The electronic brokerage segment at Interactive Brokers LLC, which deals with clearance and settlement of trades for individual and institutional clients globally, today reported weak volumes for the month ending September 2019.
Interactive Brokers expects its stock to begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange next Monday, and will continue to trade under the ticker symbol “IBKR.” The Connecticut-based firm announced last month it would abandon its listing on the IEX Group as the upstart Exchange failed to gain more listings, which reduced Market Makers trading its stock relative to Nasdaq.
Interactive Brokers, whose two main divisions were online brokerage and market-making before it ceased the latter last year, has won more clients, with total September’s active accounts up to 666,000, or 16 percent higher from 575,600 accounts a year ago. The figure was higher by one percent month-on-month when compared to August 2019 (659,000 accounts).
IB Charges $3.79 per cleared order
During September 2019, the number of DARTs were reported at 842,000, a fall of nine percent month-over-month from 930,000 in August 2019, which was a nine-month peak. On a year-on-year basis, Interactive Brokers saw a less bleak performance in its DARTs with September’s figure up four percent relative to nearly 741k transactions reported in September 2018.
In terms of equity balance in customers’ accounts during September 2019, the figure totaled $156.6 billion, an increase of 10 percent year-on-year from $141.1 billion. In addition, Interactive Brokers managed to best its August 2019 equivalent, having notched a gain of one percent from $154.6 billion in the prior month.
Interactive Brokers’ ending client margin loan balances came in at $25.6 billion in September 2019, almost unchanged from August 2019. Across a yearly interval, the figure moved lower by 17 percent when weighed against $29.1 billion in September 2018.
On average, in September 2019, Interactive Brokers charged clients commission fees of $3.79 per order, including exchange, clearing and regulatory fees, with the key products metrics coming out at $2.28 for stocks, $5.86 for equity options and $5.61 for futures orders.
