Unknown Analyst
All right. I think we're now live. So we'll get started here. So we are delighted to have Thomas Peterffy, Founder and Chairman of Interactive Brokers. Board of Directors join us again for a fireside chat. Thomas founded Interactive Brokers 46 years ago if I had that correct.
未知分析师
好的，我想我们已经开始直播了，那我们就开始吧。我们非常高兴邀请到 Interactive Brokers 的创始人兼董事长 Thomas Peterffy 先生以及董事会成员再次进行炉边对话。如果我没记错的话，Thomas 在 46 年前创立了 Interactive Brokers。
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
You do.
Thomas Peterffy 创始人兼董事长
确实如此。
Unknown Analyst
Excellent. He's been instrumental in the creation of electronic market making and Interactive Brokers has become one of the fastest-growing broker-dealers in the market, servicing both retail and institutional clients and offering a unique tech-enabled platform.
未知分析师
太好了。他在电子化做市的创立过程中发挥了关键作用，而 Interactive Brokers 已成为市场上增长最快的券商之一，为零售和机构客户提供服务，并拥有独特的技术驱动平台。
Thanks so much for joining us, Thomas.
非常感谢你的参与，Thomas。
Unknown Analyst
Okay. So it's great to have you back at conference. I think a lot has changed over the past year, both in terms of the macro and frankly, your business. So maybe we could just talk about your perspective on the macro backdrop and what that means for markets and rate structures.
未知分析师
好的，很高兴在本次会议上再次邀请到你。我认为过去一年里，无论宏观环境还是贵公司的业务都发生了巨大变化。能否请你谈谈对当前宏观形势的看法，以及这对市场和利率结构意味着什么？
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
托马斯·彼得菲 创始人兼董事长
So I'd like to get to your point, to your question around the buzz way. If you are an investor in IBKR, you're justifiably unhappy today. When I looked at the stock at the end of November, I saw that it was exactly \$2 lower than it was the year before. And that is in the face of the SMP rising by something like 18%. So what happened during the year and why did this happen? During the year, our number of accounts have risen by 22%. The customer deposits have risen by 27%. Our pretax profits went from \$2 billion a year to \$3.3 billion a year.
我想回应一下你方才关于“市场热度”的问题。如果你是 IBKR 的投资者，现在的确有足够理由感到失望。去年 11 月底我查看股价时发现，它比前年同期低了整整 2 美元，而同期标普指数却上涨了约 18%。那么这一年发生了什么、又为何如此？这一年里，我们的账户数量增长了 22%，客户存款增长了 27%，税前利润从每年 20 亿美元增至 33 亿美元。
So it's a rise of 65%. But the problem is that the way we achieved that was that we have taken full benefit of the rise in interest rates, while our peers have -- many of our peers have locked up their customers' money in long-term government that, which, of course, has lost a lot of its value and is there to mark to market, they would show a negative net worth, some of them. But they don't have to mark to market, so they can carry these long-term government securities on face value and borrow against them and to the extent their clients are either withdrawing money or they are moving the money into money market funds, they have to -- and they don't want to sell the long-term bonds and don't want to take the losses. So they use the face value of those bonds and borrow against them on the Fed, which is a special provision that Fed allowed for them at the time when the -- these couple of banks went bankrupt.
也就是说利润增长了 65%。问题在于，我们之所以能实现这一增长，是因为充分受益于利率上升；而我们的同行——很多同行——却把客户资金锁在了长期国债中。这些国债价格大幅下跌，如果按市值计价，一些机构甚至会出现负净值。但他们无需按市价计量，因此可以按面值持有这些长期国债并以此向美联储质押借款。当客户提取资金或转入货币市场基金，而他们又不愿出售长期债券、承担损失时，就会采用这种方式。美联储在几家银行破产时特别允许他们这样做。
So they don't actually have to take the loss. And even though they are showing much lower earnings. Now as the long-term rates now are going down from 5%, approaching 4%, they appear to be better off, but they don't really because they are still borrowing up 5.5% and have locked up securities still yielding less than 2%. But it looks like the future is looking \[indiscernible] while ours are less so. But to -- how big a problem is this for us? 1% of lower interest rates would cost us \$300 million. So if interest rates that falls into the 5% go to 4%, instead of \$3.3 billion, we will only make \$3 billion, other things being equal. But of course, we are expecting to go up more or less the same rate as we have been growing in the course of this year. So 22% account growth with a growth with -- growth with account deposits. And even though our commissions have not grown much because they haven't grown because '21 and '22 were very big years, mostly '21 was a very big year because of the lockup.
因此，他们实际上不必承担账面损失，尽管会计收益大幅降低。现在长期利率已从 5% 降至接近 4%，表面上看他们的处境好转，但事实并非如此，因为他们仍以 5.5% 的成本借款，而所持证券收益率不足 2%。相比之下，我们的前景似乎不如他们乐观。那么这对我们意味着多大影响？利率每下降 1 个百分点，将使我们少赚 3 亿美元。因此，如果利率从 5% 降至 4%，在其他条件不变的情况下，我们的利润将从 33 亿美元降至 30 亿美元。当然，我们预计账户和存款今年仍将保持约 22% 的增长。至于佣金收入，2021 年因“封锁行情”激增，2022 年也维持高位，此后虽未再大幅增长，但行业整体交易量已大幅下滑。
So commissions spiked at that time. And then as they've been basically holding study, while the trading volumes have diminished drastically in overall, not ours, but overall in the industry. So how do you explain? I don't know how to explain the behavior of the stock. That's basically...
当时佣金激增，此后基本持稳，而行业整体交易量却大幅萎缩（我们自身并未如此）。那么该如何解释？我也说不清股价的表现究竟为何如此。大体就是这样……
Unknown Analyst
未知分析师
Okay. Well, let me just ask one other one...
好的，那我想再问一个问题……
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
Thomas Peterffy 创始人兼董事长
Okay. So you're asking me high, but I see going forward as far as interest rates. I mean I don't think that I'm -- I have learned over the years to never argue with the market. If the market believes that long-term rates will be 4.16%, I don't think that it's any of my business to argue with that. But if I'm thinking about it, I see that there are several long-term trends in the economy that go for higher inflation and higher rates. And there are the deglobalization, and as you know, over the last several decades, the manufacturing of goods have been reallocated around the globe due to containerization, which reduced the shipping expenses. So they are reallocated, wherever is cheapest. And so that reduced cost of goods by very, very substantial amount by as much as 50% to 90% in many cases.
好的，你问我对长期利率的看法。我多年来学到的一点是永远不要和市场争辩。如果市场认为长期利率会是4.16%，那我就不该去反驳。但如果让我思考，我认为经济中存在若干长期趋势会推高通胀和利率。第一是去全球化。过去几十年，受益于集装箱化降低了航运成本，商品制造环节被重新分配到全球成本最低的地区，成本因此大幅下降，许多情况下可降至原来的50%甚至10%。
We also -- so with the rise in geopolitical tensions, and transportation is going to become less certain and more expensive, insurance rates for transportation are rising every day as you see more and more international shipping vessels being attacked by various pirates and other whoever is attacking these ships, it's hard to tell. Secondly, we have the rising of -- the problem of replacing our skilled workforce. So skilled workforce is produced in the United States and Europe, mostly and to some extent in Asia. But it is all in countries whose population growth has slowed drastically even in some cases, have gone into negative. And so most of the population growth around the globe is coming from countries where skilled workforce is not produced. So as a result, skilled labor is going to cost more and more and more as we go along.
另外，随着地缘政治紧张局势加剧，运输的确定性降低且成本上升，船运保险费用每日攀升，因为越来越多国际船只遭到海盗或其他团体袭击。其次，是熟练劳动力短缺。熟练劳动力主要在美国、欧洲以及部分亚洲国家培养，但这些国家人口增速大幅放缓，甚至出现负增长，而全球人口增长主要来自不产生熟练劳动力的国家。因此，熟练劳动力的成本将不断上升。
Thirdly, are the deficits, again, in the same countries, especially in the United States. So these deficits are going to contribute to inflation. And therefore, it is hard for me to believe that inflation on the long run is going to substantially decrease. And add to this, the ESG spending, which is just going to be huge, right? So if you add all these 4 factors together, it's hard to see how inflation is going to subside. Even though for -- in the short term, in the next several months, it could go down, but I think that in the long run, it will come back. So there are these long-term trends that you can get away from that. And on the other side, we have the substantial increase in productivity, which we saw this morning and the productivity increase induced by AI. And that is, of course, it's very hard for me to speculate on. It could be very, very substantial, and it could be disastrous, I really don't know what's going to happen there.
第三，是这些同样国家（尤其是美国）的财政赤字，赤字将推高通胀，因此我很难相信长期通胀会大幅下降。再加上巨额的ESG支出，把这四个因素加在一起，很难看到通胀会缓和。短期内未来几个月可能下降，但长期看还会回升。这些长期趋势无可回避。另一方面，生产率大幅提升——今天早上就看到了数据，且有AI驱动的生产率提升。不过这一点我难以预测，可能非常可观，也可能带来灾难性影响，我无法确定。
But so if I have to bet, I would bet on long-term interest rates, maybe 4% for now and going back to 5%, 6%, 7%, 8% as the deficit spending keeps increasing, international debts keep increasing and the refinancing of this debt is going to become more and more expensive. So that's what I see.
所以如果非要下注，我会押注长期利率：目前可能在4%，但随着赤字支出、国际债务不断增加以及再融资成本上升，利率会回到5%、6%、7%、甚至8%。这是我的判断。
Unknown Analyst
未知分析师
Okay. That's very clear. Maybe we can just turn to your strategy, investment priorities. Maybe where do you see the best opportunities to invest today? And then I know this is really difficult because your TAM is sort of every financial asset out there. And I know you've talked about that, but how do you think about your market share today and you can take that in any direction you'd like. And then what are your aspirations for what that market share could look like 3 to 5 years from now?
好的，非常清晰。我们可以谈谈您的战略和投资重点吗？您认为当下最佳的投资机会在哪里？我知道这很难回答，因为您的总可服务市场涵盖几乎所有金融资产。您如何看待目前的市场份额？您可以从任何角度切入。再者，您希望在未来3到5年内将市场份额提升到什么水平？
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
Thomas Peterffy 创始人兼董事长
So our market share is negligible. It's almost nothing, right? We have 2.5 million customers, theoretically, we could have 100 million or 200 million or 300 million. So it's really -- it's less than 1%. And this is true in all the segments we are in with the potential exemption of proprietary traders. So proprietary traders tend to come to us because they like our executions and they like our technology and they like our prime services, and they do not have the customers that hedge funds would also like to come to us, but their customers want them to go to the large primes. So proprietary traders don't have that pressure.
因此我们的市场份额可以忽略不计，几乎为零，对吧？我们拥有250万客户，理论上我们可以拥有1亿、2亿甚至3亿客户。所以实际上——不到1%。这一情况在我们所涉足的所有细分市场中都成立，或许自营交易商是一个潜在的例外。自营交易商之所以倾向于选择我们，是因为他们喜欢我们的交易执行、我们的技术以及我们的主经纪服务，他们没有像对冲基金那样来自客户的压力，而对冲基金的客户更希望他们选择大型主经纪行。因此，自营交易商没有这种压力。
So with proprietary traders, I do not know, but I think that our market share is very substantial, especially in the United States and probably in Europe. It's unknown how many they are, so we cannot tell what our market share is. Now as far as individuals, I mean, our market share is -- our accounts are growing kind of rapidly around 25% a year, and that's been basically the same over many, many years, and it's probably going on forward, going to be similar. So eventually, on the long run, we will get there. What is important for us is the recognition worldwide that free market economy is the way to go. And in many countries, that is not really accepted or understood or well known. So it is our job to teach people about the free market economy and how public -- how corporations would naturally evolve in a free market economy where there is free competition, and then you take the invention of so-called publicly owned corporations, which is -- I mean, it's originally European, but lately an American idea.
至于自营交易商，我不知道确切数字，但我认为我们的市场份额非常可观，尤其在美国，也可能在欧洲。具体有多少自营交易商并不清楚，因此我们无法计算我们的市场份额。至于个人投资者，我们的账户数量每年大约以25%的速度快速增长，多年来基本一直如此，预计未来也会保持类似速度。长期来看，我们最终会达到目标。对我们而言，关键在于让全世界认识到自由市场经济才是正道。在许多国家，这一点并未得到真正的接受、理解或广泛认知。因此，我们的任务是向人们普及自由市场经济，以及在自由竞争环境下企业将如何自然演变，并介绍“公众持股公司”这一发明——它最初源于欧洲，但近来主要是美国的理念。
But -- so to spread that idea in the countries where it is not a popular and well-accepted way of growing the economy. So it is our job to teach the public about that and to develop the educational aspect of our platform, and we are going to spend a lot of money on that in the years to come, and we expect that people who learn about the economy and investing on our platform will become our customers. What our market share will be? I don't even know what the size of the market will be. So I have no idea.
因此，我们的任务是在那些把这种发展经济方式视为冷门或难以接受的国家传播这一理念。我们需要向公众进行教育，并在我们的平台上发展教育功能，未来几年我们将在这方面投入大量资金，我们期望那些在我们的平台学习经济学和投资的人最终成为我们的客户。我们的市场份额会是多少？我甚至不知道市场规模有多大，所以我也没概念。
Unknown Analyst
未知分析师
Fair enough. Maybe if we could just turn to introducing brokers, and I understand why you don't want to give as much detail on those given the delays you've had so far this year with adding those 2 new IBrokers. But maybe you could just take a step back and talk about what the longer-term opportunity is in your mind for IBrokers based on the lessons you've learned this year and how the opportunity set has perhaps changed.
好吧，可以理解。或许我们可以谈谈介绍经纪商（IBrokers）。我理解，由于今年迄今引入那两家新IBroker的进度延迟，您不想透露太多细节。但也许您可以退一步，从您今年的经验教训出发，谈谈您对IBroker的长期机会有何看法，以及机会集可能发生了怎样的变化。
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
Thomas Peterffy 创始人兼董事长
So we -- I've been talking for a long time about 2 large potential introducing brokers coming on to a platform. The smaller of the 2 has done so and the large one has not yet and it turns out that there are more less centrally governed institution than we thought they were. So it's basically -- they are \[indiscernible] that are basically under one umbrella, and they have a lot of individual authority as to whether they want to put their customers onto our platform or not. The central governance would like them to do so, but they don't necessarily have to go along.
我们——我已经讨论了很长时间两家大型潜在介绍经纪商加入我们平台的问题。较小的那家已经加入，而大的那家尚未加入。结果发现，这些机构的集中治理程度比我们原先想象的要低得多。它们基本上是处在同一顶伞下的\[难以辨认]，各实体拥有相当大的自主权来决定是否将其客户迁移到我们的平台。中央管理层希望他们这么做，但他们并不一定非得照办。
So it's the -- all the legal agreements have finally been ironed out, but I really cannot tell at what rate they will proceed and put their clients on our platform. But we do have a large number of other institutions because basically, other than Pershing, we are -- other than Pershing, which is Bank of New York and Saxo, which is a small Danish bank relative to Pershing is very small, relative to us it's very small. We basically have no competition around the world as far as marketing our platform to other financial institutions to use for their individual customers. So that's what introducing brokers are.
所有法律协议终于都已敲定，但我确实无法判断他们会以怎样的速度推进并将客户迁移到我们的平台。不过我们拥有大量其他机构客户，因为基本上，除了Pershing（纽约梅隆旗下）和Saxo（相较于Pershing、也相较于我们都很小的一家丹麦银行）之外，我们在全球范围内几乎没有竞争者能够向其他金融机构推广我们的平台供其零售客户使用。这就是介绍经纪商的含义。
And there are -- the opportunity is huge because there are many, many banks around the world who do not have the technology, and it wouldn't be -- it would not be conceivable for them to develop this technology. And all the people around the world want to trade in the United States. So basically, we have developed -- as you know, we have the platform, but we also have developed the AML and all the local regulatory requirements that we have to comply with in many, many countries. And so they are able to bring the customers onto our platform. And there are literally hundreds of these kinds of institutions. So it's going to be a long process that is happening and it's happening hopefully at the increasing rate.
机会巨大，因为全球有许多银行缺乏这项技术，而让他们自行开发几乎不可想象。全世界的投资者都想在美国市场交易。基本上，正如你们所知，我们不仅拥有交易平台，还开发了反洗钱系统以及在众多国家必须遵守的本地监管要求，因此这些机构能够把客户带到我们的平台。这类机构有数以百计之多，整个进程将十分漫长，但我们希望会以越来越快的速度推进。
Unknown Analyst
未知分析师
All right. I want to turn to the trading trends you're seeing. I think a lot has changed, frankly, over the past year. You've seen the continued proliferation of 0DTE options, and I think you've benefited from that. I'd be just interested as you look at the business, perhaps if you could just differentiate between the trading trends you're seeing for your retail customers versus the institutional ones and sort of what the outlook is for trading generally.
好的。我想谈谈你们观察到的交易趋势。坦率地说，过去一年里发生了许多变化。0DTE（当日到期）期权持续激增，我认为你们从中受益。我想了解，当你审视业务时，能否区分一下你们零售客户与机构客户的交易趋势，以及整体交易活动的前景。
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
Thomas Peterffy 创始人兼董事长
So these zero day options appear to be a controversial thing. But the fact is that we had done for 50 years. We -- although 50 years ago, we only had 4 zero day expiration options a year. And then we went to 12, when options were listed for every month. And then when options were listed for every week, we went to 52 zero day options. And then the finally when they were listed for every day, now we have 250 of them.
这些当日到期期权似乎颇具争议。但事实是，我们做这件事已长达50年。50年前，我们一年只有4只当日到期期权；当期权按月挂牌后，我们有12只；当期权按周挂牌后，我们有52只；最终当期权按日挂牌后，如今我们有250只。
I don't think -- I mean it's -- they are substantially cheaper, especially if you're looking at certain corporate actions that are like earnings or they come out at a specific date, so why would you have to buy a 1 month's long option if you want to speculate on what the specific earnings would be. I think you wait for the day before and you buy it at that time. So you pay a lot less. And so -- also, markets are relatively illiquid for moving large portfolios, whether you want to buy them or sell them. So it makes sense to, during the day instead of buying or selling the portfolio to buy or sell the zero day call or put depending upon whether you want to buy your portfolio or sell it and then just do the trade on the close. And then you don't care what price you pay when you do the trade because the same price is going to be reflected in the option when it expires. So you will get paid whatever you lose in the execution. So I think it has zero day options, had a very good economic justification for existing. Now you're asking me what -- what we think...
我不认为——我的意思是——这些期权价格要低得多，尤其是当你关注于诸如财报发布等在特定日期发生的公司事件时。如果你想押注具体财报结果，为什么还要买一份一个月到期的期权？你可以等到前一天再买，这样支出会少很多。此外，市场在调动大型投资组合时流动性相对不足，无论买入还是卖出。因此，在盘中，用买入或卖出当日到期看涨/看跌期权来替代直接买卖组合是有道理的，然后在收盘时再执行现货交易。这样，在进行现货交易时你无需在意成交价，因为相同的价格将在期权到期时得到反映，你在执行中损失的金额会通过期权结算补偿回来。所以我认为当日到期期权在经济上有充分的存在理由。现在你问我们怎么看……
Unknown Analyst
未知分析师
Yes, absolutely, just trading trends and differences that you're seeing between the retail and the institutional clients.
是的，当然，我想了解您所看到的零售客户与机构客户之间的交易趋势和差异。
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
Thomas Peterffy 创始人兼董事长
Well, I'm very confused about what is a retail client, what is an institutional client. So the way we separate them is that if you are an account holder in an individual name, then you are an individual client and you call that retail, even though it could be a person like me who has a very, very large account or -- so corporate names are institutional for us and individual names are retail. I do not -- we do not really look at the differences in the trading. So I tell you, frankly, I don't know what the difference is in the trends.
说实话，我对零售客户和机构客户的定义感到困惑。我们的划分方式是：如果账户持有人是个人名义，那就是个人客户，也就是所谓零售客户，即便这可能是像我这样资产规模很大的个人；相应地，公司名义的账户对我们来说就是机构客户。我们并不会真正关注他们在交易上的差异。坦率地说，我并不知道两者在趋势上的区别。
Unknown Analyst
未知分析师
Okay. That's fair enough. Well, maybe we could just unpack a little bit more on the account growth. You reiterated just a few minutes ago the sort of 20% to 25% account growth. Maybe you could just unpack a little bit of the difference that what's driving that account growth and maybe split by the various customer segments and maybe even geography as well.
好的，可以理解。那么我们能否稍微多探讨一下账户增长？您刚才重申年账户增速大约为20%到25%。您能否详细说明这种增长背后的驱动力，并按不同客户细分甚至地域来拆分一下？
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
Thomas Peterffy 创始人兼董事长
So the highest current growth rate is on the individual customer side. But again, I say that it doesn't mean retail. Many of them are retail. And so if I characterize retail, I'd say somebody who has less than \$100,000. And so say, accounts under \$100,000 are retail, accounts over 100,000, maybe professional. Most of our accounts -- so our average account starts at something like \$30,000 to \$40,000. 6 months later, they tend to double and a year later, they tend to double from that.
目前增长最快的是个人客户，但这并不等同于零售客户，其中很多确实是零售。若要定义零售，我会说资产少于10万美元的账户属于零售；超过10万美元的，则可视为专业户。我们的账户平均起始规模大约在3万到4万美元之间，六个月后通常会翻倍，一年后通常再翻倍。
So they start at \$30,000 to \$40,000 and up to \$150,000, \$160,000 an account. That is, of course, an average. And as you know, no account is an average account. So many of them are under and many of them -- and some of them are much, much larger accounts.
因此账户从3万到4万美元起步，之后可增长到每户15万到16万美元。当然这只是平均值，实际上并不存在“平均账户”；很多账户低于这一水平，也有不少账户规模大得多。
The growth rate, as I said, is the largest in individual accounts than come proprietary trading groups, hedge funds introducing brokers and lastly, financial advisers. That's basically the rate. Financial advisers are growing the slowest. And that's, to some extent our fault because we haven't placed as much emphasis on financial advisers as other types of accounts, especially proprietary trading groups because the best parts of our platform is basically executing trades, borrowing money at a lower rate, getting a higher rate on your cash, seeing if you want to short which financial advisers practically never do, you see our short inventory. We display our rates, our rate where we're willing to borrow any security and the rate at which we're willing to lend it. So -- and these rates are usually substantially better than what is offered to prime broker, other prime brokers, where we basically don't know until you call and you start to negotiate with them.
如前所述，个人账户增速最高，其次是自营交易团队、对冲基金、介绍经纪商，最后是财务顾问。财务顾问这一块增速最慢，某种程度上是我们的责任，因为与其他类型账户相比，尤其是自营交易团队，我们对财务顾问并未投入同等重视。我们的平台优势在于高效执行、低息融资、高息闲置现金、可随时查看并借入做空标的——财务顾问几乎不会做空，但他们仍能看到我们的融券库存。我们公开展示借入和出借任一证券的费率，这些费率通常显著优于其他主经纪行；在那些行里，你往往得打电话去谈判。
With us, there is no negotiation. What you see is what you get. And it's usually more favorable than your prime broker has to offer you. So larger hedge funds, many of them are having second, third or fourth prime broker, and that is us. And that is often because of the short-term capability on our platform.
在我们这里无需谈判，所见即所得，而且通常比你的主经纪行条件更优。因此，许多大型对冲基金把我们作为第二、第三甚至第四家主经纪行，这往往是因为我们的平台在短期交易方面的能力更强。
Unknown Analyst
Great. So I just want to turn to some of the dynamics around your margin profile, which has certainly always been impressive and actually has continued to improve over the past few years. Do you think that the sustainable low-60s percent margin guidance is achievable in a lower NII growth environment like what you talked about at the beginning of this chat. And then just how should we think about the growth trajectory of some of the major expense categories?
未知分析师
好的。我想聊一下你们利润率结构的一些动态，这一点一直令人印象深刻，而且过去几年还在持续提升。倘若如您开场所说净利息收入增长放缓，您认为维持60%出头的利润率指引仍可实现吗？此外，我们该如何看待几大主要成本类别的增长轨迹？
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
Well, our -- I think that in this last quarter, our pretax profit margin was 75%. And that, of course, is, I mean, unparalleled not only in the industry but probably very few publicly owned companies have that kind of profit margin. So I don't expect that number to go higher. And as we talked about reduction in rates. It's probably going to go lower. I don't expect it to ever go below 60. And it hasn't been below 60, I think, in years. So I think our profit margin is going to be between 60% and 75%. I hope it's going to be much closer to 70% than 60%.
托马斯·彼得菲 创始人兼董事长
我们上一季度的税前利润率大约是75%。这在业内乃至所有上市公司中都罕见。我不认为这个数字还会提高。随着利率下降，它或许会回落，但我预计永远不会低于60%，而且多年未曾跌破这一水平。所以我认为我们的利润率会保持在60%到75%之间，并希望能更接近70%而非60%。
Now our expenses, well, our largest expense is compensation. We do pay our -- many of our employees, our technology workers. And we are very particular about getting the best one. So we pay them more than what is usual in the financial industry, and that is going to continue that way. So I expect that our compensation is going to continue to grow -- compensation expense is going to continue to grow around 8% to 9%. And the rest of our expenses -- fixed expenses are depending upon execution costs that is not really up to us. That's just the pass-through from the exchanges and trading venues. And then we have hardware expenses and we just buy the hardware we have to buy at the cost that we're being charged. It's not -- we don't have much room for negotiation there.
至于费用，我们最大的支出是薪酬。我们为许多员工、尤其是技术人员支付的薪酬高于金融行业的惯常水平，因为我们要招揽最优秀的人才，这一点将保持不变。因此我预计薪酬费用将以大约8%至9%的速度增长。其余固定费用主要取决于交易所和交易场所的执行成本，我们只是代收代付；还有硬件支出，我们按市价购买所需硬件，几乎没有议价空间。
Unknown Analyst
Yes, that makes sense. Maybe just one other one on this side of the P\&L, which is just thinking about hiring for next year. How are you thinking about recruiting generally across technology, sales, just sort of the opportunity set and what you're thinking for next year?
未知分析师
明白了。关于损益表这一侧还有一个问题，涉及明年的招聘。就技术、销售等岗位的整体招聘计划而言，您对明年有何设想？
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
We expect it to go about at around high single, low double-digit rates, so around 10% or so.
托马斯·彼得菲 创始人兼董事长
我们预计员工数量将以高个位数到低十位数的速度增长，大约在10%左右。
Unknown Analyst
Okay. That's easy enough. So I think another one that has been, in my mind, very interesting was what's going on with you're looking for a bank charter in Europe. So maybe you could just update us on how you're thinking about the opportunity for a bank charter in Europe. You obviously didn't go ahead with the Hungarian one. And then I think it would just be really interesting if you could dig in on just exactly what sort of opportunity that creates in terms of freeing up capital on the margin loan side?
未知分析师
好的，明白。还有一件我个人觉得非常有意思的事：你们正在欧洲申请银行牌照的进展。能否更新一下你们对欧洲银行牌照机会的看法？显然匈牙利的计划没有推进。如果能进一步说明这对保证金贷款侧释放资本带来了怎样的机遇，那就更好了。
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
托马斯·彼得菲 创始人兼董事长
So in the U.S., we can lend our customers' cash to other customers. In Europe that is not allowed. So only a bank can do that. And that is what prompted us to try to get a bank. We started out doing that in Hungary, it didn't work out because Hungary being a small nation, comes out with rules every night, unexpected rules that we simply can't cope with it because we are not -- we are an internal -- we serve all the countries inside Europe. And so you can't -- it puts you at a competitive disadvantage.
在美国，我们可以把客户的现金借给其他客户。在欧洲则不允许，只有银行才能这么做。这促使我们尝试申请银行牌照。我们起初在匈牙利着手，但并未成功，因为匈牙利国土小、几乎每天都会出台意想不到的新规，我们难以应对——我们的业务面向整个欧洲各国。这样一来就会陷入竞争劣势。
Now this is not an area where we are that is extremely urgent. But in the back of our minds, we are constantly looking for opportunities, and there are plenty of opportunities, but we are not really pursuing them with a very high vigor.
目前这项工作并非当务之急，但我们一直留心机会，机会不少，只是没有投入太大精力去推进。
Unknown Analyst
未知分析师
Okay. Just one last one here, which is around inorganic growth. You have alluded to the potential for acquisitions, I think, a few times in recent months. Maybe you could just speak to what you're seeing in the market and whether there are any potential targets on the table today?
好的，最后一个问题，关于外部扩张。过去几个月您多次提到可能进行收购。能否谈谈您在市场上观察到的情况，以及目前是否有潜在的收购目标？
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
托马斯·彼得菲 创始人兼董事长
There are always potential targets, and they always look very good because we have technology that we believe is much, much superior to anybody else has. So the idea is that why don't we can buy a firm and we put it on our platform and the cost will be drastically reduced? But once we approach an actual target and we look at their business, it seems that -- many of these businesses are not like us at all because we are very automated and we're very inexpensive, but we give you the rate that we published. And that's what it is, and there is not much negotiation.
潜在目标一直存在，看起来也都很不错，因为我们自认为技术远超同行。想法是收购一家公司，把它迁移到我们的平台上，成本就会大幅降低。然而真正接触目标、了解其业务后发现，很多公司与我们截然不同——我们高度自动化、成本低廉，并且公布的费率就是实际费率，几乎没有谈判空间。
At other firms, it turns out that everybody has a different deal. And that is very difficult, very difficult to automate. So we basically look at the firm and we say, well, how much more profitable they could be if they were with us, but the fact is that the profits come from all kinds of different little charges and it's not -- they all appear to be free, but then they charge for this and charge for that. And that's where the profits come from, we wouldn't know how to replicate it. So, so far, we have looked at a number of them and nothing really seems to work out. So we just have to rely on our own growth.
在其他公司，每个客户的条款都不同，这极难自动化。因此我们会评估：如果迁入我们平台，他们能否更赚钱？但他们的利润往往来自各种零碎收费——表面看似免费，其实对这项那项收费，这些收费构成利润来源，我们不知道如何复制。迄今我们考察了多家公司，都未能成行，所以只能依靠自身增长。
Unknown Analyst
未知分析师
Pretty darn good growth. So with that, thank you so much, Thomas. This is fantastic.
增长相当不错。好的，非常感谢你，托马斯。太精彩了。
Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman
托马斯·彼得菲 创始人兼董事长
Thank you very much.
非常感谢。