If these guys are so great then how come their stock has four consecutive quarters of lower earnings and a negative money flow. Are their clients moving on to a better place or are they getting out all together, or what?
You need to read the IBKR financial reports. IBKR has two businesses: market making and brokerage. The market making business has fluctuating results and hence a negative influence on the stock price. The brokerage business is doing very well. Pretax profit margin was 49% in 2009 up from 44% in 2008. Total accounts were 134K in 2009 up 21% from 111K in 2008. Customer equity was $15.2 billion in 2009 up 71% from $8.9 billion in 2008. Please list all the other brokerage firms with numbers like that.
That said, is IBKR something you would want to own for the long term? Ive been thinking about adding IBKR and a couple exchanges to my long term portfolio (NYX and ICE specifically), thats why I ask, and picking long term plays is not something Im particularly good at right now.
I very clearly stated "You need to read the IBKR financial reports." Where else would I get the relevant financial information other than the IBKR financial reports?
i think ib has limited growth potential. they only take experienced traders,dont pay interest, and their monthly fees are too high for mom and pop investor. while that is good for us traders that use ib there is a limited pool of traders that can use their service.
I disagree. You use a rational logic to something (personal finance) that most people are irrational about. The real question is how many wannabes are there who believe they are experienced. Practically everyone who opens a brokerage account believes that at the very least he is above average, thus qualifies for 'experienced' and 'trader'. Thus he opens an account with ib for confirmation. Look around here (on ET): how many consider themselves 'elite' 'trader'. People who obviously don't trade and don't know even the basics... Look at the post before yours, confusing a business model for a derogatory term. Or look at the new threads: 90% is ridiculously uninformed. Then they come back and start bashing their broker, the market, anyone but themselves. It's like performance sports cars: people with clearly meager driving skills buy those, and if they drift off the road, it was the fault of the manufacturer or the municipality who didn't maintain the road properly, whatever. Never is the case that they are driving too fast with a tool that they clearly cannot handle properly. But the appeal of 'cool' by association (sports cars, high end retail brokerage accounts, etc.) is there. If anything, 'catering for experienced traders' is a great marketing tool to attract the masses.