What happened with IBKR today?
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Uses news and trading volume to explain the day’s move and how it relates to the market.
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Interactive Brokers Group helps individual investors, investment funds and other financial firms trade across global markets through a single account. Its internally developed software routes orders to exchanges and handles execution, clearing and settlement—completing trades and arranging the transfer of cash and assets. Its IB SmartRouting system compares trading venues and can redirect orders as conditions change.
Net interest income is its largest revenue source. It earns interest on loans to customers who borrow to trade, government securities and bank deposits, and earns income from borrowing and lending securities. Interest paid to customers on their cash balances and other funding costs offsets these earnings. Trading commissions are the next-largest source: customers generally pay for executing and processing trades. Under IBKR Lite, participating U.S. customers can trade U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs without commissions; market makers and others pay Interactive Brokers to receive those orders.
The business depends on customer cash and borrowing balances, interest rates, trading activity and demand for borrowed shares. No single customer dominates commission income, though most commissions come from products traded in the United States. Its automated service depends on its own technology and connections to exchanges, clearing houses and banks. Brokerage licenses and local regulatory requirements govern where and how it can operate and can limit international expansion.
The risk section is the longest, dullest part of the filing. This keeps only what can really hurt you: where it hits, how hard, when it plays out.
Every company claims an edge. Each one is checked against hard numbers like margins and returns: which hold, and which line gives way first.
Charles Schwab competes with Interactive Brokers for brokerage accounts; both earn revenue from client trading and interest on client balances. Watch Schwab’s active brokerage accounts and net interest revenue as benchmarks for Interactive Brokers’ account growth and cash-related earnings.
Futu competes with Interactive Brokers through an automated online brokerage: both earn money from customer trades, loans backed by portfolios and lending securities. Futu’s trading, margin-financing and securities-lending businesses are the closest comparisons for Interactive Brokers’ revenue model.
Robinhood competes with Interactive Brokers for investors who make their own stock and options trades and borrow against their portfolios, putting both in contention for the same trading and borrowing customers.
UP Fintech competes with Interactive Brokers for digital brokerage customers but also pays it to execute trades and handle the transfer of cash and securities after trading. Trades executed and cleared by Interactive Brokers represented 6.6% of UP Fintech’s total net revenues in 2025, down from 16.6% in 2023—a measure to watch as UP Fintech handles more clearing itself.
Webull competes with Interactive Brokers for retail investors seeking low-cost digital securities trading across countries. In the U.S., Webull mainly earns payments from market makers and exchange partners for sending them customer orders, making that revenue a useful comparison with the order-routing payments earned by IBKR Lite.
eToro Group Ltd. competes with Interactive Brokers for international investors trading stocks, currencies and other assets themselves on digital platforms. Its funded-account count is a concrete comparison for customer reach, while CopyTrader also lets its users copy another investor’s trades.
Morgan Stanley competes with Interactive Brokers for individual investors through E*TRADE’s online brokerage and for institutional clients through its prime-brokerage business, which supports institutions’ trading, custody and borrowing needs.
Freedom Holding Corp. competes directly with Interactive Brokers for European investors seeking access to international securities markets, earning much of its brokerage revenue from customer transaction commissions. Its European offering emphasizes research, U.S. pre-IPO access and personalized service for emerging-market investors seeking international diversification.
LPL Financial competes with Interactive Brokers to serve advisors by holding client assets, processing trades and managing client cash, earning advisory fees, product commissions and cash-program revenue. Watch LPL’s client cash programs: both firms earn revenue from services that place client cash with banks.
Virtu Financial and Interactive Brokers both earn money from trading activity, but Virtu buys and sells instruments to earn the gap between buying and selling prices and provides trade-execution services, while Interactive Brokers collects customer commissions. Virtu’s market-making results offer a different view of trading conditions from Interactive Brokers’ stock, options and futures commissions.
LPL Financial Holdings Inc. earningsLPLA
LPL Financial’s report shows how revenue from placing client cash with banks is changing, offering a reference point for Interactive Brokers’ own customer-cash business.
Watch LPL’s cash-program revenue alongside any disclosed change in client cash. Revenue rising with cash balances would suggest stronger income from the service; revenue weakening even as balances grow would suggest less revenue per unit of cash. LPL’s program is not identical to Interactive Brokers’ net interest income or bank-sweep fees, so the comparison shows conditions for a shared service, not what Interactive Brokers itself earned.
Fed Interest Rate Decision
Interactive Brokers earns net interest from customer margin loans, cash balances and securities lending, so the Fed’s decision on its benchmark rate can change interest earned on those balances and the cost of its own funding.
Expected4.0%Last release4.0%
If it comes in above expectations
If the decision signals higher rates than expected, interest revenue on repricing customer loans and securities lending may rise, while higher rates paid on eligible customer cash or funding may offset part of the gain.
If it comes in below expectations
If the decision signals lower rates than expected, interest revenue on repricing customer loans and securities lending may fall, while lower interest paid on eligible customer cash or funding may cushion the decline.
Virtu Financial, Inc. earningsVIRT
Virtu Financial’s report shows how its market-making and trade-execution businesses are faring, offering another view of the trading conditions behind Interactive Brokers’ stock, options and futures commissions.
Treat Virtu’s market-making and execution results as a clue about trading conditions, not a substitute for Interactive Brokers’ trading volumes. Stronger results may point to a more supportive environment; weaker results may point to pressure. Spreads, inventory and Virtu’s business mix also affect its results. The takeaway is whether the report adds evidence for or against a supportive backdrop for Interactive Brokers’ customer trading—not what Interactive Brokers’ commissions will be.
Futu Holdings Limited earningsFUTU
Futu’s report shows how customer trading, margin financing and securities lending are changing, giving readers a comparison for similar revenue streams at Interactive Brokers.
Read Futu’s trading, margin-financing and securities-lending results separately. Stronger activity across all three would show customers making greater use of services that also generate commissions, margin-loan income and securities-lending income at Interactive Brokers; weakness in one or more would point to pressure on the corresponding channel. The companies have different customer and market mixes, so this is an industry comparison, not a result for Interactive Brokers itself.
UP Fintech Holding Ltd earningsTIGR
UP Fintech’s report shows whether trades executed and cleared by Interactive Brokers make up a larger or smaller share of UP Fintech’s business.
Watch the share of UP Fintech’s revenue from trades executed and cleared by Interactive Brokers: it was 6.6% in 2025, down from 16.6% in 2023. A rising share would mean this work has become more important relative to UP Fintech’s other revenue; another decline would mean less relative reliance and may fit with UP Fintech handling more clearing itself. The share can also change when UP Fintech’s other revenue changes, so it does not by itself reveal the dollar fees Interactive Brokers receives. The conclusion is how important this customer relationship is to UP Fintech’s business.
