Interactive Brokers February DARTs down 8% Amidst Market Volatility

The online Multi-Asset brokerage under the IB brand operated by Interactive Brokers Group Inc. (NASDAQ GS: IBKR), has today released volume and key trading related metrics for February showing a mostly broad decrease across main trading segments when compared to the prior month.

Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) totaled 767,000 across all clients and was lower by 8% from 830,000 in January, as well as cleared client DARTs at 706,000 down 7% from 761,000 the previous month. Cleared averaged DARTs annualized also dropped by 8% to 527 DARTs per client account despite the extra trading day that February had over January (20 vs 19 respectively).

Options contract volumes fell 16% in February when compared to the previous month as options were already intrinsically expensive from heightened implied Volatility , yet was flat YoY, and futures contracts were down 6% in January while increasing 46% from February of 2015 (YoY).

The total number of shares of stocks traded was also down 9% as February was mostly volatile for global equity markets, adding to risk-aversion, with clients sitting on cash which saw the IB's equity rise by 2% to $66 billion.

In addition, the company reported that it had 340,000 client accounts at the end of February, showing a 1% increase from January 2016, and 17% higher YoY. The company traded 2.84 billion shares in February, and which was lower slightly from 2.89 billion shares traded in the previous month.