With investment, the first thing you should do is your homework. It is the same with mutual fund investment. If you have selected a few funds of your choice, you may want to compare them before finalising one. With three broad kinds of schemes, like hybrid, debt and equity funds, you should know that you are choosing the one that matches your requirements. By giving you a rough idea of returns from your investment, the calculator helps you to make informed decisions and solid choices.

As the name implies, the stock market or the share market is a platform where stocks and shares of companies are freely traded between investors. In India, the stock market is electronic, which means that buying or selling a company's shares must be done online through a trading portal of a stockbroker. There are currently two stock exchanges - the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) - that facilitate the trading of shares in the country.

There are several factors that you need to consider when selecting a stock for your investment portfolio. This includes your investment goals, your risk tolerance, fundamental factors, stock technicals, business risk factors, economic trends and market conditions, among others.

In addition to equity shares of companies, several other instruments are traded in the stock markets. Preference shares, Differential Voting Rights (DVR) shares, debt securities like bonds and debentures, derivative contracts like futures and options, and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are the other instruments that are routinely traded.

The price of a stock is determined by a variety of different micro and macro factors. Some of the most important factors are the company’s performance, earnings reports, industry risks, market conditions, macroeconomic factors, geopolitical scenarios, corporate actions, company-specific news and events and investor sentiment, among others.