Interactive Brokers Group Announces Decision to Cease Options Market Making Activities
March 08 2017 - 4:52PM
Business Wire
Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ GS:IBKR) today announced
that it will discontinue options market making activities globally,
which are conducted through its Timber Hill companies. The Company
expects to phase out these operations substantially over the coming
months. The Company intends to continue conducting certain trading
activities in stocks and related instruments.
Thomas Peterffy, Chairman and CEO, said, “Having initiated the
first automated option market making operation in the mid ’80s,
which grew into the largest such business on a global scale over
the next 25 years, it’s been painful for me to see it deteriorating
in the last few years. But we do not have a choice in this matter.
Today retail order-flow is purchased by large order internalizers
and joining them would represent a conflict we do not wish to have.
On the other hand, providing liquidity to sophisticated,
professional synthesizers of short-term fundamental, technical and
big data is not a profitable activity.
“We must focus on continuing to build our brokerage platform to
empower our customers with first rate execution and account
management capabilities at very low cost. This remains our mission,
to which we must devote our full attention. In retrospect, 40 years
of market making gave us the financial resources and the unique
expertise to develop our superior brokerage platform for cost and
execution sensitive, professional investors and traders, and to
give them the edge to successfully compete in the marketplace.”
Management expects to complete its comprehensive review of
facilities and staffing in the near future with the goal of
optimizing the deployment of the Company’s resources.
In connection with this shift toward electronic brokerage, we
plan to rebalance the composition of currencies in the GLOBAL, a
basket of 15 major currencies in which we hold our equity, by
increasing the relative weight of the U.S. dollar vs. the other
currencies to approximately 70% from its current approximately 47%
weight. The new composition will be effective at the close of
business on March 31, 2017 and the conversion to the new targeted
currency holdings will take place shortly thereafter.
About Interactive Brokers Group, Inc.:Interactive Brokers
Group affiliates provide automated trade execution and custody of
securities, commodities and foreign exchange around the clock on
over 120 markets in numerous countries and currencies from a single
IB Universal AccountSM to customers worldwide. We service
individual investors, hedge funds, proprietary trading groups,
financial advisors and introducing brokers. Our four decades of
focus on technology and automation has enabled us to equip our
customers with a uniquely sophisticated platform to manage
their investment portfolios at extremely low cost relative to the
financial services industry. We strive to provide our customers
with advantageous execution prices and trading, risk and portfolio
management tools, research facilities and investment products, all
at unusually low prices, positioning them to achieve superior
returns compared to our competitors.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements:The
foregoing information contains certain forward-looking statements
that reflect the Company’s current views with respect to certain
current and future events and financial performance. These
forward-looking statements are and will be, as the case may be,
subject to many risks, uncertainties and factors relating to the
Company’s operations and business environment which may cause the
Company’s actual results to be materially different from any future
results, expressed or implied, in these forward-looking statements.
Any forward-looking statements in this release are based upon
information available to the company on the date of this release.
The company does not undertake to publicly update or revise its
forward-looking statements even if experience or future changes
make it clear that any statements expressed or implied therein will
not be realized. Additional information on risk factors that could
potentially affect the Company’s financial results may be found in
the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170308006416/en/
For Interactive Brokers Group,
Inc.Investors:Nancy Stuebe,
203-618-4070orMedia:Kalen Holliday,
203-913-1369
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