How to place your first equity buy order on Kite

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This guide is written for investors who are opening a trading terminal for the first time and want to purchase shares of a listed company on the National Stock Exchange or Bombay Stock Exchange through Zerodha Kite. The procedure applies to both Kite web and the Kite mobile app, with minor interface differences noted throughout.

Understanding the order ticket before you start

Every buy order on Kite is entered through a single order ticket. Before placing an order you must understand three key fields.

Exchange. Indian equity shares are listed on NSE, BSE or both. NSE generally offers higher liquidity for most large-cap and mid-cap stocks. If a scrip is listed on both exchanges, Kite pre-selects the exchange with the better bid-ask spread at the time you open the ticket, but you can override it.

Product code. For buying shares that you intend to hold in your demat account, always select CNC (Cash and Carry), which is documented in the CNC product code article. CNC orders use the full order value from your available cash balance; there is no leverage. If you accidentally select MIS (Margin Intraday Square-off), Zerodha’s system will attempt to square off the position automatically before the end of the trading session, which is almost never the intention of a first-time buyer. MIS is described in the MIS product code article.

Order type. A market order fills immediately at the best available price but the executed price may differ from the price on screen. A limit order lets you specify the maximum price you are willing to pay; the order rests in the exchange’s order book until a seller matches your price or the order expires at day end. First-time buyers typically start with a limit order to avoid price surprises in volatile conditions.

Step-by-step procedure

Log in to Kite

Navigate to kite.zerodha.com in a browser, or open the Kite mobile app. Enter your Zerodha client ID (a six-character alphanumeric code starting with the first two letters of your name, for example RA1234) and your password. Click Continue. On the two-factor authentication screen, enter the six-digit TOTP from your authenticator app. The TOTP changes every thirty seconds; enter it before it expires.

After successful login, the Kite dashboard loads with the marketwatch on the left and charts or portfolio information on the right.

Search for the stock on the marketwatch

Click the search icon or the Add instrument field at the top of the marketwatch panel. Type the company name (for example, “Reliance Industries”) or its exchange symbol (RELIANCE on NSE). A dropdown of matching scrips appears. Each result shows the exchange, the last traded price (LTP), and the day’s change. Click the result that corresponds to the exchange you want to trade on. The scrip is added to your marketwatch.

On the Kite mobile app, the search icon is in the top-right corner of the marketwatch tab. The workflow is otherwise identical.

Open the buy order ticket

On Kite web, hover your cursor over the scrip row in the marketwatch. Two buttons appear at the right edge of the row: a blue B (Buy) and a red S (Sell). Click the blue B. The order ticket slides in from the right side of the screen. Alternatively, click the scrip name to open its market depth, then click the Buy button in the market depth panel.

On the Kite mobile app, tap the scrip in the marketwatch to open its quote screen, then tap the Buy button at the bottom.

Select exchange, product code and order type

The order ticket has a row of option controls at the top.

  • Exchange: Select NSE or BSE. If you are unsure, NSE is the default for most equity trades.
  • Product: Select CNC. This ensures the shares are credited to your demat account and are not squared off intraday.
  • Order type: Select LIMIT for a controlled entry price or MARKET for immediate execution. For your first order, LIMIT is recommended.

Enter quantity and price

In the Qty field, enter the number of shares you wish to purchase. There is no minimum quantity set by Kite (apart from the lot size for F&O instruments, which does not apply to equity cash), but your available funds must cover the order value plus any applicable charges.

If you selected LIMIT, enter your desired buy price in the Price field. Kite pre-fills the LTP as a convenience, but you can edit it. If you selected MARKET, the price field is greyed out.

You can optionally expand More options to set:

  • Validity: DAY (order expires at market close if unfilled) or IOC (Immediate or Cancel, fills whatever it can immediately and cancels the rest).
  • Disclosed qty: The portion of your order quantity visible to other market participants; see the disclosed quantity article for details.

Review and submit

Review the summary panel at the bottom of the order ticket, which shows the scrip name, exchange, product, order type, quantity, price, and the estimated total order value. Verify that the estimated value is within your available funds balance shown in the top bar. Click the blue Buy button to submit. Kite displays a brief confirmation toast (“Order placed successfully”) and assigns an order ID.

Verify in the Order book

Click Orders in the left navigation (or the Orders tab in the mobile app). Your order appears at the top of the list with status Open if it is a resting limit order, or Complete if it filled immediately (as is typical for a market order in liquid stocks). Click the order row to expand it and see the execution details including filled quantity, average price and order ID.

Once the order reaches Complete status, the corresponding trade appears in the Trade book. For a CNC buy, the purchased shares appear in your Kite holdings the following trading day after the exchange’s T+1 settlement cycle.

What can go wrong

  • Insufficient funds. The order is rejected with the message “Insufficient funds or margin.” Add funds through the Kite funds page before placing the order.
  • Price out of circuit limits. If your limit price is outside the exchange’s daily price band (circuit limit), the order is rejected. Enter a price within the current upper circuit limit.
  • Order placed in wrong product code. If you selected MIS instead of CNC, your position will be auto-squared off before 3:20 PM IST. To correct this before square-off, use the position conversion feature.
  • Two-factor authentication failure. If the TOTP has expired (each code is valid for thirty seconds), wait for the next code to appear in your authenticator app and re-enter.
  • Market is closed. If you place an order outside market hours (9:15 AM to 3:30 PM IST on NSE/BSE trading days), the order ticket is available but the order is queued as an AMO (After Market Order). See How to place an AMO on Kite.

References

  1. Zerodha Support, How to place an order on Kite, support.zerodha.com.
  2. NSE India, Equity market trading, FAQs, nseindia.com.
  3. SEBI, Investor education: placing orders, sebi.gov.in.
  4. Zerodha Varsity, Module 1: Introduction to Stock Markets, zerodha.com/varsity.

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