Interactive Brokers' March Metrics Up - Analyst Blog

Continued improvement in the equity markets have benefited Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. IBKR, as the company's Electronic Brokerage segment recorded a year-over-year rise in brokerage metrics for March 2014. The segment clears and settles trade globally for both individual and institutional clients.

Total customer Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) were 583,000, up 30% from 448,000 in March 2013 and relatively unchanged from 581,000 in Feb 2014. Further, total customer accounts climbed 16% from the prior-year month and 2% from the prior month to 251,600.

Interactive Brokers recorded Cleared Customer DARTs of 527,000, up 29% from March 2013 and almost flat as compared with Feb 2014. Further, on an annualized basis, Cleared Average DARTs per customer account of 530,000 increased 12% from the comparable prior-year period but fell 1% from the prior-month level.

Interactive Brokers' total option contracts rose 21% from the year-ago month and 2% from the prior-month level to 23.5 million. Also, future contracts grew 6% from March 2013 and 14% from Feb 2014 to 9.0 million.

Interactive Brokers also provided data related to period-end statistics for customer equity, customer credit balances and customer margin loan balances. For the period ended March 2014, customer equity was $49.0 billion, rising 38% year over year and 1% from the prior-month figure.

Further, Interactive Brokers recorded customer credit balances of $26.7 billion in the reported month, up 19% from March 2013 and 2% from Feb 2014. Additionally, the company's customer margin loan balance of $14.4 billion at the end of March 2014 rose 30% from March 2013 and 1% from Feb 2014.

Now, can we expect further improvement in Interactive Brokers' trading operation going forward? Well, a lot depends upon the momentum in the overall economy. The benchmark indices have been showing an uptrend in the recent months but whether this can be sustained in the future is questionable, given the still slow economic recovery and political tensions across the globe.
 
Notably, if this uptrend continues in the coming months, it will be a major catalyst for trading activities of companies like Interactive Brokers.

Currently, Interactive Brokers carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked investment brokers include Investment Technology Group Inc. ITG, Piper Jaffray Companies PJC and GAIN Capital Holdings, Inc. GCAP. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).