Zerodha Reviews - Options Trading, Brokerage & Platform

Published on Wednesday, April 4, 2018 by Chittorgarh.com Team | Modified on Tuesday, January 7, 2020

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Bengaluru based Zerodha started its operations in 2010. It is India's first flat fee discount broker (also called discount broker/budget broker/pay per order broker).

With an average daily turnover of more than ₹10,000 crores, the company is one of the top volume contributors on NSE, BSE, MCX-SX, and MCX. Zerodha has branches in 20 cities of India in addition to its main office in Bengaluru.

Like other online options trading companies, Zerodha offers services to trade in equity options, currency options, and commodity options. The company has built its trading application 'Kite' and back-office tool 'Q'. It also has other platform and applications like 'Kite Connect API', 'Open Trade' and 'Pi' etc. Zerodha customers also get access to many partnered products like 'small case', 'Balance' and 'Streak'.

Zerodha also has good platforms for customer education in Varsity, Trading Q&A, and Open trade. These platforms are useful for investors to learn and improve their trading skills, interact with other investors and connect with the Zerodha team.

Zerodha Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Low brokerage fee - 0.01% or ₹20 whichever is lower	Call and trade facility at additional cost
Robust trading platform and investor friendly online tools	No monthly plans
Good resources for customer education like Zerodha Varsity, Trading Q&A and OpenTrade	Customer service can be improved
Paperless Aadhar based account opening
Discount broker for NRI services
Tech savvy brokerage firm
60 day challenge contest with brokerage reversal up to ₹6000

Zerodha Trading Platform / Applications

Zerodha is a technology savvy company that endeavours to provide innovative and advanced options trading tools to its customers like:

1. Zerodha Kite web

Zerodha 'Kite Web', currently in its 3.0 version, is a web-based HTML 5 trading application launched in November 2015. The platform allows investors to trade options on the desktop, mobile, and Tablets. According to Zerodha, 'Kite Web' is used by over 70,000 clients and serves over 5 million requests a day without any hiccups. Some of the key features of the platform are a full MarketWatch, extensive charting with over 100 indicators and 6 chart types, advanced order types like Brackets and cover and millisecond order placements etc.

Kite Web also has the distinction of being India's first multilingual trading platform. The platform is available in over 10 regional languages including Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Bengali, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Odia.

2. Kite Mobile Trading App - Android & iOS

Kite mobile trading application is currently available for Android and iOS. The Kite mobile app, available for free, allows Zerodha customers to trade from their mobile devices. You can use the app for trading & monitoring options in India. The app gives you access to most of the features available in Kite web like the market watch, portfolio, orders, funds and charting etc.

3. Kite Connect APIs

Kite Connect API is one of the pioneering initiatives of Zerodha that gives programmatic access to retail investors. It is a set of simple HTTP APIs built on top of Zerodha's trading platform. Kite Connect enables customers of Zerodha to get programmatic access to important data like profile, funds, order history, positions, live quotes etc., in addition to placing orders and managing portfolios as per their trading needs and comfort.

Investors can use any programming language (from excel VBAs to Python, Java, C# or even your command line console) of their choice to place and manage orders, build multi-asset risk modelling systems, stock screeners, quant-based strategies, option greeks calculators, machine learning, backtesting, and more.

Kite Connect gives investors ownership and control over their data to help them do their trading analysis at ease.

4. Zerodha Q

Positioned by Zerodha as a 'trading journal and financial assistant', Q is a back-office reporting tool that gives traders a complete view of their investments and positions. Q uses charts to give you a summary of your account, funds page to monitor your funds, portfolio page to provide information on your holdings and open positions. Here traders can also check their historical open positions and download reports to an excel.

Q also gives you access to tax-ready P&L Statements and download it for taxation. As per Zerodha, Q is the only reporting tool in India to provide both Absolute & Indicative P&l reports.

You can also refer friends and family to Zerodha for opening their accounts with the company.

5. Zerodha Pi

PI is a trading application that you can download on your desktop or laptops. It provides many features like advanced charting, historical data, algos, strategies, backtesting. Pi offers 10 different types of charts, over 80 technical Indicators, and 30 drawing tools. This allows traders to create their own strategies, backtest them and then execute directly from the chart.

It has inbuilt strategies and quick order entry screen so you can create your own strategies, backtest them and trade directly from chart.

Zerodha Options Brokerage Charges

Zerodha's brokerage structure is extremely simple and very easy to understand. Customers who have switched to Zerodha have reported 80% to 90% savings in comparison to other full-service brokers.

	Equity Options	Currency Options	Commodity Options
Brokerage	0.01% or ₹20 per executed order (whichever is lower)
Securities Transaction Tax (STT)	0.05% on premium (sell side)	No STT	0.05% on premium (sell side)
Transaction Charges	NSE: 0.052% BSE: ₹1.50 for each buy trade & sell trade	NSE: 0.042%	0.002% on buy + sell [₹200/crore]
GST	18% on (brokerage + transaction charges)
SEBI Turnover Charges	₹10 per Crore (0.00010%)
Stamp Duty	0.003% (₹300 per crore) on buy-side	0.0001% (₹10 per crore) on buy-side	0.003% (₹300 per crore) on buy-side

Other Charges

Call & trade: Additional charges of ₹20 per executed order
Squared off by the broker: Additional charges of ₹20 per executed order
Physical CMR (Client Master Report) request: First CMR free ₹20 + ₹100 (courier charge) + GST.

Zerodha Options Trading FAQs

1. Is Zerodha a genuine/reliable/trustworthy options broker?

Yes, Zerodha ticks all the boxes as a reliable broker. It is a member of NSE and BSE and has been in the business for over 7 years. The daily turnover of the company is more than ₹10,000 crores, and it is one of the top volume contributors to NSE, BSE and MCX. It is headquartered in Bengaluru and has 20 offices across India.Here are Zerodha's Membership details with various exchanges-

Zerodha NSE Member ID:

NSE Registration Date - Jun 30, 2010
Capital Market (CM) - INB231390627
Future & Options (F&O) - INF231390627
Currency Derivatives (CDS) - INE231390627

Zerodha BSE Member ID:

BSE Registration Date - May 17, 2012
Capital Market (CM) - INB011390623
Future & Options (F&O) - INF011390623
CDSL - IN-DP-CDSL-00278209
NSDL - IN-DP-NSDL-11496000

2. What are the advantages of trading options with Zerodha?

Trading with Zerodha offers many benefits like-

Quick account opening using Aadhar number
Low brokerage fee - 0.01% or ₹20 per executed order whichever is lower
Access to innovative trading platforms
Access to customer education platforms like Zerodha Varsity, Trading Q&A and OpenTrade
Participate in 60-day challenge contest with brokerage reversal up to ₹6000

3. What are the limitations of trading options with Zerodha?

Like every online broker, Zerodha also has a few limitations. There's a charge of ₹20 for call and trade and there are no monthly plans. Feedback from customers suggest that there is scope in improving its customer services.

4. How to open an account with Zerodha?

Zerodha has a Aadhar based paperless and instant account opening process. You just need to fill-in a few details and submit your eKYC using Aadhar.

5. How to trade in options with Zerodha?

You can trade in options with Zerodha on your desktop and laptop. Here's how to do it-

Visit https://kite.zerodha.com/ and login using your credentials.
Search for the Options in the search bar, Use 'Opt' with the index or equity name. So for Reliance Options, you need to enter 'Reliance Opt' in the bar.
Hover on the name of stock and Buy/ Sell buttons will appear.
Clicking on [B] for Buy will open a window below
Enter quantity, price and other details and click on the 'PLACE' button.

6. Is Zerodha good for beginners in options trading?

Zerodha is excellent for beginners in options. It has good platforms like Varsity, Trading Q&A and Opentrade to acquire skills on options trading. These platforms also help you interact with other traders and benefit from their knowledge and experience.

7. What is MIS margin for options in Zerodha?

When you place a trade using Zerodha's Kite or Pi trading platform, you are required to enter a product code from the available three choices- MIS, CNS, and NRML. MIS stands for Margin Intraday Square Off and is useful for traders who are doing intraday trading in Options. Intraday trading means to buy and sell of the order on the same day. The trade is completed on that day. Nothing is carried off to the next day.

Zerodha offers margin leverage for intraday traders. There is no margin provided for traders buying options as there is no margin requirement for such a trade. However, the seller of options is required to maintain a margin. When you use an MIS code, you only need to maintain 50% of the margin. So, entering this code gives 50% margin leverage to Option sellers and allows them to do more trade with the same amount of money.

Example- Say, you want to sell Reliance Call Option for expiry date 27-Sep-18 for strike price 1300. Under the normal order, you need to maintain a margin of ₹ 1,69,810. However, if you are doing intraday trading and use 'MIS" code while placing the order, you need to maintain 50% of the ₹ 1,69,810 i.e. ₹ 84,905.

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