If FNM stock keeps tanking, what will happen to your mortgage? Oh wait, it already did...how is that personal buyback program going?
I took a quick, fundamental look at IBKR a couple days a ago. There is nothing out of the ordinary going on with the stock. The whole market is off kilter right now with lots of forced liquidation so its a mistake to try explaining short term price movements too much beyond what I've just said above. Yes, IB business is growing at a healthy clip, balance sheet looks solid. The thing with brokers is that they are like insurance companies and banks: all is fine, until it isn't. It can be almost impossible to gauge risk controls or surprises from out of left field ala Refco simply by gauging the 10-Qs. In a nutshell: IBKR looks like a solid 'buy' right now, but so do many, many other stocks. In order to buy a broker over a manufacturer or other business line in this environment however, one must A. have full confidence in risk controls, and B. trust management. If management or risk controls are not solid, this environment could test the company. One corollary is that shareholders are comforted to see IB keep a strict reign on margin requirements during this time. IB must serve many constituents/interests so retail investors should expect so additional conservative measures taken to control risk. (Perhaps some of those have already been taken re: margin requirements.) *Also, if you have a significant account at IB, you already have major exposure to them so buying the stock is effectively doubling down. This is not to suggest you could lose your account balance if IB folds, but only that your funds could be locked up for an indefinite period of time. If your IBKR position is also locked, well I'll leave that to your imagination.
Perfect opportunity to log the IP adress of this clown, and put his little Introducing Broker shop out of business. Jailtime. Next!
What about MF global at $2.43 a share? IBKR as the first market maker on the DTB/Eurex must have been trading in VW shares/options. Not saying they lost any money though.