2001 to 2020
In 2001, the corporate name of the Timber Hill Group LLC was changed to Interactive Brokers Group LLC,[10] which at the time handled 200,000 trades per day. In 2002, Interactive Brokers, along with the Bourse de Montréal and the Boston Stock Exchange, created the Boston Options Exchange.[18] Also in 2002, the company introduced Mobile Trader and an application programming interface for customers and developers to integrate their mobile phone systems with the IB trading system.[19] Also in 2002, Timber Hill became the major market maker for the newly introduced U.S. single-stock futures.[20][21]
In 2003, the company expanded its trade execution and clearing services to include Belgian index options and futures, Canadian stocks, equity/index options and futures, Dutch index options and futures, German equity options, Italian index options and futures, Japanese index options and futures, and U.K. equity options. In 2004, the company introduced direct market access to its customers on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the Börse Stuttgart. In the same year, IB upgraded its account management system and Trader Workstation, adding real-time data including charts, scanners, fundamental analytics, and tools to the platform.[10]
In 2005, the company launched its forex trading platform IdealPro (now Ideal FX).[10] At that point, Interactive Brokers was one of the largest private securities firms in the United States with $2 billion in capital, it handled 20% of total options volume in the US and 16% worldwide.[22]
In 2006, the IB Options Intelligence Report was launched to report on unusual concentrations of trading interests and changing levels of uncertainty in the option markets.[10] Also that year, IBG took stakes in OneChicago, the ISE Stock Exchange, and the CBOE Stock Exchange.[10] Later in 2006, Interactive Brokers began offering penny-priced options.[10][23][24]
On May 3, 2007, the company went public via an initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq, selling 40 million shares, or 10% of the company, at $30.01 per share via a Dutch auction in the largest brokerage IPO since 2005.[9][10][25][26]
In December 2007, the company acquired FutureTrade Technologies, an integrated electronic equity and option trading service provider.[27] In the following year, Interactive Brokers launched Risk Navigator, a real-time market risk management platform. Also in 2008, several trading algorithms were introduced to the Trader Workstation. Among these is the Accumulate-Distribute Algo, which allows traders to divide large orders into small non-uniform increments and release them at random intervals over time to achieve better prices for large volume orders.[10]
In 2009, IB launched a mobile app for iOS.[10] In March of the same year, the company launched brokerage services in India.[28]
In 2011, the company introduced several new services, including the Interactive Brokers Information System, Hedge Fund Capital Introduction Program, and the Stock Yield Enhancement Program. Interactive Brokers also became in 2011 the largest online U.S. broker as measured by daily average revenue trades.[10]
During the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011–2012, IB ran a series of television commercials with the catchphrase "Join the 1%", which were seen as a controversial criticism of the protests.[29][30][31][32][5]
In 2012, the company began offering money manager accounts and opened the fully electronic Money Manager Marketplace. IB also released the TWS Mosaic trading interface and the Tax Optimizer for managing capital gains and capital losses.[10][33]
In 2013, the company released the Probability Lab tool and Traders' Insight, a service that provides daily commentary by Interactive Brokers traders and third party contributors.[10][5] Also in 2013, IB integrated its trading notification tool (called IB FYI) into the TWS.[10] The tool keeps customers informed of upcoming announcements that could impact their account, and a customer can set it to automatically act to exercise options early if the action is projected to be beneficial for the customer. An IB FYI also can act to automatically suspend a customer's orders before the announcement of major economic events that influence the market.[34] Between 2007 and 2013, Interactive's brokerage arm revenue and pretax profits grew from $391 to $814 mln, however, the marketmaker's profits dropped drastically from $331 mln to $72 mln.[5]
On April 3, 2014, the company became the first online broker to offer direct access to IEX, a private electronic communication network for trading securities, which was subsequently registered as an exchange.[35]
In May 2015, the company acquired investment management platform Covestor.[36][37] In the same year, Interactive Brokers launched Investors' Marketplace, which allows customers to find investors and other service providers in the financial industry.[38][39] For the 4th quarter 2015, IB reported a 17% net revenue decrease to $208.1 mln, though total daily average revenue trades reached 619,000, while total noninterest expenses declined 37%. Meanwhile, IB's market making division, Timber Hill, reported a 49% drop in pre-tax income to $15.1 mln.[40]
A mobile app for the Apple Watch was released in March 2016.[41]
In October 2017, the company sold its market maker business, Timber Hill, to Two Sigma Investments.[42][43][44]
The company's founder Thomas Peterffy stepped down from CEO position in 2019, when he turned 75.[45] He retained the position of Chairman, while President Milan Galik was appointed CEO.[46][47]
In September 2019, the company launched commission-free trades via "IBKR Lite".[48][49][50] Two months later, the company began offering fractional share trading.[51][52]
