The broker was founded by and is indirectly 74.6% owned by and chaired by Thomas Peterffy, an early innovator in computer-assisted trading. Approximately 23.5% of the company is publicly held.[1] Interactive Brokers is ranked 473rd on the Fortune 500.[3]
The company traces its roots to T.P. & Co., a market maker founded in 1977 and renamed Timber Hill Inc. in 1982. In 1979, it became the first to use fair value pricing sheets on a stock exchange trading floor. In 1983, it became the first to use handheld computers for trading. In 1987, Peterffy also created the first fully automated algorithmic trading system, to automatically create and submit orders to a market. Between 1993 and 1994, the corporate group Interactive Brokers Group was created, and the subsidiary Interactive Brokers LLC was created to control its electronic brokerage, and to keep it separate from Timber Hill, which conducts market making. In 2014, Interactive Brokers became the first online broker to offer direct access to IEX, a private forum for trading securities. In 2021, the company launched trading in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.
History
Peterffy talking about his handheld computers in a CNBC interview, 2016
In 1977, Thomas Peterffy left his job designing commodity trading software for Mocatta Metals, and bought a seat on the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) as an individual market maker. The following year, he formed his first company, named T.P. & Co., to expand trading activities to several members under badge number 549. At the time, trading used an open outcry system; Peterffy developed algorithms to determine the best prices for options and used those on the trading floor,[4] and thus the firm became the first to use daily printed fair value pricing sheets. In 1979, the company expanded to employ four traders, three of whom were AMEX members. In 1982, Peterffy renamed T.P. & Co. to Timber Hill Inc.; he named it after a road to a favorite retreat,[5][6]: 30–31 one of his properties on Hutchin Hill Road in Woodstock, New York. By 1983, Peterffy was sending orders to the floor from his upstairs office; he devised a system to read the data from a Quotron machine by measuring the electric pulses in the wire and decoding them. The data would be then sent through Peterffy's trading algorithms, and then Peterffy would call down the trades.[6]: 33 After pressure to become a true market maker and keep constant bids and offers, Peterffy knew that he would need his employees to closely pay attention to market movements, and that handheld computers would help. At the time, the AMEX didn't permit computers on the trading floor. Because of this, Peterffy had an assistant deliver market information from his office in the World Trade Center.[6]: 11 In November 1983, he convinced the exchange to allow computer use on the floor.[5]
In 1983, Peterffy sought to computerize the options market, and he first targeted the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE).[5] At the time, brokers still used fair value pricing sheets, which were by then updated once or twice a day. In 1983, Timber Hill created the first handheld computers used for trading. As Peterffy explained in a 2016 interview, the battery-powered units had touch screens for the user to input a stock price and it would produce the recommended option prices,[7][8][9] and it also tracked positions and continually repriced options on stocks.[9] However, he immediately encountered opposition from the heads of the exchange. When he first brought a 12-inch-long (30 cm) by 9-inch-wide (23 cm) device to the exchange floor, a committee in the exchange told him it was too big. When he made the device smaller, the committee stated that no analytic devices were allowed to be used on the exchange floor. Effectively blocked from using the CBOE, he sought to use his devices in other exchanges.[5]
Also in 1983, Timber Hill expanded to 12 employees and began trading on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. In 1984, Timber Hill began coding a computerized stock index futures and options trading system and, in February 1985, Timber Hill's system and network was brought online. The system was designed to centrally price and manage risk on a portfolio of equity derivatives traded in multiple locations around the country.[9] In 1985, Peterffy introduced his computer system to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which allowed it. However, the stock exchange only allowed it to be used at trading booths several yards away from where transactions were executed. Peterffy responded by designing a code system for his traders to read colored bars emitted in patterns from the video displays of computers in the booths. This caused the exchange and other members to be suspicious of insider trading, which convinced Timber Hill to distribute instructions throughout the exchange, describing how to read the displays.[5] In response, the exchange required the company to turn the screens away from the trading floor, which prompted Peterffy to hire a clerk to communicate with the traders via hand signals. Eventually computers were allowed on the trading floor.[10]
In the 1980s, the company was located in the original World Trade Center.
Timber Hill joined the Options Clearing Corporation in 1984, the New York Futures Exchange in 1985, and the Pacific Stock Exchange and the options division of the NYSE the following year. Also in 1985, the firm joined and began trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Board Options Exchange. In 1986, the company moved its headquarters to the World Trade Center to control activity at multiple exchanges. Peterffy again hired workers to sprint from his offices to the exchanges with updated handheld devices, which he later superseded with phone lines carrying data to computers at the exchanges. Peterffy later built miniature radio transmitters into the handhelds and the exchange computers to allow data to automatically flow to them.[6]: 39
In 1987, Timber Hill joined the National Securities Clearing Corporation and the Depository Trust Company (now merged as the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation). By 1987, Timber Hill had 67 employees and had become self-clearing in equities.[9] In 1987, the CBOE was about to close down its S&P 500 options market due to the options not attracting sufficient trader interest. Because of this, Peterffy pledged that Timber Hill would make tight markets in the product for a year if the exchange would allow the traders to use handheld computers on the trading floor. The exchange agreed, and more traders were attracted by the change in pricing; today S&P 500 options are the most actively traded stock market index options in the U.S.[5] In 1990, Timber Hill Deutschland GmbH was incorporated in Germany, and shortly thereafter began trading equity derivatives at the Deutsche Terminbörse (DTB), marking the first time that Timber Hill used one of its trading systems on a fully automated exchange. In 1992, Timber Hill began trading at the Swiss Options and Financial Futures Exchange, which merged with DTB in 1998 to become Eurex. At that time, Timber Hill had 142 employees.[9]
While Peterffy was trading on the Nasdaq in 1987,[11] he created the first fully automated algorithmic trading system. It consisted of an IBM computer that would pull data from a Nasdaq terminal connected to it and carry out trades on a fully automated basis. The machine, for which Peterffy wrote the software, worked faster than a trader could.[6]: 12–14 Upon inspection, the Nasdaq banned direct interface with the terminal, and required trades to be typed in manually. Peterffy and his team designed a system with a camera to read the terminal, a computer to decode the visual data, and mechanical fingers to type in the trade orders, which was then accepted by the Nasdaq.[6]: 17
1993 to 2000
Interactive Brokers Inc. was incorporated in 1993 as a U.S. broker-dealer, to provide technology developed by Timber Hill for electronic network and trade execution services to customers.
In 1995, Timber Hill France S.A. was incorporated and began making markets at the Marché des Options Négociables de Paris (a subsidiary of Euronext Paris) and the Marché à Terme International de France futures exchange. Also in 1995, Timber Hill Hong Kong began market making at the Hong Kong Futures Exchange and IB created its primary trading platform Trader Workstation and executed its first trades for public customers.[9]
In 1996, Timber Hill Securities Hong Kong Limited was incorporated and began trading at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.[9]
In 1997, Timber Hill Australia Pty Limited was incorporated in Australia, and Timber Hill Europe began trading in Norway and became a member of the Austrian Derivatives Exchange. By 1997, Timber Hill had 284 employees.[9]
In 1998, Timber Hill Canada Company was formed, and IB began to clear online trades for retail customers connected directly to Globex to trade S&P 500 futures.[9]
In 1999, IB introduced a smart order routing linkage for multiple-listed equity options and began to clear trades for its customer stocks and equity derivatives trades.[9] Also in 1999, Goldman Sachs attempted to purchase the company and was turned away.[5]
In 2001, the corporate name of the Timber Hill Group LLC was changed to Interactive Brokers Group LLC, which at the time handled 200,000 trades per day.
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.[13] Also in 2002, Timber Hill became the major market maker for the newly introduced U.S. single-stock futures.[9]
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.[9]
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.[9]
In 2005, the company launched its forex trading platform IdealPro (now Ideal FX).[9]
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.[9] Also that year, IBG took stakes in OneChicago, the ISE Stock Exchange, and the CBOE Stock Exchange.[9]
In 2006, Interactive Brokers began offering penny-priced options.[9][14][15]
In December 2007, the company acquired FutureTrade Technologies, an integrated electronic equity and option trading service provider.[18]
In 2008, the company 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.[9]
In March 2009, the company launched brokerage services in India.[19]
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.[9]
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.[20][21][22][23]
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.[9]
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.[9] Also in 2013, IB integrated its trading notification tool (called IB FYI) into the TWS.[9] 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.[24]
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.[25]
In May 2015, the company acquired investment management platform Covestor.[26][27]
In 2015, the company launched Investors' Marketplace, which allows customers to find investors and other service providers in the financial industry.[28]
Milan Galik was appointed chief executive officer of the company in 2019, succeeding founder Thomas Peterffy, who remained as chairman.[33][34]
In September 2019, the company launched commission-free trades via "IBKR Lite".[35][36][37]
In November 2019, the company began offering fractional share trading.[38][39]
In 2020, the customer base grew to one million users.[40]
In December 2020, the company acquired the retail operations of Folio Investments, including 70,000 accounts, from Goldman Sachs.[41]
In May 2021, the company launched trading in spot gold for U.S. clients.[42]
In September 2021, the company launched trading in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.[43][44] In May 2024, the platform was expanded to clients in the United Kingdom.[45]
In August 2018, the company was fined $5.5 million over allegations that it broke federal rules on naked short selling.[52]
In August 2020, the company was fined $38 million for failing to maintain an adequate anti-money laundering program and alleged compliance lapses, including failure to report suspicious trades.[53]
Further reading
Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World by Christopher Steiner (2012) - The first chapter describes Thomas Peterffy's development of Interactive Brokers and the technologies that have led to the modern automated market.[6]
Dark Pools: The Rise of the Machine Traders and the Rigging of the U.S. Stock Market by Scott Patterson (2013)[54]
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