Author: Nithin Kamath


 

Business updates: 14 years of Zerodha – The Pivot?

We turned 14 on August 15th. The past 12 months have been quite volatile for me personally. Nikhil and I lost our dad in December, and I was hit by a stroke immediately after that in January. I am now feeling better and have recovered about 85%, but I’m still struggling with my speech and […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
460
24 Sep 2024
 

NSE circular suspending referral programmes

NSE published a circular on August 14 that says: With a view to safeguard the interest of investors, it is hereby clarified that any person referring a client to the Trading Member (broker) shall be appointed as an Authorised Person (AP) of the Trading Member after obtaining specific prior approval from the stock exchange for […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
133
20 Aug 2024
 

SEBI’s “true to label” circular

SEBI recently issued a circular stating that market infrastructure institutions (MIIs) have to be “true to label” in the charges they levy from October 2nd, 2024. This circular has an impact not only on brokers but also on trading and investing customers. So in this post, I explain what it means and how it affects you, the customer.

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
94
02 Jul 2024
 

Stock trading games & copy trading platforms in India?

Update 28th Oct 2022: This Yourstory article claims that NSE has issued cease and desist notices to stock gaming apps. As we mentioned in this post below, regulations don’t allow the exchange market data feed to be used for any fantasy or gaming app.  Update 21st Apr 2023: NSE published a circular prohibiting the use […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
68
25 May 2024
 

Account opening now free under the age of 25

Update: Account opening is free for all resident individual accounts from June 29th, 2024. Despite all the headline numbers about Indian markets growing, we’re still quite small. Compared to the pre-pandemic base, we’ve grown tremendously, but there are still just about 9 crore unique investors in India (out of 140 crore people). Thanks to the […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
47
23 Apr 2024
 

2023 at Zerodha

2023 was a busy year for us at Zerodha, with the majority focus on backend and behind-the-scenes changes; be it technology, operations, compliance, or customer support. Our 13th year was dedicated to streamlining, overhauling and refactoring the behind-the-scenes systems, and R&D, paving the way for several new products and features we have in the pipeline.

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
731
01 Jan 2024
 

An apology for the two consecutive tech issues in the last two months

In the business updates post I shared in August this year, I mentioned how we hadn’t had any large tech issues for a couple of years. Unfortunately, we have had two episodes in quick succession in the last two months, affecting between 5 and 20% of our active customers. As a broker, we have multiple […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
192
05 Dec 2023
 

Beware of Pig Butchering Scams

Pig butchering scam involves fattening the victim before butchering. Scammers gain the trust of users by using fake profiles. They use the pretense of love and friendship to gain the trust of users and then induce them to send money for jobs and high-return investments and steal the money.

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
0
22 Nov 2023
 

Business updates: 13 years of Zerodha and why we do what we do

We turned 13 on August 15th, another year where my predictions were wrong. As someone once said, the good thing about being a pessimist is that you are either right or pleasantly surprised, and FY22/23 was the latter. There is maybe an investing lesson in this as well; markets are random, and even subject matter […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
26 Sep 2023
 

Rainmatter – Perennial investments

Around 2016 when Zerodha was slowly growing, we realised that a key problem to solve in the industry, which in turn had much wider impact, was to help expand capital markets at the same time as increasing access. We knew that this couldn’t be done by us alone and that it was necessary to collaborate […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
14
09 Aug 2023
 

Sensibull is now free for all our customers

We first started talking to Abid (Co-Founder & CEO, Sensibull) in 2016 about building a platform that can help options traders do better. Since most people traded naked options, the goal was to nudge them to trade limited risk strategies with appropriate risk to reward and position sizes and even push them to take a […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
328
24 Jul 2023
 

बढ़ते डिस्क्लोज़र और ट्रांसपेरेंसी में सुधार 

मैं पिछले कुछ दिंनो से चार्ली मंगर को पढ़ और सुन रहा हूँ, और इन्हें पढ़ते हुए मैं खुद के बारे में और Zerodha को कैसा होना चाहिए सिखता हूँ। इस सीख़ का संछेप इस लिस्ट में दिए गए चार्ली मंगर की कुछ कहावतों से कर सकते है : One of the greatest ways to […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
46
14 Dec 2022
 

Business updates, increased disclosures and improving transparency

Hindi: इस पोस्ट को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिए यहाँ क्लिक करें। I have been reading and listening to quite a bit of Charlie Munger over the last few days. Every time I go down this rabbit hole, I tend to discover more about myself and what I think Zerodha should be. If I had […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
191
14 Dec 2022
 

लिवरेज का उपयोग करके ट्रेड करने पर लगने वाली मार्जिन्स और मार्जिन पेनॉल्टी

लिवरेज  जब इक्विटी या F&O ट्रेडर अपने अकाउंट में उपलब्ध मार्जिन या फंड्स से ज्यादा की पोज़िशन लेते है तो ऐसे पोज़िशन को लिवरेज्ड पोज़िशन कहा जाता है। ऐसा लोग इसलिए करते है ताकि वह अपने कैपिटल की तुलना में ज्यादा रीटर्न प्राप्त कर सकें, लेकिन इसके कारण उन्हें रिस्क ज्यादा लेना पड़ता है। लिवरेज्ड […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
3
29 Sep 2022
 

Margins & Margin penalties when trading with leverage

Leverage When an equity or F&O trader takes a position greater in value than the funds or margins available in their account, such positions are said to be leveraged. This is typically done with the idea of generating a higher return on capital, but it entails taking a higher risk. Leveraged trades also give the […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
59
28 Sep 2022
 

Introducing Ditto—Insurance made easy

The first time we read the Finshots newsletter (then called Finception), we immediately reached out to the team, trying to figure out if there was a way to associate and help them reach a wider audience. Making it easier for Indians to learn finance is our top priority, and hence partnered with Finshots through our […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
37
06 Sep 2022
 

12 years of Zerodha

Hindi: इस पोस्ट को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिए यहाँ क्लिक करें। Happy Independence Day, We just turned 12 years old on August 15th. Thanks to your support and the market action, we have grown spectacularly over the last two years, from twenty lakh customers to over one crore customers without ever spending on marketing or […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
555
16 Aug 2022
 

Regulatory changes from 2nd May: Segregation of client collateral

SEBI turned 30 years old on the 12th of April, and the number of regulatory changes they have instituted in the broking industry in the last 3 years must be more than the combined total done in the previous 27 years! While it has been quite painful operationally for the industry to implement the slew […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
31
04 May 2022
 

Investing in US stocks through NSE IFSC

NSE IFSC recently announced trading in 50 popular US stocks like Apple, Amazon, and Tesla in the form of unsponsored depository receipts for Indian investors. This has created a lot of buzz among investors who’ve been looking for easy ways to get exposure to these stocks. While the stock exchanges in GIFT City were primarily […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
161
04 Mar 2022
 

Physical delivery of stock F&O & their risks 

Update: NSE has reintroduced Do Not Exercise Facility (DNE) in stock options from April 28, 2022. Physical delivery of stock options can potentially lead to systemic risk in the capital markets and pose a risk to traders. But before I explain these risks, let me first set the context with an outline of the regulatory […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
96
03 Jan 2022
 

Broking goes mainstream – Dec 2021

I was at the Blossom Book House in Bengaluru last week buying some comics for my son, when a 20-year-old recognised me (behind a mask!) and got really excited. In my head, I thought to myself, “hmm… why?”. And this reaction pretty much defines how the last two years of the business have been for […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
122
31 Dec 2021
 

Introducing Varsity Video Series

We launched Varsity 8 years back using this cover image and this was what we planned to attempt. Excerpts from the original post:  At Zerodha we took inspiration from the MOOC (Massive Open Online courses)  world to attempt solve some of the biggest problems concerning the Indian Capital market: Lack of knowledge – Lack of […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
78
24 Dec 2021
 

Investing in high growth, low profit businesses?

Hindi: इस पोस्ट को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिए यहाँ क्लिक करें। The world of investing has evolved significantly from when Benjamin Graham first wrote Intelligent Investor (1949), where he spoke about investing only in value stocks with sufficient margin of safety (intrinsic value > market value), to now where high growth startups are getting […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
2
15 Nov 2021
 

The rise of Algo trading platforms & everything you need to know

Update (9th Dec 2021): SEBI has put up a consultation paper, which I am guessing is due to their worry about the growing popularity of unregulated algo trading platforms that offer off the shelf automated strategies. Some of these platforms also make false claims of guaranteed returns. SEBI is absolutely right in being concerned and […]

Founder & CEO @ Zerodha
74
12 Oct 2021