The sharp drops in stock prices of listed new-age tech companies across the world is quite scary. If history is a guide, only a small % of them will maybe bounce back.
Companies when projecting growth should maybe prioritize lower volatility long term vs max short term gain 1/6
The networth of the core teams in most new-age businesses is tied to ESOPs & hence valuations.
Most, including the founders, suffer from anchoring bias. It doesn’t matter how large the notional profits on stock holding, if price hits a peak & goes down, it feels like a loss. 2/6
Teams being distracted by large changes in their networth, especially sharp drops, can't be good for team morale & focus, & by extension the business.
The more a company tries to talk price up in short term, the higher the odds of large drops & volatility in the long term. 3/6
While it might seem like this isn't an issue in private companies, it is. If things change, drawdowns are usually large & sudden. So the risks & impact on the business can potentially be much larger than companies whose stock prices gradually decline on the exchanges. 4/6
When companies are mostly valued based on what they project, counterintuitively, it may be a good idea to talk down than talking up the price.
Lower volatility in stock price is also maybe something companies should strive for, which is good for long term investors as well. 5/6
As @SrBachchan says in Sarkar, Nazdiki fayda dekhne se pehle, door ka nuksaan sochna chahiye. 😬 6/6
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The only reason why we do a valuation exercise at Zerodha every year is for our ESOP buyback.
I keep getting asked why are we valuing ourselves at
just $2Billion currently when smaller players are raising money at far higher valuations.
Here is why we're conservative👇 1/8
Some background: We don't promise ESOPs for anyone on our team. Frankly, we never thought we were building something that could become so valuable. So we never thought of ESOPs. But around 2017 when the business started growing, we created an ESOP scheme to share the success. 2/8
People who complete 1-year @zerodhaonline get ESOPs. This is to be sure if they are with us for the right reasons.
We tell everyone to think of the ESOP scheme as their retirement fund which will compound over the long term if we do well working together as a business. 3/8
Unlike the previous bull runs, there isn't a lot of leverage in the system this time. Stocks are mostly bought with full money upfront. So when there are drawdowns in the market on days like today, retail investors aren't forced to liquidate, which also increases volatility. 1/4
Credit goes to SEBI & also all of us new-age online brokers who haven't pushed customers to borrow and buy while placing orders. If platforms enabled greed by nudging users to borrow to buy more quantities, customers would ignore the risks of margin funding (MTF). 2/4
But given high customer acquisition costs for many brokers, what worries me is if someone launches a buy now pay later type of product for investing, it will end up pushing everyone else to start. Using this as a hook to generate revenue will not be right for the customers. 3/4
Why not IPO @zerodhaonline when you can potentially get ridiculous valuations?
Firstly, we think an IPO is the beginning & not the end. As soon as you have lakhs of conservative retail investors on your cap table, the obligations go up exponentially. 1/4
We are in a world where companies are getting priced to perfection based on all the future growth potential. For a stock to do well, you have to outperform.
As CEO, I dread to think how you can outperform the already really high expectations that growth companies have today 2/4
We have never set revenue or growth targets, always believed that if we can do what is right for the customer & if goddess of luck smiles, the rest will happen. Our core team dreads moving away from that philosophy to be in a chase all the time, which it will be after an IPO 3/4
When you're candid in interviews, you run the risk of being quoted out of context with misleading headlines😬 One such headline was about the future of Zerodha, of us getting beaten by competition in 5 years. This was getting shared and a few people asked me about it. 1/4
I think when running a business or even trading, the odds of succeeding are much higher if you have made peace with the worst possible outcome. This has been one of my biggest life lessons. This helps me remain stoic and rational during volatility. 2/4
But this doesn’t mean we aren't competitive. We get up every day working to be better knowing that it will help our customers and maybe also help put distance on the competition. Most people think being aggressive & loud is being competitive, it isn't. 3/4
I am pessimistic about the valuations of brokerages around the world, including that of Zerodha. This is because the performance of broking is directly tied to market performance. If people aren’t making money or there is no greed, activity usually drops off a cliff. 1/4
The best tech, products & low pricing won't help.
A new report from JP Morgan on Robinhood (RH) said that app downloads are down by 78% QOQ and active users by 40% QOQ. And this is still a bull market, just that market has plateaued last few months. 2/4 zerohedge.com/markets/jp-mor…
For Robinhood, unlike Indian brokerages, Crypto is the wild card. If not the stock price would've collapsed on this data.
This old post about how it's much much tougher for Indian brokerages to make money compared to the US brokers still holds good. 3/4 zerodha.com/z-connect/rain…
I get asked often, who out there do you think can disrupt the new-age online brokers or even exchanges?
Me: I don’t think it will be another stock brokerage firm or a new stock exchange. It will most likely be an outsider, maybe Crypto. Here is why👇 1/6
In broking or exchange business, both on pricing and product, there is not much left to disrupt. Unless of course, someone figures a way to pay people money for trading (-ve brokerage😉not allowed by regulation) or figures a way to help all customers make money (😬very tough) 2/6
Brokers & exchanges depend on a small group of active traders, ~1million traders for revenue. If they start trading something else, that will disrupt everything. Btw, active traders also provide liquidity, reduce impact cost & risk, & help better price discovery. 3/6