In the previous two chapters, we focused on the groundwork that makes global investing possible for Indian residents.

In Chapter 1, we discussed the regulatory side. We looked at the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) and how it allows Indian residents to legally send money abroad for investments, along with the limits and compliance requirements that come with it.

In Chapter 2, we explored the different structures available within India that provide international exposure. These included international mutual funds and feeder funds that invest in overseas markets on behalf of Indian investors.

Those routes work well and are widely used. But they have one common characteristic. You are not investing in the companies directly. Instead, you are investing through a structure that is between you and the actual underlying securities.

This chapter moves the discussion one step further.

Here we look at what happens when you invest directly through a global brokerage account, where you can access international markets yourself.

Once you think global markets in this way, investors typically participate through three broad instruments.

The first is individual stocks, where you buy shares of specific companies and hold them directly in your brokerage account.

The second is exchange traded funds (ETFs), which track an index, sector, or investment theme and trade on stock exchanges throughout the day.

The third is global funds, often structured as UCITS funds, where a professional fund manager builds and manages the portfolio.

All three approaches ultimately provide exposure to global companies. The difference is in how the investment is structured, how diversified the exposure is, and how much control the investor has over the portfolio.