Interactive Brokers Reports February DARTs Unchanged, New Accounts up 3% over January

Greenwich headquartered Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. has reported February metrics for its trading volumes with the number of Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) remaining unchanged over January.

The NASDAQ listed firm, operating across global electronic markets as a market maker and agent, today released the figures for its electronic brokerage monthly performance metrics.

Highlights for the month of February 2014, included the following, according to the official press release from Interactive Brokers:

• 581 thousand Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs), 19% higher than prior year and unchanged from prior month.
• Ending customer equity of $48.6 billion, 40% higher than prior year and 6% higher than prior month.
• Ending customer margin loan balances of $14.3 billion, 28% higher than prior year and 3% higher than prior month.
• Ending customer credit balances of $26.3 billion, 17% higher than prior year and 3% higher than prior month.
• 247 thousand customer accounts, 15% higher than prior year and 2% higher than prior month.
• 538 annualized average cleared DARTs per customer account.

Further analysis following the press release and coverage by Forex Magnates is included below. Around time of publication shares of Interactive Brokers traded down 2% following the news.

Earlier last month the company emphasized its leading position in terms of retail forex broker's client account profitability, with the following graphic excerpted from its corporate investor relations website:

Forex Magnates covered the last reported figures published by the CFTC for Selected Data from Futures Commission Merchant (FCMs) for December, during which FX totals had dipped for most firms in the U.S., except for Interactive Brokers (and FXDD during December compared to Novembers totals).

Also reported was the firm's recent report of its January totals, which also saw an uptick over the prior month, except for its clients' equity which remained flat over December.

The latter of these, in terms of ending customer equity, rose by 6% as noted above for February, when compared month-over-month, reaching $48.6 billion - an increase of 40% over the same period last year.

According to a description on its corporate website, Interactive Brokers FX offering says that it offers traders direct access to interbank forex quotes on 19 different trading currencies, never engaging in hidden price spreading, markups or kickbacks, as described. Also saying it combines real-time prices from 13 of the world’s largest FX dealing banks plus a transparent, low commission that avoids the conflict of interest of FX platforms that deal for their own account.

This text appears to imply an added value on the basis that some dealer's business models could be more prone to the likes of asymmetrical Slippage or price rigging - both of which have been under scrutiny as the result of related cases.