Interactive Brokers Profits When Trading Is Hot. What Happens When It Cools?

Bull markets affect not only stock prices but also some underlying businesses in the economy. For instance, trading brokerages -- like Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR) -- earn more revenue if more people around the globe trade their equities.

The bull market that began in late 2022 helped Interactive Brokers' stock generate a total return of over 525% in the last five years. That performance is actually crushing the performance of most technology and artificial intelligence ( AI ) stocks over the same time period.

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But what happens when trading eventually slows? Let's discuss the dynamics of the financial brokerage sector and what it could mean for Interactive Brokers investors today.

Interactive Brokers (IBKR) is a global financial asset trading platform. It makes money whenever a customer trades a stock, options , cryptocurrencies, or other financial assets. The more customers it has and the more trades each customer makes, the more money it will make.

The AI-driven bull market has been quite kind to IBKR's growth. Its total customers grew 34% year over year last quarter to 5.19 million, resulting in 30% growth in commission revenue. It also generates net interest income on cash balances and margin loans, which were up 23% year over year.

Profitability is also stellar, with a pretax profit margin of 77% last quarter. IBKR's stock price is up 506% in the last five years due to this stellar profit margin and the fact that it has been able to grow its customer accounts by 5x from around 1 million in 2020. This was helped by its improved product offering for international trading, as well as by the bull market during the pandemic and in the last few years around AI.

Cyclicality is the price of doing business

A market-share-gaining stock brokerage like IBKR is likely to deliver fantastic financial performance in a bull market. Bear markets are not so kind. Sure, trading is still going on, but when stock prices fall, it generally means some individual traders exit the market, and trading volume falls. This turns a previous tailwind into a headwind for as long as stocks remain in the doldrums.

This is the business cycle for IBKR, and a bear market will eventually arrive. In 2022, when stocks were in a bear market amid interest rate hikes and recession fears, IBKR's customer account balance was nearly flat, underscoring how macroeconomic forces can affect its business. Still, the fact that it was able to stabilize its business during a bear market is a testament to its market share gains.