Small broking intermediaries depend on research to justify their advice, yet two parts of that research are often handled informally: the comparison of India with other equity markets, and the way company-level research is carried into portfolio decisions. This paper studies both through a ten-week on-the-job placement at MAG Broking & Consulting Pvt. Ltd., an Indore-based Authorised Person (AP) operating under a principal broker. It combines a rank-based comparison of 16 major equity markets, compiled by the author in a 20-field Excel workbook, with a task-dependency map of the firm’s research workflow. Four hypotheses are examined. India’s relative position differed sharply by horizon: its one-year return ranked 15th of 16 markets, while its five-year CAGR ranked 6th, the largest fall in rank in the sample (nine places). The researcher-assigned labels describing each market’s linkage with India (Strong, Moderate and so on) were not distinguishable from one another in terms of return proximity to India (Spearman ρ = 0.17, p = 0.55) or trading-hour overlap (ρ = 0.16, p = 0.56), and market size did not explain returns. Task mapping showed that four of six research tasks depend on the output of earlier ones, and that a sector-level decision, the avoidance of Indian IT, preceded stock-level choices. The paper recommends replacing qualitative linkage labels with return-based estimates and adopting a layered review checklist. The dataset is a point-in-time student workbook, and all results are exploratory.

Keywords: global stock indices; market linkage; equity research; portfolio review; Authorised Person; Indian capital market; foreign portfolio flows; corporate actions