audit, who commissions one in India and why, and the standards that govern the work. You will follow the full lifecycle, from predication and scoping to hypothesis-led planning, evidence gathering, analytics, interviews, fund flow tracing, loss quantification and the final report. Along the way you will learn how evidence must be handled to stand up under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, where ICAI's Forensic Accounting and Investigation Standards fit, what reporting duties arise under Section 143(12) of the Companies Act, SEBI LODR and the RBI Master Directions on Fraud Risk Management, and what Indian courts have said about forensic audit reports. Built for aspiring forensic auditors, compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, and finance professionals in risk and compliance roles. Pair it with the practice drills course on conducting a basic forensic audit walkthrough to apply each step.
- Distinguish a forensic audit from statutory audit, internal audit and a regulatory investigation
- Explain who commissions forensic audits in India, including lenders, SEBI, boards and insolvency professionals
- Move from predication to a scoped engagement and a hypothesis-led work plan
Introduction to KYC: Know Your Customer Frameworks
A concept-first introduction to Know Your Customer, the process that sits in front of every bank account, demat account, mutual fund folio and insurance policy in India. You start with the problem KYC was built to solve: money laundering, terror financing and fraud that depend on accounts nobody can trace to a real person. You then learn the legal backbone (the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 and the PML Rules), who writes the detailed rules (RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA and FIU-IND) and how the global FATF standards shape them. The middle of the course covers the building blocks every KYC framework shares: customer identification with PAN, Officially Valid Documents and Aadhaar, the three levels of due diligence, beneficial ownership and risk categorisation. You then see India's KYC infrastructure in action: the CKYC registry, KYC Registration Agencies, eKYC, Video KYC and periodic updation. The course closes with how KYC differs across a bank, a stockbroker such as Zerodha and an insurer, what Indian enforcement actions reveal when KYC fails, and what KYC means for you as an investor or a future compliance professional.
- Explain what KYC is, why it exists and how it connects to money laundering and fraud prevention
- Map the Indian KYC framework from the PMLA and PML Rules to the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA rulebooks
- Describe how FATF standards and India's mutual evaluation influence domestic KYC rules
Introduction to Revenue Recognition Manipulation Tactics
A concept-first foundation course on the line in the income statement that gets manipulated more than any other: revenue. You start with why revenue is the favourite target, how Ind AS 115 says revenue should be recognised, and why accrual accounting opens a gap between booking a sale and collecting the cash. Then you learn the two families of tactics. Timing tactics book real revenue too early: channel stuffing, bill-and-hold, aggressive percentage of completion and cut-off games. Amount tactics make revenue look bigger than it is: gross versus net, fictitious customers, round-tripping through related parties and other income passed off as operations. Next you learn what an outsider can actually see, using receivables and DSO, the gap between profit and operating cash flow, the revenue policy note and the auditor's report. The course closes with Indian case files and a revenue red flag checklist you can run on any listed company using its annual report and Screener.in. Built for commerce and finance students heading into forensic work, compliance career aspirants, and investors who want to recognise inflated revenue before the market does.
- Explain why revenue is the most manipulated number in an income statement and who gains from inflating it
- Describe the Ind AS 115 five-step model and when revenue can legitimately be booked
- Recognise timing tactics: channel stuffing, bill-and-hold, percentage of completion games and cut-off manipulation
Introduction to Sanctions Screening and Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs)
A concept course on the two screening controls every regulated financial institution in India runs on its customers: sanctions screening and politically exposed person (PEP) screening. You start with what each control is for and the Indian legal base behind it, from the PMLA and PML Rules to Section 51A of the UAPA and Section 12A of the WMD Act. You then map the sanctions landscape: UN Security Council lists and how India implements them, domestic designations, and why OFAC, EU and UK regimes still matter to an Indian firm. The PEP chapters cover who counts as a PEP under FATF, the PML Rules and the RBI KYC Master Direction, how family members, close associates and beneficial owners extend the net, and why a PEP is a higher-risk customer rather than a prohibited one. The practice chapters explain screening points across the customer lifecycle, name matching and false positives, how alerts are investigated and dispositioned, and what happens after a confirmed sanctions match or a confirmed PEP. The course closes with record keeping, enforcement lessons and a screening framework for a small Indian broker or NBFC. Educational content only, not legal or regulatory advice.
- Explain what sanctions screening and PEP screening each protect against and why the outcomes of a hit are different
- Trace the Indian legal base for screening: PMLA, PML Rules, UAPA Section 51A, WMD Act Section 12A and RBI and SEBI directions
- Identify the lists that matter, from UN Security Council and MHA designations to OFAC, EU and UK regimes
Introduction to Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) and Their Filing Process
How India's suspicious transaction reporting regime actually works, from the law to the filing portal. Start with why STRs exist and where they sit in the PMLA framework, who counts as a reporting entity, and how an STR differs from cash, counterfeit currency, non-profit and cross-border wire reports. Learn the legal definition of a suspicious transaction clause by clause, the red flag indicators regulators expect you to know across banking, securities markets and insurance, and the misconceptions that cause missed filings. Then follow the full process: alert generation, investigation, the Principal Officer's decision, the reporting clock and submission to FIU-IND. Finish with tipping-off rules, the Section 14 safe harbour, real FIU-IND penalty orders, what happens to an STR after it is filed, and what separates a useful report from a defensive one. Written for compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, risk and compliance professionals, and aspiring forensic auditors.
Masterclass: Building and Leading a Forensic Audit Practice
A masterclass for people who already know how to run a forensic engagement and now have to build and lead the practice that runs dozens of them. It covers where forensic demand in India comes from and who pays for it, the legal and professional perimeter (Companies Act, RBI Master Directions on Fraud Risk Management, SEBI LODR, PMLA and the ICAI Forensic Accounting and Investigation Standards), and the business of the practice itself: practice models, team leverage, the technology stack, pricing and utilisation. It then moves to running investigations at scale, with quality control, evidence management, senior management interviews and working alongside lawyers and regulators, before turning to reports that survive courts, NCLT and regulators, expert testimony and lender forensic audits. The final chapters deal with professional liability, data protection under the DPDP Act, ethics under promoter pressure, and how to hire, retain and build recurring revenue. The course closes with a capstone five-year plan for your own practice. Built for forensic practice leaders, chief compliance officers and senior financial crime investigators.
- Map the demand for forensic work in India and choose the service lines worth building
- Work inside the legal and professional perimeter set by the Companies Act, RBI, SEBI, PMLA and ICAI standards
- Design a practice model, team pyramid and technology stack that fit your market
Masterclass: How Chief Compliance Officers Structure Enterprise Wide AML Programs
A masterclass for chief compliance officers, forensic practice leaders and senior financial crime investigators and regulators who already understand how a single institution's AML program is built and now need to see it from the top of a financial group. A typical Indian group today holds a bank or NBFC, a stockbroker, an asset management company, an insurer, a payments business and often a GIFT IFSC unit or overseas branch. Each is a separate reporting entity under the PMLA with its own Principal Officer and its own regulator, yet customers, money and risk move freely between them. This course is about the decisions that only the group-level CCO makes: choosing a centralised, federated or hybrid operating model, writing a policy hierarchy that works across RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and IFSCA rules, sharing information inside the group within the limits of the PMLA and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, setting a board-approved financial crime risk appetite, building a single customer view, running overseas operations under the stricter-standard principle, funding and defending the technology stack, reporting to the board, managing several regulators at once, integrating acquisitions and leading the institution through an enforcement action and a multi-year remediation. All institutions and figures in worked examples are illustrative unless a public source is named; rules are stated as at the date of last review.
- Map a financial group's entities, regulators and PMLA reporting obligations and see where enterprise-wide risk hides between them
- Choose and defend a centralised, federated or hybrid financial crime operating model
- Write a group AML policy hierarchy and design intra-group information sharing that stays within the PMLA and DPDP Act
Masterclass: Lessons From India's Landmark Financial Fraud Investigations
A masterclass that studies India's landmark financial frauds from the investigator's chair. Instead of retelling the stories, each lesson asks how the fraud was detected, how the evidence trail was rebuilt, which agencies acted and in what order, where the investigation stalled, and what changed in regulation afterwards. You will work through market manipulation cases (Harshad Mehta, Ketan Parekh, NSEL, NSE co-location), corporate accounting frauds (Satyam, Ricoh India, Cox and Kings, Cafe Coffee Day), banking and lending frauds (PNB and Nirav Modi, DHFL, Yes Bank, PMC Bank, Kingfisher) and systemic cases (IL&FS, Sahara, Saradha, Karvy, Adani and Hindenburg, strictly on the public record). The final chapter distils three decades of cases into recurring red flags, investigation failure modes and an early-warning programme. Built for chief compliance officers, forensic practice leaders and senior financial crime investigators and regulators.
- Deconstruct any fraud investigation into detection, evidence, enforcement and recovery stages
- Explain how investigators rebuilt the evidence trail in India's landmark market, corporate and banking frauds
- Identify the red flags that were visible before each fraud surfaced, and who missed them
Masterclass: Navigating Regulatory Relationships as a Senior Compliance Leader
A masterclass for chief compliance officers, forensic practice leaders and senior financial crime investigators and regulators on the relationship that decides how an institution is treated when something goes wrong: the one with its regulators. Indian financial institutions answer to SEBI, RBI, IRDAI, IFSCA, FIU-IND and front-line bodies such as NSE, BSE and the depositories, each with its own supervisory style, tools and escalation path. This course covers the work of the person who owns that relationship: mapping regulators and how they supervise, setting up a single point of contact, writing correspondence that builds trust, engaging on consultation papers and informal guidance, deciding when and how to self-report, preparing for and running an inspection, closing findings, reading the path from an observation to a show cause notice, replying and appearing at a personal hearing, deciding whether to settle, managing a live appeal before the Securities Appellate Tribunal, understanding the compliance officer's personal exposure, holding the line against business pressure, reporting the relationship to the board, and handling multi-regulator issues, crises and overseas regulators. All institutions and figures in worked examples are illustrative unless a public source is named; rules are stated as at the date of last review.
- Map every regulator and front-line body your institution answers to and how each one actually supervises
- Design a single point of contact and write regulatory correspondence that builds credibility instead of eroding it
- Decide when and how to self-report a breach, and engage constructively on consultation papers and informal guidance
Practice Drills: Applying the Fraud Triangle to a Sample Case
A practice-first course built around one detailed sample case: a fictional listed Indian mid-cap with a lender exposure, a promoter under strain and a finance function that has quietly grown too powerful. You will work the case the way a forensic auditor, internal auditor or bank and NBFC compliance officer would. First you build an evidence worksheet. Then you drill each side of the fraud triangle in turn: pressure from covenants, pledged promoter shares, guidance and incentive pay; opportunity from control gaps in the revenue and cash cycle, weak audit committees, related party flows and lending-side weaknesses such as evergreening; and rationalisation from management language, internal emails and culture signals. You then score the case, extend it to the fraud diamond, and convert the findings into specific audit procedures under SA 240 and an escalation memo that respects Section 143(12) of the Companies Act and the RBI Master Directions on Fraud Risk Management. The course ends with a blind second case and an honest look at where the triangle fails, using Satyam and PNB as hindsight tests.
- Use the fraud triangle as a structured evidence worksheet rather than a theory diagram
- Identify and grade financial, market and personal pressure from filings, pledges, covenants and pay structures
- Map control gaps in revenue, cash, procurement and related party flows that create opportunity
Practice Drills: Calculating Altman Z-Score on a Distressed Company
A practice-first companion to Deep Dive into Financial Statement Fraud and Forensic Red Flags. You already know what the Altman Z-Score is; this course makes you calculate it properly on distressed Indian companies, where the textbook inputs rarely sit cleanly on the face of the balance sheet. Working from Ind AS annual reports on NSE and BSE, Screener.in exports and the notes to accounts, you will rebuild all five ratios by hand, strip securities premium out of retained earnings, catch current maturities of long-term debt hiding outside short-term borrowings, normalise EBIT for exceptional items, and price equity through pledges and circuit-filter collapses. You will then pick the right model for manufacturers, service companies and private subsidiaries, stress the score for lease liabilities, contingent liabilities and corporate guarantees, learn exactly where the Z-Score breaks (NBFCs, banks, holding companies, manipulated books) and finish by writing a defensible Z-Score memo. Built for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigators who need a distress score that survives cross-examination.
- Choose correctly between the original Z, Z-prime and Z-double-prime models and apply the right zone cut-offs to each
- Map Ind AS balance sheet and P&L line items to all five Altman ratios without the common Screener.in shortcuts that distort them
- Rebuild retained earnings, working capital and EBIT from the notes to accounts, net of securities premium, revaluation reserves, exceptional items and current debt maturities
Practice Drills: Calculating Beneish M-Score on a Real Company's Financials
A calculation-first drill course on the Beneish M-Score, built for forensic auditors, compliance heads and financial crime investigators who need a score they can defend in a review meeting, not one copied off a screener. You will pull two or more years of inputs from Ind AS annual reports filed on NSE and BSE, map Schedule III's by-nature statements to Beneish's US-style lines, compute all eight variables by hand and in a spreadsheet, and then run the full model across five years for a listed Indian company, a company that later collapsed, and a group where standalone and consolidated scores diverge. The final chapter is about judgement: decomposing which variable moved the score, recognising false positives from acquisitions, sector quirks and genuine high growth, and writing the forensic note that turns a number into an escalation decision.
- Extract every Beneish input from an Ind AS annual report and reconcile it to Screener data
- Map Schedule III by-nature expense lines to COGS and SG&A proxies and apply them consistently
- Compute DSRI, GMI, AQI, SGI, DEPI, SGAI, LVGI and TATA by hand and explain what moves each one
Practice Drills: Conducting a Basic Forensic Audit Walkthrough
A practice-first course that walks you through one complete forensic audit engagement on a fictional listed Indian small-cap, from the day the mandate letter lands to the day the report goes to the audit committee. Every lesson is a drill that produces a working paper: the scope and work plan, the document request list and evidence log, a public records pull from MCA21 and exchange filings, a process walkthrough, ledger analytics with Benford analysis and duplicate tests, a revenue trace from invoice to bank credit, a vendor master test for shell suppliers, a related party fund flow map, interview notes, a loss quantification and the final report. You will also learn where a forensic engagement sits next to the statutory audit, how evidence must be handled so it survives scrutiny, and what reporting duties apply under Section 143(12) of the Companies Act, SEBI LODR and the RBI Master Directions on Fraud Risk Management. The course closes with a second, shorter case you run end to end on your own. Built for aspiring forensic auditors, compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, and finance professionals in risk and compliance roles.
- Scope a forensic engagement from an allegation and turn it into a hypothesis-led work plan
- Build a document request list and an evidence log with a clean chain of custody
- Pull and cross-check public records from MCA21, NSE and BSE filings and annual reports
Practice Drills: Designing an AML Program Framework for a Mock Institution
A practice-first course built around one mock institution: a fictional mid-sized NBFC in the RBI Middle Layer that runs gold loans, MSME loans and digital personal loans through lending service providers, and has outgrown the AML program it started with. You play the newly hired Principal Officer and build its program from the ground up. First you map every obligation under the PMLA, the PML (Maintenance of Records) Rules and the RBI KYC Directions into a requirements register. Then you run the institution-wide ML and TF risk assessment, build a customer risk rating model and assess new products and lending partners before launch. You define the Designated Director and Principal Officer mandates, draft the policy skeleton and the escalation paths, design due diligence tiers, beneficial ownership and PEP procedures and periodic KYC updation, and write the first transaction monitoring rule set, sanctions and UAPA Section 51A screening, the FIU-IND reporting calendar and the record retention design. The course closes with role-based training, the independent AML audit and program KPIs, a full AML Program Document for board approval and a response to an RBI inspection finding.
- Translate PMLA, the PML Rules and the RBI KYC Directions into a requirements register with an owner for every obligation
- Run an institution-wide ML and TF risk assessment and turn it into a working customer risk rating model
- Assess new products, digital channels and lending service providers for money laundering risk before launch
Practice Drills: Designing an Enterprise Wide Financial Crime Risk Framework
A practice-first masterclass for senior compliance, forensic and investigation professionals. You work one detailed sample case: a fictional Indian financial group with an NBFC, a SEBI-registered stock broker and a prepaid payment instrument issuer, each under a different regulator and each running its own financial crime controls in a silo. Your job is to design one enterprise-wide framework for it. You map the regulatory perimeter under the PMLA, RBI, SEBI and the Prevention of Corruption Act, build a financial crime risk taxonomy, score inherent risk by customer, product, channel and geography, test controls and derive residual risk, and write a risk appetite the board can actually use. You then design the governance model and management information, calibrate customer due diligence, transaction monitoring and screening, build an alert-to-case investigation workflow with correct reporting to FIU-IND, RBI and SEBI, and set up independent testing. The course closes with a board presentation and a stress test of your framework against real Indian enforcement patterns.
- Treat money laundering, fraud, sanctions, bribery and market abuse as one enterprise risk with shared data and governance
- Map the Indian regulatory perimeter for a multi-entity financial group across PMLA, RBI, SEBI and anti-corruption law
- Build an enterprise-wide risk assessment that scores inherent risk, control effectiveness and residual risk defensibly
Practice Drills: Drafting a Sample Suspicious Transaction Report
A practice-first course that walks you through drafting a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) the way a Principal Officer's team at an Indian bank actually does it. You start with a transaction monitoring alert on a fictional customer and work it through every stage: triage, KYC file review, red flag mapping against FIU-IND indicators, fund flow tracing across accounts, the file or close decision, the grounds of suspicion narrative, the structured report fields, and a quality check before submission on FINnet. Along the way you learn the framework behind every step: the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, the PML (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005, the RBI and SEBI KYC directions, reporting timelines, the tipping-off prohibition and record retention. The course closes with a securities market variation for stock brokers and a second case you draft end to end on your own. All cases, names and figures are fictional and for training only. Built for aspiring forensic auditors, compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, and finance professionals in risk and compliance roles.
- Explain what an STR is, who must file one and how it differs from CTRs and other FIU-IND reports
- Triage a transaction monitoring alert and decide whether it deserves a full review
- Review a KYC file against actual account behaviour and spot profile mismatches
Practice Drills: Filling Out a Basic KYC Verification Checklist
A practice-first course for anyone who wants to do KYC, not just define it. You build one working KYC verification checklist and then fill it out, file after file, the way an onboarding analyst at a bank, NBFC or stockbroker such as Zerodha or a KRA-linked depository participant would. Each drill hands you a sample customer file with documents, declarations and verification records, and asks you to tick, flag or reject. You start with identity and address: PAN validation and Form 60 cases, Officially Valid Documents, Aadhaar offline verification and masking, and the name, date of birth and address mismatches that cause most rejections. You then check verification channels (in-person verification, Video KYC under V-CIP, CKYC and KRA records), record occupation, income and source of funds, screen for PEPs and sanctions lists, assign a risk category, and complete FATCA and CRS self-certification. Later drills cover partnership firms, LLPs, private limited companies, HUFs and trusts, including identifying the beneficial owner. The course ends with three full capstone files: a demat account opening, a rejected file that needs a discrepancy note, and a periodic re-KYC review. Every rule is tied back to the PMLA, the RBI KYC Master Direction and SEBI's KYC norms.
- Build and use a structured KYC verification checklist instead of relying on memory
- Verify PAN, Officially Valid Documents and Aadhaar-based records correctly, including when Form 60 applies
- Catch name, date of birth, address and signature mismatches before they become rejected files
Practice Drills: Identifying Corporate Governance Red Flags
A practice-first companion to Corporate Governance: Evaluating Management Quality. You already know what good governance is supposed to look like; this course makes you find the bad kind in real filings. Working with shareholding patterns, related party disclosures, board and auditor announcements, SEBI orders and exchange filings on NSE, BSE and Screener.in, you will build a governance red flag scorecard and drill it flag by flag: pledging and creeping dilution, money moving to group companies, weak boards, auditor exits, and management churn. The course closes with full drills that score companies side by side, replay the signals ahead of real Indian governance failures, and decide what to do when the flags show up in a stock you already own. Built for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors and salaried professionals who want a repeatable governance check before they buy, or before they trust a fund that does.
- Locate every governance disclosure that matters in NSE and BSE filings, annual reports and Screener.in
- Build and apply a weighted governance red flag scorecard to any listed company
- Read shareholding patterns for pledging, promoter selling, warrants and creeping dilution
Practice Drills: Identifying Layering Patterns in Sample Transaction Data
A practice-first course on the hardest stage of money laundering to see: layering, where illicit funds are moved through accounts, channels and entities until the trail goes cold. You work on a fictional sample ledger from an Indian bank, with UPI, IMPS, NEFT, RTGS and cash entries, and drill one pattern at a time: rapid pass-through, structuring below reporting thresholds, fan-out and fan-in, circular flows and round-tripping, mule accounts and multi-hop chains. You then look at layering through payment aggregator wallets, trade invoices and shell companies, and securities and demat accounts, and learn to separate genuine suspicion from normal business activity. The course closes with a simple rule-based scoring model, a findings write-up for the investigation file, and a full end-to-end drill on a fresh dataset. Grounded in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, FIU-IND red flag indicators and RBI and SEBI KYC requirements. All names, accounts and figures are fictional and for training only. Built for aspiring forensic auditors, compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, and finance professionals in risk and compliance roles.
- Explain what layering is and how it differs from placement and integration
- Read a raw transaction ledger and build a baseline for each account
- Spot pass-through, structuring, fan-out, fan-in and circular flow patterns in sample data
Practice Drills: Identifying Red Flags in a Sample Annual Report
A practice-first foundation course built around one complete sample annual report: a fictional listed Indian consumer durables company whose FY26 report looks healthy on the cover and gets less healthy with every page you turn. You read it the way a forensic analyst or compliance reviewer would, in a fixed order. You start with the chairman's letter and management discussion, then the directors' report and corporate governance report, then the balance sheet, profit and loss and cash flow statement, then the notes to accounts, related party disclosures and the auditor's report with CARO remarks. Every lesson is a drill: you get an excerpt, you log the flags you find on a scorecard, and then you check your answers against a worked solution. The course ends with a timed blind drill on a second sample report and a simple framework for turning a flag count into an avoid, watch or dig-deeper call. Built for commerce and finance students heading into forensic work, compliance career aspirants, and investors who want to spot fraud before it shows up in the share price.
- Read an annual report in a forensic order instead of front to back
- Spot where the chairman's letter and MD&A tell a story the numbers do not support
- Catch governance warning signs in the directors' report, board changes, auditor resignations and promoter pledges
Practice Drills: Investigating a Simulated Trade Based Money Laundering Case
A practice-first course built around one simulated trade-based money laundering investigation. A bank's transaction monitoring flags the trade finance account of a fictional mid-size Indian exporter, and you run the investigation from that alert to the final report. Every lesson is a drill that produces a working paper: a document reconciliation across invoice, shipping bill, bill of lading and bank realisation; a unit price test against market benchmarks; a shipment verification; an EDPMS match of export proceeds; a counterparty network map across the UAE, Hong Kong and Singapore; a round-tripping trace; a GST export refund test; an evidence timeline; a quantification of the value moved through mispricing; interview notes; and a draft Suspicious Transaction Report for FIU-IND. Along the way you learn the five core TBML typologies, how the Indian trade and foreign exchange framework under FEMA, the RBI Master Directions and PMLA creates both the paper trail and the reporting duties, and where an investigator's judgement ends and a regulator's begins. The course closes with a second, shorter case you work end to end on your own. All companies, people and figures in the case are fictional. Built for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigation professionals.
- Recognise the five core TBML typologies and the red flags each one leaves in trade documents
- Reconcile an invoice, shipping bill, bill of lading and bank realisation and isolate the breaks
- Test declared unit prices against market benchmarks and size the implied value transfer
Practice Drills: Leading a Mock Large Scale Fraud Investigation Debrief
A leadership drill course for chief compliance officers, forensic practice leaders and senior financial crime investigators who have to stand up in front of a board, a regulator or a lenders' consortium and explain what went wrong in a large fraud. The investigation is already done. Your job is the debrief. You work on one mock case throughout: a fictional listed Indian NBFC where loans were routed through shell borrowers back to promoter entities, a multi-thousand-crore hole that the forensic team has spent months documenting. Every lesson is a drill that produces a piece of the debrief: an audience map, a findings hierarchy built from a long forensic report, an evidence-strength grading for each finding, a loss quantification walk, a board-ready fund flow map, a minute-by-minute audit committee run sheet, scripted responses to pushback, responsibility findings that respect natural justice, separate debrief packs for SEBI, RBI and SFIO, a lenders' consortium briefing under the RBI fraud risk framework, a privilege and LODR disclosure plan, a root cause and control failure map, a remediation tracker and an internal lessons-learned review. The course closes with a full capstone debrief you run end to end and score against a senior panel's rubric. The case, company and every number in it are fictional and illustrative.
- Map every audience of a fraud debrief and decide what each one needs, may see and must not see
- Compress a long forensic report into a findings hierarchy that a board can act on in one sitting
- Grade the evidence behind each finding and say plainly what is proven, probable or unresolved
Practice Drills: Reviewing a Sample Related Party Transaction Disclosure
Related party transactions are where money most often leaves a listed Indian company quietly: a royalty to the promoter's private firm, a loan to a group company that never comes back, purchases from a supplier owned by a director's relative. All of it has to be disclosed, but the disclosures are spread across the annual report, Form AOC-2, the half-yearly filing on NSE and BSE, and AGM notices, and most readers skip them. This foundation drill course hands you one fictional listed mid-cap's complete set of related party disclosures and teaches you to review them the way a forensic analyst, compliance professional or careful investor would. You will list who the related parties are, read and size every transaction, check that the right approvals were taken, run simple arm's length tests, cross-check the annual report against exchange filings, grade what you find, and write a one-page review note. No prior forensic experience is needed, only basic comfort with financial statements. Educational content only, not investment or legal advice.
- Find every place a listed Indian company discloses related party transactions and know what each document is meant to show
- Build a related party map from the disclosure and spot relationships that are missing or vaguely described
- Read the transactions table, closing balances and guarantees, and size each item against revenue, net worth and materiality thresholds
Practice Drills: Screening a Sample Client Against a PEP List
A practice-first course on politically exposed person (PEP) screening. You build one screening worksheet and one fictional client file, then work them drill by drill the way an onboarding or AML analyst at an Indian bank, NBFC or stockbroker does. You start with who counts as a PEP under the PML Rules, the RBI KYC Master Direction and SEBI's AML guidelines, and how PEP screening differs from sanctions screening. You then work the matching problems that cause most bad decisions: exact, partial and fuzzy name hits, transliteration, initials and Indian naming conventions, and using date of birth, nationality and address to separate a true match from a false positive. Next come the relationship drills: family members, close associates, and a PEP sitting behind a company or trust as beneficial owner. The decision drills cover dispositioning an alert, enhanced due diligence and source of wealth, senior management approval and writing a screening rationale that survives an audit. The course closes with rescreening an existing book when a list changes and two full capstone files. All clients, names and figures are fictional and for training only.
- Apply the PML Rules, RBI and SEBI definitions to decide who counts as a PEP, a family member or a close associate
- Tell PEP screening apart from sanctions screening and adverse media checks, and know what each one triggers
- Work exact, partial and fuzzy name hits, including transliteration, initials and Indian naming conventions
Practice Drills: Spotting Forensic Red Flags in Financial Statements
A practice-first companion to Deep Dive into Financial Statement Fraud and Forensic Red Flags. You already know the theory of revenue games, capitalised costs, hidden debt and accrual manipulation; this course makes you find them yourself. Every lesson is a drill built on Indian filings: Screener.in data, annual reports and exchange disclosures on NSE and BSE, auditor reports and CARO remarks, and the notes to accounts where problems are usually disclosed in plain sight. You will rebuild ten-year forensic worksheets, reconcile profit to cash, test capitalisation and depreciation choices, dig out contingent liabilities and standalone versus consolidated gaps, compute the Beneish M-Score and Sloan accruals by hand, and finish with blind full-company drills that end in a position decision. Built for experienced retail investors, active traders and HNI investors who want a repeatable forensic routine rather than a list of scandals.
- Build a ten-year forensic worksheet for any listed Indian company from Screener.in and BSE/NSE filings
- Test whether reported revenue and margins are confirmed by cash collections, input costs and peers
- Catch capitalised expenses, stuck CWIP, depreciation policy changes and deferred impairments
Practice Drills: Spotting Revenue Recognition Red Flags in Sample Financials
A practice-first foundation course on the single most manipulated line in any income statement: revenue. You start with how Ind AS 115 says revenue should be recognised, in plain words, and a small toolkit of ratios you can compute from Screener.in and an annual report. Then you work through sample financials of three fictional listed Indian companies, each hiding a different revenue problem. Every lesson is a drill: you get an excerpt of the numbers or notes, you log the flags you find, and you check your answers against a worked solution. You will catch receivables that outrun sales, fourth-quarter spikes and channel stuffing, bill-and-hold sales, swelling unbilled revenue, gross-versus-net games, related party sales, other income passed off as operations, and revenue that GST returns and cash collections do not confirm. The course ends with a timed blind drill and a simple framework for turning a flag count into an avoid, watch or dig-deeper call. Built for commerce and finance students heading into forensic work, compliance career aspirants, and investors who want to spot inflated revenue before the market does.
- Explain the Ind AS 115 five-step model and when revenue can actually be booked
- Compute the five core revenue red flag ratios from Screener.in data and annual report notes
- Spot timing games: receivables outrunning sales, fourth-quarter spikes, bill-and-hold and swelling unbilled revenue
Practice Drills: Tracing a Layered Transaction Network on Sample Data
An advanced, practice-first course on tracing layered funds through a network of accounts, the work a forensic auditor or financial crime investigator does after the alert fires. You start with a fictional case file: a victim complaint, statements from several Indian banks, wallet and payment aggregator records, and KYC data. You resolve accounts into real-world entities, turn the ledger into an edge list, draw the network and use centrality and community detection to find hubs, brokers and collector accounts. You then follow the money hop by hop and allocate tainted funds using FIFO, LIFO, pro-rata and the lowest intermediate balance rule, and handle cash withdrawals, splits and dead ends. Further drills take the trace through wallets, trade invoices and cross-border remittances, and crypto exchanges. The course closes with an evidence-grade fund flow chart, a proceeds-of-crime and freeze schedule, a trace report for FIU-IND, law enforcement or the board, and a full end-to-end trace on a fresh dataset. Grounded in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, FIU-IND reporting, RBI KYC Directions and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. All names, accounts and figures are fictional and for training only. Built for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigation professionals.
- Resolve accounts across banks into real-world entities using PAN, mobile, device and address links
- Convert a raw transaction ledger into an edge list and a fund flow network graph
- Use centrality and community detection to find hubs, brokers, collectors and hidden clusters
Understanding Complex Layering and Trade Based Money Laundering
An advanced concept course on the layering stage of money laundering and on trade based money laundering (TBML). You learn why layering is the hardest stage to detect, the techniques used to build complex layering chains in India (shell companies, accommodation entries, mule accounts, securities market schemes, hawala and crypto), and the role professional enablers play. The course then breaks down TBML: over and under invoicing, multiple invoicing, phantom shipments, misdescribed goods and services invoicing, and how each maps onto India's trade finance and foreign exchange plumbing, GST invoicing and high-risk commodities such as gold and diamonds. Real Indian cases anchor the material. The final chapter covers detection: red flag indicators, unit price benchmarking, network analysis and building a defensible suspicious transaction report for FIU-IND. Educational content only, not legal advice. Built for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigation professionals.
- Explain why layering is the hardest stage of money laundering to detect and what makes a layering scheme complex
- Recognise the main layering techniques used in India, from shell companies and accommodation entries to mule accounts and bogus LTCG schemes
- Break down the core TBML techniques and calculate the value moved by over and under invoicing
Understanding Cross Border Money Laundering Through Shell Structures
A concept course for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigators who need to understand shell structures from the inside. It takes apart the corporate vehicles that launderers use, from shell and front companies to nominee directors, trusts and layered holding chains in conduit jurisdictions, and shows how money actually crosses India's border through round tripping on the FDI and overseas investment routes, trade mispricing, hawala and back-to-back credit arrangements. You then work through the Indian legal net of the PMLA, FEMA, the Black Money Act and the Benami law, the beneficial ownership and layering rules under the Companies Act, and what the government and SEBI shell company crackdowns revealed. The second half is investigative: mapping ownership chains with public data, tracing fund flows across jurisdictions, reading related party disclosures for red flags and obtaining evidence from abroad. It closes with Indian case files and the detection controls an institution needs against shell structure risk.
- Distinguish shell, shelf, front and conduit companies and explain why each appeals to launderers
- Map the placement, layering and integration stages onto specific offshore vehicles, trusts and holding chains
- Trace how illicit money crosses India's border through round tripping, trade mispricing, hawala and back-to-back credit
Understanding Cryptocurrency and Its Use in Money Laundering Schemes
A practitioner's guide to cryptocurrency as a money laundering channel, written for the Indian regulatory setting. You start with what an investigator must understand about blockchains, wallets, stablecoins and exchanges, then work through India's framework: virtual digital assets under PMLA since March 2023, FIU-IND registration for offshore and domestic exchanges, Section 115BBH tax and 1 percent TDS as an investigative trail, and FATF Recommendation 15 with the Travel Rule. The core of the course maps the laundering typologies in use today, from mixers, privacy coins and chain hopping to DeFi bridges, NFT wash trading, P2P mule networks and crypto-hawala rails. You then learn how blockchain tracing works, what analytics tools can and cannot prove, and how to spot crypto exposure in bank and exchange data. Indian cases anchor the theory: the ED's instant loan app probe, the GainBitcoin Ponzi and the 2024 WazirX hack. The course closes with an investigation and risk framework playbook. Educational content only, not legal or investment advice. Built for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigation professionals.
- Read a blockchain transaction and explain what it does and does not reveal about the parties
- Explain how virtual digital asset service providers came under PMLA and what FIU-IND registration requires
- Use the VDA tax and TDS trail as a source of investigative evidence
Understanding Cyber Fraud and Digital Payment Frauds in India
India runs the world's largest real-time payments system, and fraudsters have built an industry on top of it. This course takes digital payment fraud apart the way a forensic auditor or a bank's fraud risk team would. Start with the payment rails themselves, UPI, IMPS, NEFT, cards, wallets and AePS, and the four-stage path every fraud follows from first contact to cash-out. Then work through the schemes one family at a time: fake KYC calls and phishing, UPI collect and QR code tricks, digital arrest scams, fake trading apps and task frauds, SIM swaps, card and AePS frauds, and remote access takeovers. Follow the money through mule account networks and learn the transaction patterns that give them away. Finish with the rulebook, RBI's fraud risk Master Directions, the customer liability framework, the 1930 helpline and I4C machinery, and the IT Act, BNS and PMLA, then the controls, response playbooks and investigation steps an institution actually uses. Written for bank and NBFC compliance officers, aspiring forensic auditors and risk professionals.
- Map how each major Indian payment rail (UPI, IMPS, NEFT, cards, wallets, AePS) is exploited and where its weak points sit
- Recognise the mechanics of social engineering frauds, from fake KYC calls to digital arrest scams and fake trading apps
- Explain technical frauds such as SIM swaps, card-not-present fraud, AePS biometric cloning and remote access takeovers
Understanding FATF Guidelines and Global AML Standards
A concept course for compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, aspiring forensic auditors and risk professionals who know the basics of KYC and suspicious transaction reporting and now need to understand the global system those rules come from. It explains what the Financial Action Task Force is and how a body with no treaty and no fines gets every country to comply, then decodes the 40 Recommendations group by group: the risk-based approach, preventive measures for financial institutions, beneficial ownership transparency, the powers of FIUs and law enforcement, and the special regime for terrorist and proliferation financing. You learn how mutual evaluations grade countries on technical compliance and the 11 Immediate Outcomes, how the grey and black lists work and what grey listing has cost countries like Pakistan and the UAE. The course then turns to India: what the 2024 mutual evaluation found, how FATF standards shaped the PMLA amendments and RBI, SEBI and IRDAI rules, and what all this means for Indian investors and cross-border money. It closes with virtual assets and the travel rule, the wider ecosystem of EU, US, Wolfsberg, Basel and Egmont standards, and where global AML rules are heading.
- Explain what FATF is, how its network of member countries and regional bodies works, and why its standards bind countries without a treaty
- Navigate the 40 Recommendations and explain the risk-based approach, preventive measures and beneficial ownership rules they set
- Describe the FATF regime for terrorist financing, proliferation financing, targeted financial sanctions and non-profit organisations
Understanding Financial Statement Fraud: The Fraud Triangle Framework
Financial statement fraud is rarely the work of a career criminal. It is usually committed by senior people at real companies who were under pressure, saw a gap in the controls and told themselves a story that made it acceptable. This course teaches the fraud triangle, the framework Donald Cressey built from interviews with convicted embezzlers, as the lens auditors, compliance officers and investigators use to explain and anticipate that behaviour. You will separate error and aggressive accounting from fraud, then study each side of the triangle in depth with Indian evidence: covenant breaches, promoter pledges and guidance pressure; weak controls, captured audit committees and related party complexity; and the language of rationalisation in letters, earnings calls and annual reports. Satyam, IL&FS, DHFL and Gensol Engineering are read through the framework. The course then covers its extensions (the fraud diamond, pentagon and fraud scale), its honest limitations, and how it is embedded in Indian practice through SA 240 and the RBI Master Directions on Fraud Risk Management. Written for aspiring forensic auditors, compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, and finance professionals in risk and compliance roles.
- Distinguish honest error, aggressive accounting and financial statement fraud using intent and materiality
- Explain where the fraud triangle came from and what Cressey's research actually found
- Identify financial, market and personal pressure from public filings, pledge data and pay structures
Understanding Insolvency Fraud and Asset Stripping Before Bankruptcy
By the time a company is admitted into insolvency, the most valuable assets have often already left the building. Brands move to promoter entities, cash leaves as advances to suppliers that never deliver, the parent's debts get secured on the subsidiary's land, and friendly creditors appear on the claims list. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code gives resolution professionals and lenders the tools to reverse this: preferential, undervalued, fraudulent and extortionate transactions under Sections 43 to 51, and personal liability for fraudulent and wrongful trading under Section 66. This advanced concept course is for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigators. It covers the asset stripping playbook used in Indian promoter-led groups, the legal tests and look-back periods for each avoidance transaction, how the CoC process itself gets manipulated, how a forensic transaction audit is scoped and run under the CIRP Regulations, and what happens to avoidance recoveries and parallel ED, CBI and SFIO proceedings after a resolution plan is approved, with Jaypee Infratech, DHFL, Bhushan Power and Steel and other Indian cases throughout. Educational content only, not investment or legal advice.
- Why the months before insolvency are when value is most often stripped from a company, and the warning signs that show up in filings first
- How to distinguish preferential, undervalued, fraudulent and extortionate transactions under Sections 43, 45, 49 and 50 of the IBC, including look-back periods and defences
- The asset stripping playbook in Indian promoter groups: slump sales, brand and IP transfers, supplier advances, inter-corporate deposits and collateral shifting
Understanding International Cooperation in Financial Crime Investigation
Financial crime crosses borders in seconds. Investigations cross them in years. This course explains the machinery that closes that gap: mutual legal assistance treaties, letters rogatory, FIU-to-FIU exchange through the Egmont Group, SEBI's use of the IOSCO multilateral MoU, tax information exchange under DTAAs, CRS and FATCA, Interpol notices, extradition and cross-border asset recovery. You learn who India's central authorities are, how a request is drafted and routed, why requests stall on dual criminality, specialty and foreign data protection rules, and how foreign evidence is made admissible in an Indian court. Real cases anchor every chapter: the HSBC Geneva list, the Panama and Pandora Papers, Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and 1MDB. The course closes with the practitioner's side: building a cross-border evidence pack that agencies can actually use and handling foreign requests that land on an Indian institution. Educational content only, not legal advice. Built for senior forensic auditors, chief compliance officers and financial crime investigation professionals.
- Explain why sovereignty creates an evidence gap and which treaties and standards bridge it
- Identify India's central authorities for MLA, extradition, FIU exchange, securities and tax requests
- Follow an MLAT request and a letter rogatory from drafting to execution abroad
Understanding Related Party Transaction Red Flags
A foundation concept course for investors who want to catch governance trouble early, commerce and finance students heading into forensic work, and compliance aspirants. Related party transactions are deals between a listed company and people or entities close to its promoters, and in India they are the single most common channel through which minority shareholders lose value. The course explains who counts as a related party, why most related party deals are perfectly normal, and how the Companies Act, SEBI LODR and Ind AS 24 control them through audit committee approval, materiality thresholds and shareholder votes. It then walks through the classic red flags one by one: loans and advances to promoter entities, royalties and brand fees, odd-priced purchases and sales with group companies, asset transfers, guarantees, and undisclosed or shell related parties. Real Indian cases, from Satyam and Maytas to DHFL, Fortis and Zee, show how each pattern played out. You finish with simple sizing ratios, a guide to reading shareholder votes and auditor remarks, and a ten minute red flag check you can run on any NSE or BSE listed company.
- Explain what a related party transaction is and identify who counts as a related party of an Indian listed company
- Tell routine, arm's length related party deals apart from ones that move value away from minority shareholders
- Summarise how the Companies Act, SEBI LODR and Ind AS 24 require related party transactions to be approved and disclosed
Understanding SEBI and RBI's Roles in Financial Crime Prevention
A ground-up guide to how India's two main financial regulators prevent, detect and punish financial crime. Start with the map: what counts as financial crime, why SEBI and RBI have very different mandates, and where agencies such as the ED, FIU-IND, SFIO and CBI fit in. Then go inside SEBI's fight against market crime: insider trading, manipulation and front running under the PIT and PFUTP Regulations, how exchange surveillance flags suspicious trades, and the orders, penalties and settlements SEBI uses once it finds them. Next, go inside RBI's rulebook for banking crime: how banks must classify and report frauds, early warning signals and red-flagged accounts, wilful defaulters, KYC obligations and the rules on digital payment fraud and customer liability. See both regulators at work in real Indian cases, then learn how to verify an entity's registration, where to report fraud, and what compliance and investigation careers look like.
- Explain which kinds of financial crime fall under SEBI, which under RBI, and which go to other agencies
- Describe what SEBI's insider trading and PFUTP rules prohibit, with Indian examples of each
- Understand how surveillance flags suspicious trades and what SEBI can do once it finds wrongdoing
Understanding Shell Companies and Layering Techniques
An intermediate course on the single most common vehicle for laundering money in India: the shell company. Learn what legally counts as a shell, how one is incorporated and kept alive on paper, and why dummy directors, accommodation entries and share premium make them so useful to launderers and tax evaders. Then work through the layering techniques that move money through them: circular transactions, round tripping, bogus share capital and unsecured loans, fake GST invoices, penny stock LTCG schemes and multi-layer holding structures. Map the Indian legal net, from the Companies Act layering limits and significant beneficial owner rules to PMLA, the Benami Act and the 2017 shell company crackdown, and finish by learning how to spot shells using MCA data, financial statements and bank statements, with real Indian cases throughout.
- Define a shell company and separate it from legitimate holding, dormant and special purpose companies
- Explain how entry operators use dummy directors and paper companies to sell accommodation entries
- Trace the main layering techniques: circular flows, bogus share capital, unsecured loans, fake GST invoices and penny stock LTCG schemes
Understanding Transaction Monitoring Systems in Banks
A concept course for compliance officers at banks and NBFCs, aspiring forensic auditors and risk professionals who want to understand the machine at the centre of every bank's AML programme. It explains why Indian banks must monitor transactions under the PMLA and RBI's KYC Directions, where monitoring sits between KYC, screening and reporting to FIU-IND, and how real-time payment monitoring differs from overnight batch scans. You then open up the engine: the data it consumes from core banking and channel systems, how customer risk rating and segmentation shape what it looks for, and why poor data quality quietly breaks most systems. The course decodes detection scenarios, from structuring and rapid movement of funds to dormant account reactivation and UPI mule networks, and follows an alert through triage, investigation and case management to a filed STR. It closes with the hard problems: false positives, threshold tuning, performance metrics and model validation, the shift to machine learning and network analytics, and what regulators in India and abroad have done to banks whose monitoring failed.
- Explain what a transaction monitoring system does and the legal obligations under the PMLA and RBI rules that require Indian banks to run one
- Place monitoring correctly alongside KYC, sanctions screening and FIU-IND reporting, and distinguish real-time from post-event monitoring
- Describe the data a monitoring system needs and how customer risk rating and segmentation drive what it detects
Understanding the Basics of Financial Statement Auditing
A concept course on the financial statement audit as it works in India. You will learn what an audit does and does not promise, how reasonable assurance and materiality shape the work, and who is responsible for what between management, the auditor and the audit committee. You will see the rules that govern a statutory audit under the Companies Act, 2013, the Standards on Auditing issued by ICAI, and the oversight role of NFRA, along with auditor independence and rotation. You will then follow the audit itself, from planning and risk assessment through controls testing, substantive procedures, evidence, sampling and going concern. Finally you will learn to read an Indian auditor's report section by section, tell the four opinion types apart, use Key Audit Matters and CARO 2020 remarks, and spot the auditor red flags that preceded failures like Satyam and IL&FS. Built for commerce and finance students, compliance career aspirants, and investors who want to know what the audit report on a listed company is really telling them.
- Explain what a financial statement audit does, and what reasonable assurance and materiality really mean
- Separate the responsibilities of management, the statutory auditor and the audit committee
- Describe how the Companies Act, 2013, ICAI's Standards on Auditing and NFRA govern audits in India
Understanding the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in India
A plain-language guide to India's Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 for students, investors and anyone heading into a compliance career. Learn how Section 3 defines the offence, why the PMLA was enacted, and how scheduled offences act as the gateway to every case. Walk through the reporting machinery that binds banks, brokers and other reporting entities, from the PML Rules and record keeping to the CTRs and STRs filed with FIU-IND. Then follow a case from the Enforcement Directorate's ECIR through search, arrest, Section 50 statements and provisional attachment, on to the Adjudicating Authority, Special Courts, the twin conditions for bail and confiscation. Finally, read the PMLA through the Supreme Court's lens, from Vijay Madanlal Choudhary to later rulings that set limits on ED power, and see what the law means in practice for investors, your broker account and compliance professionals.
- Explain what Section 3 of the PMLA makes an offence and how scheduled offences trigger the law
- Describe the obligations of reporting entities under the PML Rules, including KYC, record keeping and reporting to FIU-IND
- Tell CTRs, STRs and other FIU-IND reports apart and know when each is filed
Understanding the Role of a Compliance Officer in Financial Institutions
A practical course on the compliance function inside Indian financial institutions, written for aspiring forensic auditors, compliance staff at banks and NBFCs, and finance professionals moving into risk and compliance roles. It explains where compliance sits next to risk management, internal audit and legal, how RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA, IFSCA and FIU-IND each define the compliance officer's role, and what the PMLA roles of principal officer and designated director add. It then walks through the working programme: the compliance policy, the obligations register, compliance risk assessment, monitoring and testing, and sign-off on new products and new circulars. Day-to-day areas covered include KYC and AML, insider trading controls, conduct and customer protection, and regulatory reporting. The final chapters cover independence and reporting lines, board reporting, personal accountability, handling breaches, inspections and enforcement, whistleblower channels, and how to build a career in compliance. All institutions and figures in worked examples are illustrative unless a public source is named; rules are stated as at the date of last review.
- Explain what a compliance officer does and how the role differs from risk management, internal audit and legal
- Map which regulator governs which institution and how RBI, SEBI and IRDAI each define the compliance officer's role
- Understand the PMLA roles of principal officer and designated director and how they sit alongside the compliance officer
Fintech Careers
1 course
Case Study: A Day in the Life of a Product Manager at a Fintech Startup
A narrative, case-study driven walk through a week in the life of a product manager at an Indian fintech startup. Instead of abstract theory, you follow one PM through stand-ups, a live UPI failure, prioritization calls, and a compliance-gated launch to see what the job is actually made of, and whether it is a career worth chasing.
- What a fintech PM actually does day to day, and how the role differs from a Product Owner or Business Analyst
- How to triage a live production issue and frame it as a clear problem statement
- How prioritization frameworks like RICE and MoSCoW get used (and abused) under real deadline pressure