Guides

Learn Margin
in the order you use it

Walkthroughs of what each Margin feature does, the investing concept behind it, and how to use it well. They follow the path a portfolio takes through the product, from the files your broker gives you to the tax on a sale you have not made yet. This is the product manual, written by people who invest. For broader thinking on investing, see Insights.

1 Get your records in 5 2 Research and value a stock 3 3 Decide what to buy and sell 2 4 Track the portfolio 3

How the pieces fit together

Your money, your shares and your tax all sit with parties outside Margin, and each one leaves a file behind. Margin keeps those four files as four records, and every figure in the guides below is worked out from them.

Outside Margin Your bank money leaves for the brokerand comes back here The company its shares are what you holdit pays the dividend The exchange your order is matched hereand the last price is set here Government STT and stamp duty on the tradecapital gains tax on the sale money in, money out dividend your order Your brokerage one trading account per broker login · Zerodha, Groww, Upstox, AngelOne or Other Cash with the broker money in, money out, charges Demat holdings the shares themselves Trades every buy and sell, settled charges and taxes what your broker exports Funds statement one financial year per file Holdings export what you own today,at the broker’s average cost Tradebook every fill, with its date,quantity and price Dividend statement one financial year per file Margin Ledger Holdings Trades Dividends Net invested money in less money outmoney-weighted return Current value allocation gapexpected return on your anchors Lots, oldest sold first XIRR and realised gainLTCG, STCG, tax if sold today Dividends in the return cash returned on the ex-datecounted inside XIRR consistency check Priced and adjusted from the exchange the last quote, and every split, bonus and demerger applied to the lots and the cost behind them
01

Get your records in

Four files come out of your broker, and every figure Margin shows is worked out from them. Start here, and finish with the consistency check.

  1. Import 11 min read

    Importing holdings and trades

    How to bring your broker's holdings export and tradebook into Margin, what each file feeds, the generic CSV layouts for a broker Margin does not read yet, what a re-upload replaces and what it only adds to, and how to read the first errors.

  2. Funds 9 min read

    The funds statement, net invested and charges

    How to bring your broker's funds statement into Margin, what money in, money out and net invested each count, how to read the charges posted to your account, and why a missing year understates every total after it.

  3. Dividends 10 min read

    Dividends, by financial year and on the ex-date

    How a dividend statement goes into Margin one financial year at a time, what re-uploading a year replaces, why the ex-date is the date kept, how each payout enters XIRR, and what to do with rows that match no stock.

  4. Uploads 4 min read

    When Margin cannot read your broker's file

    Which brokers' files Margin reads today for holdings, trades, dividends and the funds statement, why a broker is missing from the list, and how to send its format so it can be added.

  5. Data quality 10 min read

    The consistency check

    How Margin reconciles your tradebook against your demat holding, names the splits and bonuses you never recorded, and why the gap it finds should be closed before you trust XIRR, gains or allocation.

02

Research and value a stock

Read the business before the numbers, keep the ones worth owning, and put a value on them you can defend.

  1. Research 6 min read

    The stock's story as a starting point of research

    Why reading a structured narrative of the business, its financial health and its recent story first gives context to every number you look at afterwards.

  2. Screening 5 min read

    Qualitative screening

    Filtering stocks by the quality of the business rather than by numeric filters alone, using Margin's card-by-card screen and fast Yes / Maybe / No / Never verdicts.

  3. Valuation 10 min read

    Using the DCF valuation grid

    A walkthrough of the DCF screen in Margin: which cells you can edit, what each assumption does to the answer, how the right-click fill down works, and what the panels below the grid control.

03

Decide what to buy and sell

Turn that value into the prices you will act at, and a size for the position you want to end up with.

  1. Anchors 10 min read

    Setting price anchors

    Creating Buy, Add, Reduce and Exit as price types, deriving each anchor from your own valuation instead of a round number, putting anchors on stocks you do not own yet, and reading them beside expected return on the dashboard.

  2. Allocation 9 min read

    Setting and reading target allocation

    How the Allocation screen turns a target cost per stock into a live gap against today's portfolio weight, why a winner can drift past its target without a new purchase, and how to use the gap to size a buy rather than trigger a sell.

04

Track the portfolio

What the dashboard is computing on each row, and what a sale today would cost you in tax.

  1. Dashboard 14 min read

    Reading the dashboard columns

    What each dashboard column is computed from, how to add a price anchor or a reverse DCF return as a column of your own, how sorting and the trading account picker narrow the table, and how to read the allocation gap, the anchor and the expected return on one row together.

  2. Dashboard 5 min read

    Tracking expected returns via the dashboard

    How the Margin dashboard reads your valuation assumptions against the current price to give an expected return for each holding, and how to use that figure when you review the portfolio.

  3. Tax 9 min read

    Tax if sold today

    The Unrealised Gains screen prices a sale you have not made: every holding's gain split into short term and long term, the tax each band would attract at today's rates, and a preview of any quantity you are thinking of selling.