1 Reason Every Investor Should Know About Interactive Brokers (IBKR)
Key Points
Interactive Brokers has been a phenomenal performer.
It's growing briskly, and most of its customers live outside the U.S.
Its future is quite promising.
- 10 stocks we like better than Interactive Brokers Group ›
One key reason investors might want to know about Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR) is that this good brokerage has been a terrific performer in recent years. Check it out:
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Time period Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue » |
Interactive Brokers |
|---|---|
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Past 3 years |
55.00% |
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Past 5 years |
39.64% |
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Past 10 years |
20.52% |
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Past 15 years |
19.95% |
Source: Data from Morningstar.com as of September 16, 2025.
Image source: Getty Images.
If you buy some shares today, will you enjoy average annual gains of 20% or more? Well, maybe. The shares seem a bit overvalued at recent levels, unfortunately, with a forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 28, which is well above the five-year average of 20, and a price-to-sales ratio of 2.87, well above the five-year average of 1.88.
Based in Connecticut, with offices around the world, IB has been around for close to 50 years and offers electronic trading services for stocks, options, futures, currencies, bonds, gold, crypto, and more. As it says on the company's website, "Interactive Brokers Group and its affiliates execute approximately 3,552,000 trades per day." Interestingly, some 84% of its customers are outside the U.S., positioning it well for international growth and leaving a lot of room for growth here in the U.S.
While many brokerages have lots of brick-and-mortar locations, Interactive Brokers doesn't, operating mainly electronically. This helps keep its costs way down, enabling it to offer low prices to customers while generating fat profit margins.
In the company's impressive second quarter, revenue surged more than 20% year over year, while earnings per share popped by 24%. During the company's conference call, IR Director Nancy Stuebe noted:
This quarter we added 250,000 net new accounts, bringing our year-to-date total to over 528,000 -- more than we added in all of 2023. Our application processing is highly automated and continually becoming even more so, allowing us to handle surges in new accounts efficiently, without adding significantly to our headcount or cost base.
Take a closer look at Interactive Brokers to see if it's a good fit for your long-term portfolio.
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Selena Maranjian has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Interactive Brokers Group. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2027 $43.75 calls on Interactive Brokers Group and short January 2027 $46.25 calls on Interactive Brokers Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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