The history of e-trading goes back to 1983, when a doctor in Michigan placed the first online trade using E*TRADE technology. What began with a single click has now taken the world by storm. The concept was visualised by one Bill Porter, a physicist and inventor with more than a dozen patents to his credit, who provided online quotes and trading services to Fidelity, Charles Schwab, and Quick & Reilly. This led Bill to wonder why, as an individual investor, he had to pay a broker hundreds of dollars for stock transactions. With incredible foresight, he saw the solution at hand: someday everyone would own computers and invest through them with unprecedented efficiency and control. And today his dream has become a reality.

Online trading means trading/investing in equities, derivatives, commodities etc through the Internet. It enables the investor to electronically connect (through Internet, using a broker like HSBC InvestDirect Securities (India) Limited (HISL)) to buy or sell stocks, derivatives etc with the other investors. In online trading, one can access a stockbroker's website through an Internet-enabled PC and can place orders.

Online trading started in February 2000 when a couple of brokers started offering an online trading platform for their customers.