No More Red Or Green: Zerodha Is Testing Grayscale Tickers

Zerodha, India's largest stockbroker, is set to introduce a 'Grayscale Mode' on its Kite trading platform after Chief Executive Officer Nithin Kamath confirmed the feature was a "legit use case," following a viral social media post that highlighted the emotional toll of tracking portfolio performance.

The feature is designed to reduce the anxiety triggered by the highly visual red and green color coding that is traditionally used to indicate market losses and gains.

Kamath shared his plans on LinkedIn, posting a playful reaction (complete with an Aristotle quote) about feeling emotions "raw." This was in response to a tweet by market analyst Deepak Shenoy.

Shenoy's original post on X, which featured a screenshot of a portfolio showing several stocks in the red, suggested eliminating all color: "You can get unnecessarily depressed if you have green and red lights in your bedroom based on a day’s performance in the portfolio. So here’s a way: let the whole thing be just black and white, even on the screen [sic]."

Shenoy's comment itself was a playful take on an earlier viral post where a trader used the Zerodha Kite API to automate their bedroom lights to change to green or red based on their daily portfolio returns.

Kamath’s confirmation that the Grayscale Mode is "Coming to Kite soon" validates the growing conversation among retail investors about the psychological impact of constant, real-time market tracking.

By removing the immediate visual stimulus of red that stands for loss and green that denotes gains, the new feature would aim to encourage users to focus on long-term investment fundamentals rather than short-term price volatility.