Interactive Brokers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Interactive Brokers LLC | |
|---|---|
.jpg/200px-Interactive_Brokers_Logo_(2008).jpg){kind=logo} |
|
| Type | Public (NASDAQ: IBKR) |
| Founded | 1977 |
| Headquarters | Greenwich, Connecticut, USA |
| Key people | Thomas Peterffy (Chairman, CEO, and Founder) |
| Industry | Financial Services |
| Services | Online Brokerage Services, Direct Access Trading |
| Revenue | 1.6 billion USD |
| Website | http://www.interactivebrokers.com |
Interactive Brokers LLC (official abbrev IB) is a United States-based discount online brokerage firm, operating on most major worldwide stock, futures, bonds, forex, and options exchanges. For 30 years IB has been building direct access trading technology that delivers to professionals worldwide. On it's website, IB states that it has consolidated equity capital of over US $3.5 billion, and also states that IB and it's affiliates exceed 700,000 trades per day and trade 14.1% of the global equity options volume.[1] The chief executive officer is Thomas Peterffy.
[edit] History
As of 2004, the firm's clients were making some 500,000 trades per day on various international markets and accounted for 21.4% of the options trading volume of North America. The parent company, Interactive Brokers Group, maintains offices in Chicago, Switzerland, Montreal, Hong Kong, London and Sydney. IB is regulated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the regulatory policies of all other exchanges on which it trades.[2] The company had revenues of $1.6 billion USD and income of $734 million USD in the twelve month period ending in August, 2006.[3]
In 2006 Interactive Brokers filed paperwork with the SEC for an Initial Public Offering on the Nasdaq exchange. The company began trading publicly on May 4, 2007 under the ticker symbol NASDAQ: IBKR.[4]
[edit] Software
Their Trader Workstation (abbreviated TWS) is a cross-platform Java desktop application, similar to their WebTrader web application, but is extensible through a proprietary API. A variant intended for personal digital assistants and smartphones also exists, called MobileTrader.
PaperTrader is a slightly simplified version of Trader Workstation targeting developers and papertraders. Papertraders can use it to experiment with trading for free in a virtual marketplace, while developers use it to test programs written around for the Traders Workstation API.
