IBKR's New Accounts Rise: Surge in Trading Volumes Driving Growth?

Amid the current favorable market conditions and higher trading activity, Interactive Brokers IBKR has been recording a surge in new account openings. Per the firm’s Electronic Brokerage segment performance, net new accounts in November 2025 were 80,800, representing a year-over-year rise of 11%.

Its total customer accounts at the end of the reported month were 4.31 million, up 2% from the previous month and 33% from November 2024.

As market volatility has picked up across equities, options and global futures, there has been a renewed wave of activity among retail and professional traders that is benefiting Interactive Brokers. Rate-cut expectations, higher index dispersion and increased macro-driven positioning have fueled trading activities, because of which IBKR’s high-frequency client base is returning in force.

In addition to increased trading activities, factors that have been driving growth in IBKR’s client base are the brokerage firm’s competitive pricing and low-fee structure, attractive margin features, continuous product innovation, streamlined onboarding and an efficient operating model.

Supported by the company’s efforts to diversify its product suite and develop proprietary software to automate broker-dealer functions, along with its solid Daily Average Revenue Trade (DART) numbers, its revenues are expected to increase in the near term. Over the last five years (2019-2024), IBKR’s total net revenues witnessed a compound annual growth rate of 21.8%, with the upward momentum continuing in the first nine months of 2025.

Interactive Brokers’ Other Key Metrics for November

Total client DARTs in November were 4,273,000, representing a 29% increase from November 2024 but a decline of 4% from October 2025. On an annualized basis, cleared average DARTs per customer account were 214. The metric declined 6% on a year-over-year basis and 7% from October 2025.

Interactive Brokers’ total options contracts were 138.4 million, up 18% year over year but down 24% sequentially. Future contracts rose 23% year over year but declined 6% from the previous month to 21 million.

Client equity was $769.7 billion, which grew 34% year over year but declined 2% sequentially. Interactive Brokers recorded client credit balances of $154 billion, up 30% from November 2024 and down 2% from October 2025. The company's customer margin loan balance of $83.3 billion increased 38% from the year-ago month and rose 2% from last month.

Efforts Taken by IBKR’s Peers to Expand Product Offerings

IBKR’s key competitors, TradeWeb Markets Inc. TW and Robinhood Markets, Inc. HOOD, have also been rolling out products to bolster market share.

TradeWeb launched electronic portfolio trading for European government bonds, spanning UK Gilts, EUR and single currency notes. Also, Tradeweb was the first platform to introduce corporate bonds portfolio trading in 2019.

Likewise, Robinhood has been accelerating growth through rapid product innovation. Key launches include Cortex, an AI assistant for custom indicators, market analysis and real-time insights, and Legend.

Internationally, Robinhood is offering tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs across 31 EU/EEA countries with 24/5 commission-free trading and aims to tokenize private companies. Expanded crypto services, a proprietary blockchain and future global banking products, along with new offices in Toronto and plans for APAC, position Robinhood as a rising global fintech ecosystem.

IBKR’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimate Analysis

Shares of Interactive Brokers have rallied 36% in the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 25.7%.

From a valuation standpoint, IBKR trades at a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 28.71, well above the industry average of 14.60. 

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Interactive Brokers’ 2025 and 2026 earnings indicates year-over-year growth of 17.1% and 8.1%, respectively. Over the past 30 days, earnings estimates for both years have been revised upward.

Currently, Interactive Brokers carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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