Trading activity at Interactive Brokers LLC (NASDAQ:IBKR) lost some momentum in April with volumes easing on a monthly comparison basis following record gains in March. The broker, however, posted its second-best reading for Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs), a sign that it is too early to bet the big rally could be coming to an end.
During April 2020, the number of DARTs were reported at 1.720 million transactions, a fall of -12 percent month-over-month from 1.96 million in March. On a year-on-year basis, Interactive Brokers saw a brighter performance in its DARTs with April’s figure up 121 percent relative to nearly 778k transactions reported in the same month last year.
Interactive Brokers, whose two main divisions were online brokerage and market-making before it ceased the latter in 2018, has won more clients, with total April’s active accounts up to 805,600, or 6 percent higher from 795,600 accounts the previous month. The figure was higher by 27 percent year-over-year when compared to April 2019 (630,700 accounts).
Reflecting its recent restrictions on borrowed margins, Interactive Brokers’ ending client margin loan balances were around $20 billion in April 2020, a touch higher above its March counterpart but still lower by over 20 percent than the prior year and also reducing clients’ exposure by a third when compared to February.
On average, in April 2020, Interactive Brokers charged clients commission fees of $2.77 per order, including Exchange , Clearing and regulatory fees, with the key products metrics coming out at $1.98 for stocks, $4.41 for equity options and $3.97 for futures orders.
March was the busiest trading month on record in the US, with almost all big brokers and major exchanges feeling intense on a huge turnover that was only seen in the depths of the financial crisis in October 2008. The rapid shifts resulted in record volumes in almost all exchange-traded products.
