Thread by @theBuoyantMan

Guys posting on twitter about Zerodha - predominantly traders, listen up. A thread on various brokers.

1. Zerodha is not the leading brokerage now for no reason. They have pretty decent customer service (or non-service). They have based their approach on Robinhood's model in the US, and also tried to emulate Apple's model of building an ecosystem.

Now, you can buy mutual funds on Zerodha, use the API for auto-trading (not really auto), buy and hold stocks, gold, bonds, etc. You can use smallcase for investing too. You can use sensibull for options. You can use their screener to screen stocks, etc.

When it comes to this ecosystem, none of the above mentioned products are "extraordinary" by any means, but in tandem with each other, they all work in a fluid manner, especially with a top notch UI/UX on the web platform.

Now why do people agree to pay a yearly fees for having a Zerodha account? Simply for having access to all these products. A lot of people who signed up with Zerodha did so because of the herd mentality "if it's popular, it must be good". If their friends have it, they have too.

Every product has a linear growth until the tipping point, after which the growth goes exponential. That tipping point happened to Zerodha predominantly because of the first mover advantage and knowing what to copy and how to copy them (with improvements or not).

Needless to say, Zerodha did level the playing field, spooked the full brokers that were exploiting the fuck out of small retail traders with exorbidant brokerage fees, and created the first wave of educating/familiarising indian public with respect to stock markets.

Now that the first wave is over, the second wave will be whatever Zerodha offers + efficiency + top notch execution. But which broker will bring that is the question.

2. The second best in terms of popularity is Fyers. Tejas Khoday is very energetic and passionate about building this business and i have seen the kind of work he's putting in. Their platform has grown very well, exactly similar structure of brokerage like Zerodha.

Fyers is building everything in-house instead of outsourcing, and for @tradingview fans, Fyers charting is brilliant. Fyers thematic investing also got pretty famous (i haven't used that yet) and their desktop software is robust enough (better than PI i'd say).

But off late, i have heard (and seen on traderji forum also) fyers going through some issues occasionally. So, execution wise, it's pretty similar to zerodha in all fronts. I'd say Fyers is a good alternative.

3. The next broker making waves in the brokerage industry is Finvasia. Donno if they are making waves per se, but their zero brokerage plan is brilliant for those who are concerned about paying even the 20 rupees per lot or whatever.

Finvasia customer service is okay. I first signed up with Finvasia for NSE NOW platform, traded for a while, NSE NOW was nimble, and after a break of 4-5 months, saw that the account was deactivated. Requested for reactivation and got NEST instead of NSE NOW which they stopped.

This was primarily due to @NSEIndia themselves not maintaining NOW platform properly and a lot of traders faced issues intermittently with the NOW platform - both desktop and web. So, i started with NEST and initially had faced issues with connectivity and stuff.

@Finvasia customer support helped out, but needless to say it was a steep learning curve to adapt to NEST, especially when internet disconnects and connects back, the quotes don't refresh, and refresh broadcast makes your app go NOT RESPONDING and you have to close and open again

One or two times, the NEST app froze after placing a buy/sell order and it was difficult to place the SL order and had to take a small loss by the time i had to force close and log back in.

Their Scalpert platform and all other in-house apps suck because they are all underdeveloped. The only decent product you can use to trade with Finvasia is NEST. After getting used to it, I didn't find any issues with execution, it was much faster than Zerodha kite/pi.

You have to pay a small amt for Bracket order feature, and also few other features - extra leverage, etc., are charged. But when you're a regular trader, these costs are way less than what you pay Zerodha/Fyers as brokerage.

Funds transfer is not still as smooth as Zerodha, but then Zerodha's funds transfer is also not as smooth, often funds availability showing wrong figures in decimals and getting cancelled due to that. This can be avoided by being proactive about funds availability/withdrawal.

The compromises you make will be completely on User Experience, but that said I absolutely love NEST's arcane early 2000-ish platform like look. I haven't experienced withdrawal based issues yet. But traderji thread on Finvasia details any issues they have had in recent times.

4. Interactive Brokers.
Positives: Top notch speed & execution. Brilliant platform. API is free. Top notch customer service.
Negatives: UX is not 2020-ish. It's more 2005-ish. UI/UX grows on you with time, and you come to like it, but not the best.

5. Upstox - tried mimicking zerodha mostly, but have always managed to remain subpar. Nothing to say here. If it's between Upstox or zerodha - go for Zerodha or Fyers.

6. Sharekhan: Known to have the best desktop trading platform - tradetiger, with good charting abilities. Also have heard to be very robust. If you trade a turnover of atleast 50-75L, you can negotiate brokerage with them down to the least possible.

Some I have heard from quite a while back have reported even negotiating rates that's way better than Zerodha. This is true for Kotak Securities, ICICI securities too.

7. ICICI Securities/Kotak Securities: Advantage is the 3-in-1 account. Can earn deposit interest while your money sits in the account idle. Both have good platforms, but they aren't without issues. If you develop good relationship with your RM, chances are you can get your hands

on some quality proprietary institutional research. Not the ones you see on moneycontrol when an institution wants to offload and are propping up a stock by paying moneycontrol or when sell side research firms issue reported "research" on a co., when their client wants to offload

8. Tradejini - another user in comments section had mentioned that this broker has been very good. NSE NOW platform for trading I guess. One can only test out. Similar to Zerodha commission structure.

9. The infamous Alice Blue. Eye popping leverage on top of exchange margin. If you're smart, keep like 5-10% of your funds with them, keep the rest in your bank, and trade smartly with leverage. Make sure you don't over indulge. They can blow up any time with that kind of lever.

10. Wisdom capital - similar to finvasia in some ways. Good no of clients. Have heard slightly shady things about them, but can not be sure. Pretty new to the market - about 3-4 years old in familiarity.

11. SAS Online. Has a good unlimited plan. Used to be very good. But have remained behind for a long time now without much improvement while other brokers have picked up slack after Zerodha set benchmarks to beat. Still worth looking into.

12. Profitmart Securities - getting into a sub-broker kind of arrangement. 5555 rupees per month plan. Good if you have clients whose accounts you manage under you. You get brokerage kickbacks, and also trade unlimited at close to zero brokerage.

13. For those with > 2-3 crores trading capital, will highly suggest looking into NSE Alpha membership. Definitely worth it.

14. Brokers like wisdom capital, alice blue, profitmart securities, etc., are all pretty basic. And also have a systemic risk present. There was a broker BMA Wealth Creators who blew up recently and their user accounts were blocked after SEBI revoked their license.

So, always be mindful of the different ways your broker can fuck you. Read the fine print. Don't get fucked. Be very careful with idle cash sitting in broker's platform. Better to use full leverage and keep only 5-10% of capital in your account and have acc with 2-3 brokers.

If you want to do full time trading, try all brokers, ruthlessly cut out those who are bad, and filter it out to top 4 or 3 maximum to hold on to for long time. Doesn't hurt to do this one time so you know who can be relied upon (even then don't trust anyone - always be mindful)

Lot of people think trading is a zero sum game. It's not. It's a negative sum game. You buy something. Someone else sells it to you. If you make 200 rupees profit, you give a portion of the profits to broker. If you make 200 rupees loss, you pay more than 200 to broker incl fees.

This happens at both ends. The broker collects fees from the person who profited, and also from the person who lost. The winner is broker in the long run. The broker is the casino. The house always wins. Keep this in mind and be smart about choosing your broker.

And oh, I had an account with Angel Broking as part of being a client of @AskMinance. Angel broking platform has several advantages, their brokerage was pretty high, now they have introduced some disc., brokerage plan. Platform is arcane, but worth looking into, also look up IIFL