Interactive Brokers’ Closes Year With Steady Growth in DARTs, Accounts Surge

Interactive Brokers LLC (NASDAQ:IBKR) today reported its consolidated trading volumes for the month ending December 2016. Per its latest metrics filing, the figures represent a more steady average, given a retreat in Volatility Volatility In finance, volatility refers to the amount of change in the rate of a financial instrument, such as commodities, currencies, stocks, over a given time period. Essentially, volatility describes the nature of an instrument’s fluctuation; a highly volatile security equates to large fluctuations in price, and a low volatile security equates to timid fluctuations in price. Volatility is an important statistical indicator used by financial traders to assist them in developing trading systems. Traders In finance, volatility refers to the amount of change in the rate of a financial instrument, such as commodities, currencies, stocks, over a given time period. Essentially, volatility describes the nature of an instrument’s fluctuation; a highly volatile security equates to large fluctuations in price, and a low volatile security equates to timid fluctuations in price. Volatility is an important statistical indicator used by financial traders to assist them in developing trading systems. Traders Read this Term MoM.

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November was notable for the passage of the US election and with it the surprise result that jolted global markets, thereby driving up volatility to yearly highs. Since then, the onset of the holiday season in the United States has ushered in a more normalized volumes reading, on par with the rest of the industry.

During December 2016, the number of DARTs were reported at 592,000, which correlated to a decline of -18.6% MoM from 728,000 in November 2016. Over a YoY basis, Interactive Brokers saw a more muted decline in DARTs relative to its 2015 counterpart with December 2016’s DARTs retreating approximately -5.7% YoY relative to 628,000 DARTs reported back in December 2015.

Upward Trending Monthly Performance

Delving further into Interactive Brokers’ monthly metrics, the group’s equity balance across customers’ accounts during December 2016 continued to edge higher to $85.5 billion, or nearly 1.0% MoM higher $84.7 billion in November 2016.

However, this climb was much more pronounced over a yearly timeframe, having jumped 26.9% YoY from $67.4 billion in December 2015, ultimately highlighting one of the strongest areas of growth at the brokerage.

Interactive Brokers’ ending client margin loan balances also continued their upward trajectory in December 2016, yielding $19.4 billion for the month, moving higher by a margin of 7.8% MoM from $18.0 billion in November 2016. However, over a yearly interval this growth was even higher, compared to just $17.0 billion in December 2015, or 14.1% YoY.

Moving to its customer accounts, Interactive Brokers reported a figure of 385,100 during December 2016, once again rising MoM, this time by 1.3% from 380,100 accounts in November 2016. Interactive Brokers has now seen its accounts rise in every calendar month this year, and YTD boasts an account growth of 15.1%.

Year-End Snapshot

Looking overall at the 2016 snapshot, Interactive Brokers did manage to see several positives in its volumes. Apart from the aforementioned hike in client margin loan balances and steadfast growth in equity balance in nearly every month, the group's DARTs also bested their 2015 counterpart for the total year, rising 2.4% in 2016.