Honest review and request for Zerodha

Hello guys,

This message is specifically meant for @nithin and @siva. I am posting this as to give you a feedback as a day trader and a heavy user of Zerodha and also with a due request. I think many day-traders can relate to the frustration of not being able to find a good trading software. The current ones like Amibroker, Metastock etc… are really really at an unreasonable price.

First of all with all due respect, I would like to congratulate you guys for your accomplishments and progress that you have encompassed till now. Seriously,It may not be the best comparison but Zerodha is doing to the Indian financial market what SpaceX did to the rocket industry. Because of Zerodha, not only you have made the financial market accessible but ensured that it was easier through your Kite Platform and Sensibull and all of that at the most cheapest cost.

But this very own strength of simplicity has turned into a limitation into other. What I mean is, you guys have been successful at reaching your mission of removing barriers however, from all I can say, when it comes to day-trading, Kite platform just isn’t great for day trading it’s a big headache to execute orders in time. Kite from what I see, is focused on simplicity and minimalism but when it comes to day trading, speed and execution with in-depth news, technical research and risk analysis tools is what’s needed. We all know, time is literally money in day trading particularly in scalping.

As for Pi, it just doesn’t reach the mark, from my research it’s got a lot of issues and bugs and lacks a lot of important features which makes it really unsuitable for trading and I presume Zerodha must have discontinued the development. Anyway, to come to the point, there are really no great day trading terminals/platforms in India that are good enough. There’s an unmet demand being exploited by companies like AmiBroker, Metastock etc. Now to be honest, if we look at US companies, like TD Ameritrade, Interactive Brokers, they have built some great trading platforms like ThinkorSwim and TWS, their software is really great for day-traders with some features like active trader panel, research, news and market data, market scanners, workspace customisation and real-time streaming of news etc. Now I am no expert in this, but why can’t Zerodha make a software like that??

I read a comment few months ago by @nithin that you guys are working with an international firm to create a desktop platform. I hope that this software can fill all the demands that are waiting to be met. Can you provide an update for the same?

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@akarsh_ghale I am feeling so sad reading your message , because in today problem , Even the broker will be there in the future or not they dont know, even we dont know , because SEBI put lot of pressure with broker like cutting leverage , trying to remove the middle man as a broker , in few years retailer will trade directly in the stock exchange itself today the trending news is this one , Brokers are very busy to survive with SEBI circular ,
So i dont think your request as New DESKTOP software is so important for them now … :mask: when you are reading please wear a mask

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Wondering why so?

Kite is far best platform in term of execution speeds I know. What do you mean by news and research? aren’t they lagging info, if you mean current news around the globe then no platform offers that except bloomberg and reuters which charges a bomb( in lakhs per annum) on per user basis.

Wondering what features you are missing on our ecosystem.

On our list of things to do on kite itself, will take sometime though.

No plan as of now, we don’t see the real need of desktop when everything can be done on web itself, it is just perception of old traders who believe desktop is fast, we believe.

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Add option to create more watchlist

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Add index stock list option. We have to search stock on other website (tickertape screener).

Suppose I want to see all the stock in NSE500 and details like share price, change, change%, volume, total turnover, market cap, previous close.

Everything in single screen.

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Will provide predefined watch list.

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@siva what about this ?

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How can you see 500 stocks at a time on shingle screen?

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Honestly speaking Zerodha is not for traders. Kite sucks! Kite is only for big/small investors. It is just basic for buying selling of shares based and tips and their graphs nothing more. Many discussions had been done on this. Suggest, better move on.

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I explain you in details

Add Marketwatch Tab

There will option of indies. If you select any indies like NSE 500. You can see all stock listed in NSE500.

You can give columns like :

  • select box (to select stock to add to watchlist)
  • stock name
  • price
  • changes in price with %
  • Total Volume
  • Total Turnover
  • 52 weeks low-High
  • Market Cap
  • Upper- lower circuit

You can also give option to modify column.

And coming to your question you can add scroll to list.
Also add search option in marketwatch. If someone open NSE500 stock list they can also search. 500 is too many stock :smile:

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Well, okay. By execution speed I mean the speed in terms of the process of executing the order basically the UI is just not suitable for fast ENTRY & EXIT, this especially is very important when it comes to scalping.
Kite also isn’t suitable for scalping Options, to buy and sell an options contract of a particular stock, I would have to switch the window because I cannot directly BUY or SELL options other than stocks from the Popout chart window. That means a lot of valuable time lost.
If you can see in this video. A simple innovation like the ‘active day trader panel’ solves it efficiently.

Coming to the NEWS part, well of course it may seem like a lagging info but you cannot ignore the necessity of this especially for day traders. Real-time streaming of news is extremely important, it may be as simple as a twitter window, or some RSS Headline feeds. Because ultimately stocks move based on the sentiment created by these news providers. Now come on, you know just how important this part is. When it comes to news, I don’t mean GLOBAL NEWS. It could be stock/market-specific. There are many RSS providers that do provide services for free.
RSS feed by Economic TImes

Now as a user of Kite from what I have observed it focuses on simplicity and minimalism, perhaps that is why you guys must have decided to have different platforms for options and stocks altogether, but honestly, from my experience as a day trader I have found it’s much easier and convenient to have all of them amalgamated into a single platform.
See, the main problem with Kite is that I have to switch many windows to setup the trade and execute the order. If i see an opportunity in a 5 min intraday, I will now have two ways to execute the trade. Either, I can go back to the watch-list and type in the name of the derivative and add to watch-list, finally inputting the entry and exit points along with the quantity and clicking BUY OR, i can go to the options chain on sensibull and execute the order from there. Either way, you see the problem here, I have to switch windows here and do everything manually. By the time I do this, huge amount of time is wasted right there and I lose the opportunity.
Now why don’t I just get multiple screens? Yes that’s a solution but that doesn’t solve the problem altogether because we can’t expect the customer to compensate for problems that can be solved by simple workarounds(like active trader panel) besides, just how many screens should I have if one platform(like Sensibull) takes up one complete screen.

Kite also lags when it comes to workspace customisation now that’s a different problem altogether even though I think it does come on top priorities. But to conclude, I hope you guys get the point, Kite has focused so much on simplicity that it has overlooked many features that may be look trivial but matter a lot when it comes to effective trading environments.

I presume, that most of your revenues come from Intrady & FO traders. I have traded in the US and now started trading in India. I can tell you from my experience, Kite lacks a lot of important features that are commonplace in the US. I don’t really like comparing this because they cater to a completely different market but the point remains is that ultimately they cater to one target market and that’s the day traders. I think many people here would agree with me that Kite simply isn’t suitable for day traders. Besides the features, Kite needs more flexibility and provide more choices to its customers/users.

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As far as the brokers I tried , mobile and web trading platform is concerned , nothing comes closer to kite .

As far as stability of the platform is concerned, every broker faces issues once in a while . I would rate Motilal ahead of zerodha , but considering the user base of zerodha , they are doing a good job

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haha, well yeah, It happened to me too but I thought the problem was probably from my end. Anyway, looks like it’s time for Zerodha to raise some good amount of outside capital so they can finally improve their offerings. Zerodha has done a good job not gonna lie, but i feel that they are not really looking to challenge themselves to go out of their comfort zones to see how they can improve their offerings even better and experiment with new things.

But one thing is for sure, Zerodha is not at all for Day-traders. Their marketing is as misleading as their courses on Varsity :laughing:

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@nithin Just another question, What is on your take on the LTP percentage issue? How this problem can be solved? Like for that Zerodha need to take multiple trading member license?

KITE is the best mobile app I have used for trading. I have no doubt about it. Putting everything that zerodha offers together, I don’t think they have a peer in the market. That doesn’t mean they are picture perfect. It’s just that in an imperfect world they are doing lot of things right for a customer like me to stick with them.

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I daily trade from mobile Kite app. Rarely I use KITE web app. I find no issues in most of the days. Yes few days in a year I do face the known issues eg login issues etc. Charting I would say is more than adequate and fully supports scalping, day trading , swing trading, positional trading and lt portfolio building (GTT …) . However one matter I think @nithin should look into - that is withdrawal process. Why on earth it would take so much time to get the withdrawn money. For non working sat , it is not credited but we heard that NEFT is now 24 /7. @nithin should consider real time transfer out , may be upto a limit say 1 or 2 lakhs.

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What is this?

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Till 24/7 is not implemented by HDFC at corporate level, we are also working for instant withdrawal feature upto certain limit.

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This is so true. I traded heavily for 2yrs on Zerodha. But I had to leave Zerodha on 25th March this year , when they took out Nest Trader. Only people who are fast scalpers know the importance of even a couple of seconds. The think that Kite is faster in execution , it may or may not be, but the issue is in kite you have to switch between keyboard & mouse muntiple times to place order, so you get really late in placing order , so the Kite’s faster execution doesnt really change anything signficant in total process. I challenge anyone using Kite to match my speed in placing a trade on any script when I’m trading on NEST. NEST needs to come back at least temporariy till they are ready to offer something better. Most seasoned traders old or now, trade using either NEST or ODIN or a slightly modified version of them only, not on a website or mobile app, anyone believing otherwise has no idea of groud reality.

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Very well said …Akarsh_ghale :+1:- Yes I relate to your situation that there is a need for day trader focused desktop app for zerodha. What if market research and real-time streaming of news is the area of focus of Zerodha ? These features require reasonable development and testing time and may not be the area of focus of Zerodha. Therefore one has to live with third party charting and analysis apps(Amibroker, SierraCharts, MultiCharts, TradingView).

No doubt Nitin Kamat and team have done exceptional work and I am sure team Zerodha is not stagnant and must be doing something to stay ahead.

Zerodha has done better than any broker to empower retail trader.

It does not have any kind of conflict of interest or front running of its client’s orders. The team is upright, honest and very prompt.

Few disruption/server shout-downs in the past could be competitors’ hacks/operations. But zerodha is doing everything possible to avoid disruptions.

But there is a long way for Zerodha to match with other benchmark type discount brokers(like Interactive Brokers) and stay ahead the way zerodha has been in India so far.

My pain points :-

Kite trading terminal is not at all for day traders.

Being web based, no dark theme (white bright background lands you with fatigued eyes).

If you have to place order, every time select quantity, price, click. It should be one click only. Shortcut keys need to be more shortcut!!!

I click 100 times , shuffling tabs, to see pending (and executed) orders and positions.

Avg price and P&L of an instrument traded 20 times in a day is of no use for day trader. It is the last position’s order price and P&L in relation to last entry price that matters to handle current trade.

Kite Connect Rest Like API access 2000/- per month is unreasonable, perhaps not required. As a result, most of the zerodha clients wanting to autotrade but do not go for it because they have to pay for datafeed, charting software, trading bridge and now for KITE Connect API access. Also, service providers (Algoji) are not ready to offer autotrading bridge or some service providers have bypassed the requirement of kite connect route to automate trades. Better make Kite connect free. IB, Ameritrade, etc none of them charge for API Access.

Zerodha has very few order types. Bracket order has awkward restrictions, you cannot cancel pending leg of bracket order!!

Sensibull, not of any professional standard. Even two decades old “Options Oracle” of Samaosky is far excellent. It makes more sense if they provide a desktop app than the poor web based platform. Also, you cannot place a two legged strategy order in one click. If you cannot do that, your spread is loss making right from entry!!!

Hidden orders are permitted only for stocks. What stops to extend it to futures or options, like IB?

High time for introducing preset scale-in, scale-out order types!

Very Important: My Suggestions

Following solutions should be considered until zerodha has its own solution:-

(a) SEBI is throwing new challenges to datafeed providers because of asymmetry in data quality, speed and extent, which are tilted to give advantage to some. Zerodha has been providing Level-3 , high speed and quality data. Zerodha can leapfrog if it provides data and broker integration directly with Amibroker, MultiCharts, SierraChart as they provide complete trading features viz., Account Information, Funds, Margins, Positions, Orders, have different ordertypes etc. Until/ Unless zerodha develops its own desktop terminal, it can consider broker integration with these apps.

(b) Already Kite extends charting facility of TradingView. It can extend the joint-man-ship with broker integration for trading and datafeed with Trading View.

© Amibroker is most commonly used platforms, because of its sheer speed and simplicity. Zerodha may consider providing KITE Connect RESTlike API bridge/library with sample codes for Amibroker, like it has done for Python, Java (which are very slow and dud). By this zerodha can also discourage API bridge service providers who bypass kite connect subscription !!!

In summary :-

“Broker Integration for datafeed and trading with full featured charting and analysis apps, REST API library for popular charting apps(like Amibroker) are interim solutions until zerodha develops its own toolsets. Zerdoha’s native datafeed with charting app is future proofing Zerodha with impending SEBI’s view/policy on datafeed providers”

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