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Globe and Mail
14 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Interactive Brokers' Stock Split: Time to Buy Shares?
A stock split does not change anything about the underlying business fundamentals of a stock, and yet, stock-split stocks tend to outperform over the 12 months following a split. This makes them interesting to pay attention to. One under-the-radar stock split that occurred this month is Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR), performing a 4-to-1 split on its common shares. The technology-focused investing brokerage has grown users, revenue, and earnings at an impressive rate in the last 10 years, with customers drawn to its advanced trading platform. Does this make the stock a perfect buy for investors right now? Let's take a closer look at why Interactive Brokers is a winning stock to add to your portfolio. Comprehensive offering for the masses Interactive Brokers is an advanced trading platform that brings professional service to the masses. By enabling its customers to trade virtually any foreign market, currency, bonds, futures, and more, the brokerage has built up a better value proposition than traditional brokerages, even online-focused ones. It has an easy-to-use mobile application as well as more advanced trading tools, helping it cater to the more sophisticated individual investor as well as professional investors and hedge funds. It does all this at a reasonable price, including free stock trading on its IBKR Lite platform. This consistent focus on a wide swath of trading capabilities at a reasonable price has helped Interactive Brokers convince investors to switch to its brokerage platform. Back in 2012, Interactive Brokers only had 200,000 active customers, a minnow in the brokerage world. Today, it has 3.6 million customers that skew toward wealthier, advanced, and professional traders. This is a valuable set of customers with high lifetime values. To keep furthering its brokerage offering, Interactive Brokers is now offering more cryptocurrency trading and the fast-growing prediction marketplace, which allows users to bet on things such as the outcome of a country's election. The more types of trades you can make on Interactive Brokers, the more valuable it is for customers. This is why investors are switching from legacy players to Interactive Brokers. An impressive run of earnings growth Typically, fast-growing companies are not very profitable because of how much they need to spend on advertising, marketing, and technological development. Not Interactive Brokers. The company has built up a culture of efficiency and product-led growth combined with a highly automated brokerage platform that needs fewer employees to manage. Last quarter, Interactive Brokers had a pre-tax profit margin of 74%, which is one of the best profit margins of any company globally. The average profit margin for the S&P 500 index has ranged from 10% to 15%. Interactive Brokers has used this increasing operating leverage to put up impressive earnings growth in the last few years. Net income is up 400% in the last five years, hitting $793 million over the last 12 months. With only a small portion of investors using Interactive Brokers, the company has plenty of room to keep growing in the years to come; it is nowhere near one of the largest players in the brokerage market today. IBKR PE Ratio data by YCharts Should you buy IBKR stock? Investors who are backward-looking may think they have missed out on owning Interactive Brokers stock. It is up 67% in the last 12 months and just went through a stock split. I believe these investors are missing the forest for the trees. At today's stock price, Interactive Brokers trades at a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of 28. Most value investors would look at this high earnings ratio and scoff at investing in this company. However, we need to remember that Interactive Brokers has put up impressive levels of user, revenue, and earnings growth in the last five years and still has a long runway to keep stealing market share of brokerage customers. Its superior platform is not going to be replicated overnight, and it keeps improving its breadth of products and services every year. If Interactive Brokers can keep growing its earnings at a fast clip (which I think it can), the stock is a great buy after its recent stock split. Should you invest $1,000 in Interactive Brokers Group right now? Before you buy stock in Interactive Brokers Group, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Interactive Brokers Group wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $689,813!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $906,556!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is809% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to175%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025 Brett Schafer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Interactive Brokers Group. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2027 $175 calls on Interactive Brokers Group and short January 2027 $185 calls on Interactive Brokers Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
CTV News
17 minutes ago
- CTV News
‘You shouldn't feel intimidated': Maine governor meets with Maritime premiers to strengthen relations
Maine Gov. Janet Mills sits down for an interview with CTV News Atlantic's Todd Battis. Maine Gov. Janet Mills is visiting the Maritimes this week to strengthen relations amid the ongoing trade dispute between Canada and the United States. Mills arrived Monday and held a roundtable meeting with the Saint John Region Chamber of Commerce before meeting with New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt to discuss tariffs and trade on Tuesday at the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce. On Wednesday, she arrived in Nova Scotia to meet with Premier Tim Houston. Mills said she is also meeting with local citizens and businesspeople to learn where Maine can strengthen their relationships with the Maritimes. 'I'm very interested in the research that is going on here, particularly marine sciences,' Mills said in an interview with CTV News Atlantic's Todd Battis. 'We have similar research going on in Maine and I want to make sure we connect those assets and those synergies.' Mills said she was interested in learning from the Maritimes about how Maine can diversify their aquaculture, forestry and farming. 'I'm excited about some of the things that are being done here in Nova Scotia, some of the products being developed in the Atlantic provinces,' Mills said. Mills will also be meeting with the Centre of Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship in Dartmouth, an innovation hub for the global marine technology sectors. 'Maine depends on oil and petroleum products from Canada, we're looking at alternative energy sources,' Mills said. 'Theres a lot going on.' During her meeting with Premier Holt, Mills said President Donald Trump doesn't speak for her and many Americans when it comes to discussions about Canada, which she reiterated on Wednesday. '[This] historically peaceful border, between Canada and the United States is peaceful still,' Mills said. 'It's not a warzone.' Mills said she wants to reassure people Maine is still welcoming Canadians, despite recent fears of crossing the border due to frayed U.S.-Canada relations. 'Those fears, I understand where they are coming from, and I feel disheartened about that too,' Mills said. 'But still, we are a safe state and it's a safe border and you shouldn't feel intimidated.'
CTV News
17 minutes ago
- CTV News
Vancouver man fined $80K for unlicensed property management
A Vancouver man and his company have been ordered to pay a total of $80,000 to B.C.'s real estate regulator after admitting to providing property management services without a licence for more than eight years. Peter Ho Chiu Chu and 168 Rock Solid Homes Ltd. admitted their unlicensed operation and agreed to the penalty in a consent order agreement with the B.C. Financial Services Authority, which was published online Monday. According to the document, Chu told BCFSA staff that – until they contacted him to investigate his conduct – he was unaware that property managers were required to be licensed in B.C. He has since applied for licensure, but the consent order notes that his application was placed on hold while the regulator investigated the case. The Office of the Superintendent of Real Estate, a precursor to the BCFSA, began its investigation after receiving a complaint about Chu and Rock Solid in August 2019, according to the document. The investigation soon identified 'at least' 31 properties – located in Vancouver, Richmond, Delta, Burnaby and West Vancouver – that Rock Solid had managed between 2012 and 2020. According to the consent order, Rock Solid offered services including advertising properties for rent, screening prospective tenants, signing and managing tenancy agreements, collecting security deposits and rents, making and supervising repairs, and representing owners at Residential Tenancy Branch hearings, among other things. For these services, the company charged 8.333 per cent of rental income, plus GST on maintenance fees and $100 per RTB appearance. Chu was the sole director of Rock Solid, according to the consent order. In May 2020, he provided an undertaking to the OSRE promising to cease providing real estate services unless he held a valid licence. However, further investigation showed that Chu continued to provide property management services for free, 'in anticipation of future remuneration once he became licensed,' according to the document. The consent order details more back-and-forth between the parties, culminating with the OSRE issuing an 'order in urgent circumstances' directing Chu and Rock Solid to stop all property management services. Chu told staff he complied with this cease order. 'Mr. Chu was co-operative throughout the investigation by providing documents in his possession or control and attending an interview with investigative staff as requested,' the consent order reads. 'Mr. Chu's understanding of the scope of the undertaking is that it prohibited the provision of rental property management services for or in expectation of remuneration, and that provision of such services for free was not prohibited.' The document notes that Chu has no prior discipline history with the BCFSA or its predecessor organizations. In the consent order, Chu admitted to his unlicensed property management and agreed to pay a $75,000 administrative penalty, plus $5,000 in investigation costs. It's the second penalty the BCFSA has levied against Chu's household in as many months. In May, Chu's wife Rena Liang and her Personal Real Estate Corporation agreed to pay the regulator $50,000 for professional misconduct. Liang's misconduct included directing the tenant of a West Vancouver property to provide rental payments to Chu, despite knowing that he was not licensed, as well as using her PREC to make a loan to her husband that was registered as a mortgage against their Vancouver home. The BCFSA issued a news release about the couple's conduct and penalties on Tuesday. 'These actions show a disregard for consumers who deserve to be represented by licensed real estate professionals,' said Jon Vandall, the BCFSA's senior vice-president of compliance and enforcement, in the release. 'When someone offers unlicensed services, they are implying or claiming they are something they are not, and this leads to consumer risk. Ignorance of (B.C.'s Real Estate Services Act) is no excuse. BCFSA is here to inform and protect consumers and ensure only licensed operators provide real estate services in B.C."
