At 80, Thomas Peterffy is today the 22nd richest person in the world, and the majority of his $75 billion fortune still comes from the company he founded, Interactive Brokers (IBKR). Joining the S&P 500 index in 2025, IBKR has become not just a category leader in the brokerage industry, but a system unto itself.
Peterffy's story is a transformational one for Wall Street. In 1987, he developed the first fully automated trading system, sending orders faster than humans, via a computer connected to a Nasdaq terminal. That small idea laid the foundation for millions of investors trading around the world today.
2025 Third Quarter Earnings: A Long Line of Records
The third quarter earnings report, released on October 16, 2025, demonstrated IBKR's unabated growth. The company exceeded expectations by 6%:
* EPS: $0.57 (expected 0.54)
* Revenue: $1.61 billion (expected 1.52)
YoY EPS and revenue increased by 43% and 21%, respectively, with quarterly growth of 12% and 9%, respectively. But beyond all this, there's a striking metric: an operating margin of 79.3%.
This ratio is virtually unparalleled among publicly traded financial companies. The 12-point increase in margin from 67% a year ago clearly demonstrates the company's efficiency.
IBKR's customer base is no longer limited to professional investors. The total number of accounts has nearly quintupled in the last five years, from 690,000 to 4.1 million.
790,000 new accounts were added in this quarter alone. This is more than the company added in all of 2024. This growth is evident not only in quantity but also in quality:
* Commission income increased by 23% (primarily from stock and option transactions).
* Net interest income increased by 21%.
* Pre-tax profit increased by 44%.
* Crypto trading volume increased by 87% quarter-on-quarter and fivefold year-on-year.
All this was achieved with a mere 5% increase in headcount.
New Frontier: Crypto and Stablecoin Trading
Interactive Brokers is preparing to offer crypto and stablecoin trading to its clients in the US, Europe, and China in the coming period. This will increase the company's revenue diversification and put it in the same league as platforms like Robinhood for retail investors.
Analysts believe this move could give IBKR a momentum similar to the rapid user growth Robinhood experienced in its early years with $HOOD. The difference is that IBKR is already doing this as a profitable giant.
Stock Performance: A Silent Winner
While Robinhood is much more talked about on social media, the picture is clear. $IBKR stock has returned over 325% since Robinhood's IPO, a figure that extends over the past three years, while Robinhood has only gained around 277% during this period.
IBKR stock has gained 41.5% since the beginning of the year, adding $22 billion to Peterffy's personal fortune. TradingView data shows that IBKR's long-term trend remains upward. It's particularly noteworthy that the stock is increasingly gaining ground in the portfolios of large funds, especially when it's trading around $70.
In Summary: The Technology That Runs the Cash Register
This story, which began with a small trading desk in 1977, has evolved into the world's most sophisticated electronic brokerage. Peterffy has operated on the same philosophy for three decades: low cost, high technology, maximum scalability.
Today, many investors are still searching for answers to the question, "Which stocks should you buy?" However, Thomas Peterffy's story raises another question:
"Have you ever considered investing in the companies that built the market itself?"
A famous investor once said:
“After all this research, I realized this: If you want to win, you have to be on the money-making side.”
Interactive Brokers fits this description perfectly. It's a business model that operates the market infrastructure, minimizes risk, and takes a cut of every transaction.
Peterffy's approach was simple, but that's where his genius lay: “Write the rules of the game instead of playing it.”
