Interactive Brokers Update: Slightly Increasing Fair Value Estimate

Interactive Brokers is a unique brokerage within our coverage. The firm serves a more niche client base. Apart from retail investors, the company also caters to the trading of institutional clients like hedge and mutual funds, proprietary trading groups, introducing brokers, and financial advisors. The commission mix between retail and institutional clients is about 55%/45%. Most of Interactive Brokers' clients still choose to pay commissions when many other retail brokerages switched to a zero-commission model for U.S. stock trading. The clients of Interactive Brokers are more sophisticated compared with the clients of Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, and E-Trade. To be more specific, they trade more frequently, maintain higher cash balances to make opportunistic moves, and take use of leverage. These trading-savvy customers are attracted by Interactive Brokers’ low margin rates, comprehensive trading platform, sophisticated trading execution capabilities, and high interest paid on idle cash.