Should you believe Zerodha’s Nithin Kamath or Angel One’s Dinesh Thakkar?

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Editor's note: Two CEOs of star stock brokerages, whose businesses made rapid strides in the bull run of the last couple of years, but with diametrically opposed views of the prospects of the industry.  I’m talking about Nithin Kamath, who runs the decade-old startup Zerodha, the No. 1 stock brokerage in India, and Dinesh Thakkar, who runs the three decade-old Angel One, the country’s fourth largest. While Kamath sounds pessimistic in his outlook, Thakkar is brimming with confidence.  Business has been fantastic for both firms in the last two financial years. For the financial year ended March 2022, the unlisted Zerodha said that its unaudited revenue and profits increased 60%. These came on top of a 190% increase in revenue in 2020-21. In short, Zerodha’s revenue increased four times in two years, going from Rs 938 crore in 2019-20 to around Rs 4,300 crore in 2021-22.  Angel One (formerly Angel Broking) too has had a spectacular run. Though the company listed in October 2020 at a 10% discount to its offer price of Rs 306 a share, its stock price went up …