Interactive Brokers, Inc. (IB) is an American multinational brokerage firm headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. It operates the largest electronic trading platform in the United States by number of daily average revenue trades. In 2024, the platform processed an average of 2.6 million trades per trading day. Interactive Brokers is the largest foreign exchange market broker and is one of the largest prime brokers servicing commodity brokers. The company brokers stocks, options, futures contracts, exchange of futures for physicals, options on futures, bonds, mutual funds, currency, cryptocurrency, contracts for difference, derivatives, and trading in prediction markets. Interactive Brokers offers direct market access, omnibus and non-disclosed broker accounts, and provides clearing services. The firm has operations in 36 countries and 28 currencies. As of December 31, 2024, it had 3.337 million institutional and individual brokerage customers, with total customer equity of US$568.2 billion. In addition to its headquarters in Greenwich, on the Gold Coast of Connecticut, the company has offices in major financial centers worldwide. More than half of the company's customers reside outside the United States, in approximately 200 countries.
The broker was founded and is chaired by Thomas Peterffy, an early innovator in computer-assisted trading. Approximately 25.8% of the company is publicly held, while the remainder is owned by IBG Holdings LLC, which is 91.4% owned by Thomas Peterffy and affiliates. Interactive Brokers is ranked 473rd on the Fortune 500.
The company traces its roots to T.P. & Co., a market maker founded in 1977 and renamed Timber Hill Inc. in 1982. In 1979, it became the first to use fair value pricing sheets on a stock exchange trading floor. In 1983, it became the first to use handheld computers for trading. In 1987, Peterffy also created the first fully automated algorithmic trading system, to automatically create and submit orders to a market. Between 1993 and 1994, the corporate group Interactive Brokers Group was created, and the subsidiary Interactive Brokers LLC was created to control its electronic brokerage, and to keep it separate from Timber Hill, which conducts market making. In 2014, Interactive Brokers became the first online broker to offer direct access to IEX, a private forum for trading securities. In 2021, the company launched trading in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.
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