Key Points
Interactive Brokers is a discount broker that is increasingly offering high-risk "investments".
The company is giving customers what they want, but it isn't clear what will happen when risk-taking is no longer in vogue.
Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR) is a well-known discount broker, competing with new entrants like Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) and old-school industry bellwether Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW). Interactive Brokers ended the second quarter of 2026 with 5.19 million customer accounts, up 34% year over year, representing $930 billion in equity, up 40%. The problem is that nothing on Wall Street grows to the sky.
A big return in a very specific period of time
If you had purchased $10,000 of Interactive Brokers stock a decade ago, it would currently be worth just over $100,000. That's an impressive return in a decade, but it is worth highlighting that the biggest gains came in the last couple of years. In fact, it seems like the stock hit an inflection point in 2024. The timing here is worth noting.
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Over the last couple of years, risk-taking among investors appears to have ratcheted higher. That includes investment trends like artificial intelligence and more questionable investments like cryptocurrencies. It also includes prediction markets, which are time-limited binary-outcome "investments" that many would describe as gambling, with sports predictions as a key part of the story. Like its peers, Interactive Brokers has begun offering crypto trading and prediction markets to its customers.
To be fair, Interactive Brokers doesn't have much of a choice. If it doesn't offer the products and services customers demand, customers will gravitate toward brokers that do. It has to do this to remain competitive. And in the near term, the company is seeing great success, as noted above in the customer account metrics. But there's another customer metric that highlights just how extreme risk-taking is among the financial company's customers right now: margin loans increased 67% year over year in the second quarter. That's a pretty big increase, but it tracks with the broader market, where margin debt is near record levels.
What happens to Interactive Brokers' business in a bear market?
Right now, Interactive Brokers' business is being buoyed by aggressive investors leaning into risk during a bull market. Bull markets don't last forever; every bull in history has been followed by a bear. When a bear eventually comes along, investors will avoid risk, with some newer investors even deciding to exit the markets altogether. When that happens, Interactive Brokers' business will struggle, and Wall Street is likely to dump the stock. In other words, the last decade was great, but don't expect the good news to last forever.
Charles Schwab is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Interactive Brokers Group. The Motley Fool recommends Charles Schwab and recommends the following options: long January 2027 $43.75 calls on Interactive Brokers Group, short January 2027 $46.25 calls on Interactive Brokers Group, and short September 2026 $95 calls on Charles Schwab. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.