The Single Most Compelling Reason Every Investor Needs Interactive Brokers (IBKR) in 2025

Interactive Brokers just rewrote the rulebook for global market access—and traditional brokers are scrambling to catch up.

Global Reach, Zero Compromises

IBKR smashes through geographic barriers that trap most retail investors. Trade stocks, options, futures, and currencies across 150 markets worldwide from a single integrated platform. No more juggling multiple brokerages or settling for limited selections.

Institutional-Grade Tools for Main Street

Their trading platform delivers professional-level analytics that typically cost thousands in subscription fees. Real-time data streams, advanced charting packages, and algorithmic trading suites—all included without the hedge-fund price tag.

The Cost Advantage That Actually Matters

While other brokers hide fees in spread markups and order flow payments, IBKR's transparent pricing model slashes trading costs by up to 90% for active traders. Their tiered commission structure rewards volume instead of punishing it.

Regulatory Armor You Can Trust

With $13.5 billion in excess regulatory capital and SEC-compliant segregation of client assets, IBKR provides fortress-level protection that makes crypto exchanges look like wild west operations. Sleep well knowing your assets aren't funding the CEO's yacht purchases.

One platform to rule them all—unless you enjoy paying traditional brokers for the privilege of limited choices and outdated technology.

Image source: Getty Images.

If you buy some shares today, will you enjoy average annual gains of 20% or more? Well, maybe. The shares seem a bit overvalued at recent levels, unfortunately, with a forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 28, which is well above the five-year average of 20, and a price-to-sales ratio of 2.87, well above the five-year average of 1.88.

Based in Connecticut, with offices around the world, IB has been around for close to 50 years and offers electronic trading services for stocks, options, futures, currencies, bonds, gold, crypto, and more. As it says on the company's website, "Interactive Brokers Group and its affiliates execute approximately 3,552,000 trades per day." Interestingly, some 84% of its customers are outside the U.S., positioning it well for international growth and leaving a lot of room for growth here in the U.S.

While many brokerages have lots of brick-and-mortar locations, Interactive Brokers doesn't, operating mainly electronically. This helps keep its costs way down, enabling it to offer low prices to customers while generating fat profit margins.

In the company's impressive second quarter, revenue surged more than 20% year over year, while earnings per share popped by 24%. During the company's conference call, IR Director Nancy Stuebe noted:

This quarter we added 250,000 net new accounts, bringing our year-to-date total to over 528,000 -- more than we added in all of 2023. Our application processing is highly automated and continually becoming even more so, allowing us to handle surges in new accounts efficiently, without adding significantly to our headcount or cost base.

Take a closer look at Interactive Brokers to see if it's a good fit for your long-term portfolio.