Shortly after the close of the US trading session, Interactive Brokers LLC (NASDAQ:IBKR), a global electronic Multi-Asset broker and market-maker listed on Nasdaq, disclosed its financial results for Q3 2018, revealing that its metrics managed to slightly improve year-on-year.
The Greenwich, Connecticut-based company said its net revenues for Q3 2018 amounted to $439 million, higher by 3.5 percent compared with $426 million in the same period last year. Income before tax totaled $276 million, up 2.9 percent year-over-year (from $268 million).
The increase in net revenue was primarily due to strong growth in net interest income, which jumped 34 percent year-on-year, as did commissions and Execution fees. However, the positive figures were partially offset by the negative impact of the company’s currency diversification strategy which decreased its earnings by $27 million compared to a $26 million gain in the year-ago quarter.
Delving further into financial metrics, Interactive Brokers reported diluted earnings per share (EPS) on a comprehensive basis at $0.51 for the quarter ended September 30, 2018, reflecting an 18 percent year-over-year uptick from a profit of $0.43 per share during Q3 2017.
Business highlights, according to the company’s press release, included a pretax profit margin of 66 percent which was higher from 61 percent in 2017. During the three month period through September 2018, customer equity grew 23 percent from 2017 to $142.5 billion, while customer debits increased 22 percent to $30.7 billion.
Finally, customer accounts at IB increased 26 percent from a year ago to 576,000, while total daily average revenue trades (DARTs) jumped 10 percent year-over-year to 763,000.
Interactive Brokers, which went public a decade ago, has been trying to tap the brokerage market, which has a relatively steady source of revenue. Relative to last year’s figures, IB reported a climb in brokerage segment equity which totaled $5.5 billion while total equity registered $6.9 billion during the third quarter.
