2025-05-09 Interactive Brokers: Margin Masters

Refer To：《Interactive Brokers: Margin Masters》。

Introduction

介绍

Zack

I'm Zack Fuss and today we are breaking down Interactive Brokers, widely recognized as IBKR. Founded in 1978, Interactive Brokers evolved from a market maker on the American Stock Exchange to a global cutting-edge electronic brokerage firm. Its founder, Thomas Peterffy, remains far and away its largest shareholder and has earned his place as one of the wealthiest people in the world.

我是扎克·福斯（Zack Fuss），今天我们将拆解被广泛称为 IBKR 的盈透证券（Interactive Brokers）。盈透成立于 1978 年，从美国证券交易所的做市商发展成为一家全球领先的电子经纪公司。其创始人托马斯·彼得菲（Thomas Peterffy）依然是绝对控股股东，并跻身全球最富有的人士之列。

Peterffy came to the US from Hungary as an immigrant who spoke no English and taught himself computer programming in the 70s. Eventually he pioneered automated trading and played a crucial role in the digitization of financial markets. Today, we'll explore the journey of IBKR from its early days as Timberhill to its current status as a publicly traded company with a market cap of nearly \$80 billion.

彼得菲从匈牙利移民到美国时不会说英语，70 年代自学计算机编程。最终，他开创了自动化交易，并在金融市场数字化进程中发挥了关键作用。今天，我们将回顾 IBKR 从早期的 Timber Hill 到如今市值近 800 亿美元的上市公司的发展历程。

We'll dig into how Interactive Brokers makes money beyond just commissions, including their net interest income and other market-making activities. And we'll explore their reputation for offering low-cost access to a vast variety of global markets and sophisticated trading tools which has made them a favorite amongst traders and institutional investors.

我们将深入探讨盈透证券除佣金之外的盈利方式，包括净利息收入及其他做市业务。我们还将了解其通过低成本接入全球多元市场和提供先进交易工具而在交易员和机构投资者中广受青睐的原因。

Additionally, we'll discuss their differentiated tech stack, their global reach, and again their famously low fees. We'll explore their competitive landscape, the risks they face, and what the future may hold for this brokerage giant. To break down IBKR, I am joined by Freddy Lait and Jacopo di Nardo of Latitude Investment. We hope you enjoy this breakdown of IBKR.

此外，我们将讨论其差异化技术栈、全球覆盖范围，以及其著名的低费用结构。我们也会探讨其竞争格局、所面临的风险，以及这家经纪巨头的未来前景。本期节目将由 Latitude Investment 的弗雷迪·莱特（Freddy Lait）和雅各波·迪纳尔多（Jacopo di Nardo）与我一起拆解 IBKR。希望你喜欢这期内容。

The Low-Cost Brokerage Revolution

低成本经纪革命

Zack

So today we got a two-for-one special. We're joined again for the third time by Freddie Lait and his partner Jacopo to discuss Interactive Brokers, which has been a quietly covered business despite the fact that its growth has been so pronounced and it's integral in kind of the way that we interact with the markets today and its growing presence. I think Freddy, Jacopo, just to set the stage about the brokerage business, discount brokerages and the broader landscape, maybe we kick it off there and then we can dive deeper into this particular business and why it's so special?

今天我们为大家带来“两人行”特别节目。弗雷迪·莱特与搭档雅各波第三次做客节目，探讨盈透证券——尽管其增速显著、在我们今日与市场互动的方式中扮演核心角色，但外界对其关注却相对低调。我想请弗雷迪、雅各波先介绍一下经纪行业、折扣经纪及更广阔的格局，然后我们再深入探讨盈透为何与众不同。

Freddie

Yeah, sure. No, it's great to be back on the show. Thanks for having us. Interactive is a really interesting business. It's one we've owned for about 18 months, been following for a number of years. It's a digital broker, so you can trade stock and bonds and currencies and options, pretty much anything you like through it.

好的，非常高兴再次做客，谢谢邀请。盈透是一家非常有意思的公司，我们已持有其股票约 18 个月，关注多年。它是一家数字化经纪平台，用户几乎可在其上交易股票、债券、外汇、期权等所有品种。

And it started out 50 years ago as, by far and away, the most technologically-led business in the space. And there's lots of history we can get into. But what they've done through investing in technology and investing in automation and a couple of other strategic advantages is developed by far and away the lowest cost model, the lowest cost to serve with the highest quality output.

50 年前，它就已是业内最强调技术驱动的公司之一，相关历史值得探究。通过持续投入技术与自动化，加上其他战略优势，他们构建了业界最低的成本模式——以最低服务成本提供最高质量的输出。

And this is what's driving the flywheel effect. They're making the highest profitability at the lowest costs, driving huge growth in their customer base. And that compounding is coming without advertising, without marketing.

这形成了飞轮效应：最低成本带来最高盈利，继而推动客户基数大幅增长，而这一复利增长几乎无需广告和营销投入。

Individual investors are increasingly choosing Interactive over all of the competitors. But what's most exciting in this business model in the last five or 10 years has been the doubling up of that compounding effect through the growth in other channels. So they're growing from other brokers introducing business. They're growing from hedge funds, they're growing through RIAs, or what we call IFAs in the UK, and they're really growing internationally. They're a truly global business with a huge market potential and a lot of exciting things to talk about today.

越来越多散户选择盈透而非竞争对手。但过去五到十年最令人兴奋的是，通过其他渠道的扩张，这一复利效应实现了倍增。他们通过其他券商导流、对冲基金、RIA（在英国称为 IFA）等渠道获客，并在国际市场快速增长。盈透是真正的全球化企业，市场潜力巨大，今日有诸多亮点可谈。

Zack

I guess a nice place to start when talking about brokerage businesses. Just take us through the key revenue streams and how these businesses fundamentally make money?

谈到经纪业务，或许可以先介绍其主要收入来源：这类公司究竟如何赚钱？

Freddie

It's relatively simple. There's a lot of complexity when you really dig into it, but at a headline level, they make money in two ways. They make money through charging commissions on trading and they make margin through net interest margin. So a spread on cash held on account or margin loans that they make.

总体而言逻辑相对简单，尽管深入细节会很复杂。从宏观层面看，他们的盈利方式有两种：一是收取交易佣金，二是赚取净利息差——即对账户余额或保证金贷款收取利差。

And it's reasonably straightforward to model this through. They have three and a half million accounts. The average account does about 200 trades per year, and the average commission is about \$3. And when you times that through, you get to the sort of roughly \$600 per account in trading commissions per year, or around \$2 billion a year on the net interest margin.

这可以简单建模：公司拥有约 350 万个账户，平均每个账户每年交易约 200 次，平均佣金约 3 美元。据此计算，每个账户年佣金收入约 600 美元；净利息差收入约 20 亿美元。

They pay very good rates on cash. It's a real strategic advantage. They own quite a narrow spread on their funding, but effectively their securities, lending and margin business, which is about 11% of client assets, is financed with customer deposits.

他们为客户现金支付颇具竞争力的利率，这是战略优势之一。虽然融资利差较窄，但实际上约占客户资产 11% 的证券借贷与保证金业务由客户存款提供资金来源。

And the spread between what they pay on those two equates to a net interest margin of about \$800 per account, or about \$3 billion. And those are relatively stable per account numbers. And so the real driver for this business over time has been and will be account growth. And when we started looking at the business, it had around a million accounts. It's got around three and a half million now, five years later. And they have various different targets to get to 10, 20 or maybe 80 million accounts as time goes by.

两者之间的利差折算下来，每个账户约贡献 800 美元净息收入，总计约 30 亿美元。这些按户计数据相对稳定，因此业务长期增长的核心动力一直是账户数量扩张。五年前我们初次调研时账户数约 100 万，如今已增至约 350 万。他们设定了不同目标，希望未来达到 1000 万、2000 万甚至 8000 万账户。

Zack

And so then when I consider Interactive brokers and the broader landscape, you've got Charles Schwab, Fidelity, obviously, Robinhood. What are the key differentiating factors about this particular business as opposed to its peer set?

那么对比嘉信理财（Schwab）、富达（Fidelity）以及 Robinhood 等平台，盈透的关键差异化因素是什么？

Jacopo

When you look at Interactive, it was born out of a person who is first and foremost an engineer and a technologist. And that type of culture has reverberated throughout the firm. Day one. So when you look at Interactive, it's by far the most automated of all brokers.

盈透诞生于一位首先是工程师、技术专家的创始人，这种文化自第一天起就贯穿公司始终。因此，盈透是所有券商中自动化程度最高的。

So when you go onto the app, most of the functions you'll hit on it, including actually eliminating accounts because they exceeded the margin loan, is done automatically by a bot. This doesn't tend to be the case for the competitors. And this has also morphed the broker into being really one that is liked and used first and foremost by experienced traders.

在其 App 中，大多数功能——甚至当账户超额使用保证金时自动平仓——都是由机器人完成的，竞争对手往往做不到这一点。这也令盈透成为资深交易员首先青睐和使用的券商。

In the first days, the business was really only used by individuals and what today we call prop traders. These are individuals with account balances that tend to vary between, let's say, 200,000 up to a couple million dollars per account of client equity.

早期，盈透的主要用户只有个人以及如今所谓的自营交易者（prop trader），这些客户的账户余额通常在 20 万至数百万美元之间。

自营交易员（prop trader）指利用公司自有资金进行买卖、以赚取公司自营投资收益的专业交易员。

And this compares, broadly speaking, quite favorably versus other online brokerages. So you'd think someone like Robinhood or Etoro would have account balances averaging maybe 5 to 10,000. So it would be the first brokerage you go to when you learn about trading. And places like Schwab would have higher account balances, but they would be used in a much less frenetic way.

总体而言，这与其他线上券商形成鲜明对比。Robinhood 或 eToro 的平均账户余额可能只有 5,000 至 10,000 美元，更像是新手入门的第一站；而嘉信等平台虽然余额更高，但使用频率远不如盈透那般活跃。

As Freddy mentioned, you make about 200 trades a year per account on an Interactive, and that number might be tens of times even lower if you're using your Fidelity or Schwab account, which tend to be used for slightly different purposes. So obviously 401(k)s being one of those in the US.

正如弗雷迪提到的，在盈透，每个账户年均交易约 200 次；如果使用富达或嘉信账户，这一数字可能低一个甚至两个数量级，因为其用途（如美国的 401(k) 退休账户）略有不同。

IBKR's Enigmatic Founder

IBKR 神秘的创始人

Zack

扎克

So I think it's impossible to really appreciate how differentiated IBKR Interactive Brokers is without spending some time discussing its founder, Thomas Peterffy came here with effectively nothing, I believe, in the 1960s and is now one of the wealthiest and relatively unknown Americans. Can you just tell a little bit about his story, how this business came to be, how it's evolved over time, and then how much of the business and how involved Thomas is today?

我认为，如果不花点时间谈谈创始人托马斯·彼得菲，就无法真正理解盈透证券（IBKR）的与众不同。我记得他上世纪 60 年代几乎身无分文来到美国，如今却成为极为富有、却相对低调的美国人之一。能否为我们介绍一下他的经历、这家公司如何诞生并一路发展，以及彼得菲目前持股和参与公司运营的程度？

Jacopo

As you said, he was born in Hungary during basically the period of war in Europe. And he migrated with nothing to the US pursuing the classic American dream. And the business started out actually as a market-making business for options. When Thomas bought a seat on the Chicago Mercantile or Boston Options Exchange, and initially his broad idea was that of pioneering a way of pricing options.

正如你所说，他出生在欧洲战火时期的匈牙利，带着一无所有的身家移民美国，追寻典型的“美国梦”。公司最初是一家期权做市业务——托马斯在芝加哥商业交易所或波士顿期权交易所买下一席之地，最初的宏大构想就是开创期权定价新方式。

It was at the time when the formulas were coming out from Black and Scholes and when option trading was nothing compared to today. And the company was called Timber Hill and it was really an option market maker. That if you think about that, the way Thomas approached the business was completely different in the sense that he wanted to automate everything that could be automated. And this still permeates the culture of a business today.

那时正值布莱克–舒尔斯公式问世、期权交易远不如今日发达。公司名为 Timber Hill，专注期权做市。托马斯的思路截然不同——凡是能自动化的环节都要自动化，这种理念至今仍深深植入公司文化。

Interactive doesn't want to be in businesses that eventually cannot be automated in the future. On top of it, if you think about the role of the option maker, risk management is at the center of everything you have to do. So you're taking obviously both sides of a trade most of the times and you're just creating a market for participants. So up to these days, obviously risk management is one of the most important points that differentiates Interactive compared to other brokerages.

盈透始终避免涉足未来无法实现自动化的业务。此外，作为期权做市商，风险管理是工作的核心——往往同时扮演交易的双边，为市场提供流动性。至今，风险管理仍是盈透区别于其他券商的关键要素之一。

There's a couple of examples, but the only time they really actually lost some money in a significant way, which is not significant compared to the total amount of equity they have, was when the Swiss central bank let the Swiss franc appreciate freely and the company lost about 1% of their capital at the time. And recent examples include when interest rates were zero in 2021. And a lot of other online brokers decided that it was the time to take some duration risk to make some more money on net interest income. The company refrained from doing that.

举两个例子：唯一一次较大金额的亏损（相对其资本总额仍不算大）发生在瑞士央行放任瑞郎升值时，公司损失了约 1% 的资本。最近一次是在 2021 年零利率时期，许多线上券商选择承担久期风险以提高利息收入，而盈透选择不这么做。

So I think when one thinks about the two vectors on why this business is so well managed and managed to succeed, that I think his starts as someone who is fundamentally an engineer and focused on risk management are two very important aspects of the business. And it's worth saying that he's also a very hard-nosed and smart businessman. So whenever he saw that the option market-making business due to changes in regulation and the market environment after the great financial crisis was not a business but would earn excess ROEs anymore, he decided actually to close that down to focus entirely on the online brokerage.

因此，公司成功的两大关键向量在于：彼得菲本质上是工程师，且极度重视风险管理。同时，他也是一位强硬且精明的商人。当他发现大金融危机后监管与市场环境变化导致期权做市业务无法再赚取超额 ROE 时，果断关闭该业务，专注于线上经纪。

两点都有事实依据，两个行为都跟安全边际有关，是保守性格的体现。

The Business Model Explained

业务模式解析

Zack

扎克

And so when you consider the business of online brokerage, there was a pretty big evolution, I'd say, over the course of the last decade, primarily focused on payment for order flow or PFOF. And so what you went from is a world where commissions were 5, 10, \$25 per trade to a competitive landscape where many of their peers offered zero commissions. And so I'm curious, despite that, IBKR, while still being a business that charges commissions, has seen its growth explode. What is going on? What is the debate around PFOF, which I believe is actually not even a legal business proposition outside of the U.S.? How do you think about that backdrop as it relates to Interactive Brokers' ability to continue to take share?

谈到线上券商行业，过去十年一个重大变化就是“订单流支付”（PFOF）。曾经每笔交易佣金 5、10、25 美元，如今许多竞争对手提供零佣金。我很好奇，尽管如此，仍收取佣金的 IBKR 却实现了爆发式增长。原因何在？围绕 PFOF 的争议是什么？据我所知，PFOF 在美国以外甚至并不合法。考虑到这些背景，你们如何看待盈透继续抢占市场份额的能力？

Freddie

We think this is one of their key competitive advantages, that since day one they've always chosen to have direct market access. So imagine like a kind of Costco model, they're cutting out the wholesaler, they don't have someone else, they don't have to go to a broker. And so they have linked their system up to every exchange in the world, give or take directly, and so they execute directly at the best price on your behalf.

我们认为，这是盈透的关键竞争优势之一——自始至终坚持“直连交易所”。可以把它想象成“Costco 模式”：直接跳过批发商，不用再去找经纪商。他们的系统几乎与全球所有交易所直接联通，代表客户以最佳价格成交。

Whereas payment for order flow, which is pretty much just a US phenomenon, these businesses who buy that order flow clearly make a large amount of profit. And so that has to come out of someone's wallet and implicitly that has to come out of the customer's execution price. And so you can listen to the CEO Thomas Peterffy, talking quite vociferously about this practice and other banking practices that have yet to be regulated. But it's something that they've always avoided and it does save them a huge amount and allow them to move much faster than a lot of competitors as well.

而 PFOF 几乎只存在于美国，购买订单流的机构显然要赚取丰厚利润，这笔钱最终需由客户的成交价格隐性承担。你可以听到彼得菲对此及其他尚未被监管的银行业做法的激烈批评。盈透始终避开 PFOF，这不仅为客户省了大笔费用，也令公司行动速度远超多数竞争对手。

So it's no higher cost. They don't get the payment for order flow into their revenues like some other businesses do. But they don't need it because they can prove best execution. They still have lower commissions across the marketplace. They charge far less than others in most cases. And their other draws are their much cheaper margin loans and their much more generous payment for cash on deposit. They basically pay 50 basis points less the local base rate on any cash deposits over a certain threshold. So they're seen correctly as giving back everything they can to customers with a small margin. And then it's just that's their principal competitive advantage. The second, as Jacopo has already touched on, is the automation of the trading itself, of the risk management and of the management of the business and all the opex, which means that their cost base is just so much thinner than the others. So they're able to continuously reinvest in price.

因此，盈透并未像部分同行那样把 PFOF 计入收入，但他们不需要，因为能证明自己提供最佳成交价，佣金仍处于市场最低水平，大多数情况下远低于竞争对手。再加上更便宜的保证金贷款、对客户存款更慷慨的利息支付（高于某一门槛的余额仅比当地基准利率低 50 个基点），客户普遍认为盈透在以极小利润回馈一切可能价值。这就是他们的核心优势。第二个优势正如雅各波所述，是交易、风险管理及运营的全面自动化，使成本基数远低于同行，从而能不断在价格上再投资。

以下是chatGPT对PFOF的回答。

1、同样是限价单，IBKR和Schwab的执行结果不一样，比如，挂11.00的限价单，如果最终成交了，IBKR的执行结果一定是11.00；而Schwab会出现11.02、11.05的成交价，怎么解释？

chatGPT：Schwab绝大多数零售单会被卖给内部撮合商（Citadel、Virtu 等做市商）赚取 PFOF，做市商必须给出不逊于 NBBO 的价格，还会给 “价差改善” (Price Improvement)：在 NBBO 基础上额外多给几分甚至几美分，以吸引订单流。

2、为什么Peterffy还要反对PFOF？

chatGPT：零售订单不再进入公开订单簿，做市商内部撮合后 NBBO（公开最佳买卖价）往往变宽。客户拿到的 2–5 美分“改善”其实只是先被扩大价差后再回赠的小部分，大头仍进了做市商口袋。

Zack

I think one of the things that's interesting is if you look at the headcount of IBKR relative its peers, it obviously speaks to their interest in making sure that everything is tech-enabled. I will say amongst some investors who use the platform, they do complain about the lack of customer service at times, but it's what allows them to offer such incredible low-cost execution. And then the other aspects of it being really your ability to use leverage at a very low cost of capital. Can we just talk about how they use their balance sheet in a way that provides such a structural cost advantage relative to their peer set?

有趣的一点是，与同行相比，IBKR 的员工数量明显更少，说明他们极力推动全流程技术化。有些投资者确实抱怨客服不足，但正因如此，盈透才能提供极低成本的成交。另一方面，客户还能以极低资金成本使用杠杆。能否谈谈盈透如何运用资产负债表，在成本结构上取得如此优势？

Jacopo

Fundamentally, there's a couple of points here to be made. The first one is a bit like Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan talks about, having a fortress balance sheet in financials is of paramount importance to succeed over time. It allows to obviously survive crises if they happen. Interactive has a similar approach.

这里有几点核心要说明。首先，正如摩根大通的杰米·戴蒙所言，金融机构要长期成功，必须拥有“堡垒式”资产负债表，以便在危机来临时幸存。盈透采取了类似策略。

If you look at the balance sheet today, at the end of 2025, it's probably going to be about \$18 billion of excess capital, which is about 95% of the total capital they have. That allows them obviously to grow the business in a fairly serene way without necessarily participating in the ups and downs of the market. And the second point being when offering low-cost margin loans, it stems partly from that and partly from again going back to the automation point. The big risk when offering margin loans is that eventually those accounts will need to be basically closed because with a market drawdown, the fall in value is superior to that of a margin loan.

截至 2025 年底，他们大约拥有 180 亿美元的超额资本，占总资本约 95%。这使公司能够在不必过度承受市场波动的情况下稳健扩张。其次，低成本保证金贷款得益于这一资本实力，也归功于自动化。提供保证金贷款的最大风险在于市场下跌时账户价值跌幅超过贷款额度，需要迅速平仓。

And there's plenty of examples around, the latest one actually coming from Archegos, where even at investment banks, which one would think are fairly well invested in technology, still require quite a lot of human involvement and personal calls in order to make that decisions. That never happens at Interactive because everything is automated and the account, if it doesn't post the required collateral within a very short period of time, is automatically liquidated and eliminated. And if you think about that dynamic, that is exactly what allows Interactive two things. One is to underprice competition in terms of cost. For the margin loan, it's about half the cost of Fidelity or Schwab or whoever else competes in the US.

类似案例很多，最近的就是 Archegos 事件，即便科技投入颇高的投行仍需大量人为干预、电话沟通才能决策。而在盈透，这种情况不会出现——一切自动化处理，若账户未能在极短时间内补足所需抵押品，就会被自动平仓销户。这种机制赋予盈透两大优势：一是保证金贷款成本能压倒竞争对手，约为富达、嘉信等同行的一半；

And it also allows them to offer slightly more leverage than competition without really affecting the total risk. If you're able to cancel that account or to close down that account fairly quickly, and you're also able to mitigate the risk of loss from that account in a better way than competitors, that allows again to foster that competitive advantage coming from lower cost and obviously higher automation.

二是可在总体风险不变的前提下提供比同行稍高的杠杆倍数。快速平仓和更优的损失控制再次强化了低成本和高度自动化带来的竞争优势。

Inside a Customer Account

客户账户内部运作

Zack

And so I think it would be helpful to illustrate how this manifests by demonstrating what an account looks like and how a customer uses the business. For example, let's say you have someone that's a professional trader that has a million dollar account and maybe is running at 2 or 3 million dollars of gross long and short. They're obviously borrowing and lending securities. What does it look like? And then how does that translate into the different revenue line items? So the commission revenue, the net interest income, the fees and services that they provide, just to really drive home how people interact with this business and its ability to be differentiated on every service that it provides to its key customers.

我认为，通过展示一个账户的具体情况以及客户如何使用该平台，来说明这一点会很有帮助。举例来说，假设有一位专业交易员拥有 100 万美元的账户，并且可能持有 200 万到 300 万美元的多空头寸。他显然会借入和出借证券。这在实际中是什么样子？接着，这又如何转化为不同的收入科目？也就是佣金收入、净利息收入，以及平台所提供的各种费用和服务，从而真正体现出客户如何与该业务互动，以及它在为核心客户提供每项服务时展现出的差异化能力。

Freddie

The difficulty here is that one does need to disaggregate a little bit. We've been discussing this as an online broker, which makes it feel very much like it's aimed entirely at individuals logging onto a website or an app. The truth is more than 50% of the business and a large portion of the growth in the business, although individuals are still growing very nicely, is the other three main cohorts which are white labeling the platform and service for RIAs advisors around the world, prop traders and hedge funds. They're now the fifth largest prime broker in the world. So they're larger than many of the big banks you could name from a standing start about 10 years ago.

这里的难点在于，你需要稍微把业务拆分一下。我们一直在把它当作一家线上券商讨论，这让人感觉它完全是面向通过网页或应用登录的个人投资者。但实际上，虽然散户仍在稳健增长，超过 50% 的业务量以及很大一部分增量来自另外三大客户群：为全球理财顾问（RIA）白标输出平台和服务的业务、自营交易员（prop trader），以及对冲基金。如今它已经是全球第五大主经纪商（prime broker），规模甚至超过了十年前你能点出的许多大型银行。

类似于SaaS，可以提升用户的粘性。

They're growing far faster than the market for prime because they are seen as more attractive to the hedge fund groups in general. And then the final one which is just worth touching on is what they call introducing brokers. And you can think about this as another bank or another brokerage business who is outsourcing and canceling their own internal technology investments. As an example, they just brought on HSBC globally and then they're going to plug in the underlying trading capability of Interactives.

他们在主经纪业务上的增速远高于市场整体水平，因为在对冲基金群体眼中，它们更具吸引力。最后一个值得一提的客户类别是所谓的“引介经纪商”（introducing broker，IB）。你可以把它想象成其他银行或券商，它们通过外包方式，停止了自建技术的投入。例如，他们刚刚与汇丰银行达成全球合作，把汇丰的交易功能直接接入到盈透的底层交易平台里。

And I would think about this in the same way that a lot of people have become comfortable with outsourcing admin or custody to JP Morgan or these large custody banks like Northern Trust. A large number of these huge global institutions, as opposed to investing in the technology, are renting it implicitly from Interactive. And that is where a lot of the growth's coming from. So what we see at an account level is slightly averages of those things.

我把这看成和许多机构把行政或托管业务外包给摩根大通、诺森信托等大型托管行是同样的道理。很多全球性大机构，与其自己投入资金研发技术，不如“租用”盈透的平台，这也是盈透高速增长的重要来源。因此，在单个账户层面上，我们看到的数据是多种客户类型混合后的平均值。

We can make some assumptions about where the margin skews towards the hedge funds and the prop traders and obviously away from a lot of the RIA business. But what you see is an average account balance that even when it was individual-led was much higher than most other firms and very normal, typical to have 100, 150, \$200,000 as the average account balance.

可以假设，保证金贷款更偏向对冲基金和自营交易员，而显然不太偏向大量 RIA 客户。但你能看到，就算在早期以散户为主时，其平均账户余额也远高于其它公司，十万、十五万、乃至二十万美元都是很正常、很典型的平均余额水平。

Against that there are two other interesting assets which are the margin loans which we've discussed, which used to be far higher actually and have come down as a percentage of equity over the last 10 years, but are ticking up again at the moment in the short term at about 10 to 12% of assets.

与账户余额相对应，还有两个有意思的资产项目：其一是我们谈过的保证金贷款。十年前，保证金贷款占客户权益比例曾远高于现在，但随后下降；目前又在短期内回升到大约占总资产的 10%–12%。

So if you've got a \$200,000 account, you might have \$20,000 of margin loans against some securities in there on leverage. What's also been very popular with all of the brokerage platforms, including Interactive, has been securities lending. And again, as we've probably become boring saying this is fully automated so you can sign in if you want to.

比如说，若你的账户有 20 万美元，可能会有 2 万美元的保证金贷款，用来杠杆操作某些证券。另一个在各大券商（包括盈透）都很受欢迎的项目是证券借贷。同样的，这一切都是全自动化的，你只要勾选同意就可以参与。

Your securities, your stocks can be lent out to people who wish to borrow them and to short them. They're still fully tradable, they're fully collateralized from our perspective as shareholders, by cash. And the client earns most of that lending fee. And again there's a small but very honest spread which is all transparent.

你的股票可以借给想要做空它们的人。对作为股东的我们来说，这些股票仍可自由交易，并且借贷都由现款做足抵押。客户能拿到大部分借贷收益，而盈透只收取一小部分、完全透明的价差。

So they have a similar amount of securities lending about that sort of, for a \$200,000 account, about \$20,000 of lending. So 10% of the base. So that's the kind of average. But we do believe it skews a lot.

因此，证券借贷金额大致与保证金贷款相当：20 万美元账户大概有 2 万美元的出借规模，即占基数约 10%。这是平均水平，但我们认为不同客户群差异很大。

A lot of the introducing business and a lot of the RIAs we think are probably using less, probably trading less as well under that sort of 200 trades per year. And then really the majority of this stock lending margin loan, and even the turnover, the number of trades or darts as they call them, daily average revenue trades. If anyone's reading the annual report after this, that skews towards the hedge fund business.

引介业务和 RIA 账户大多使用更少的杠杆，年交易笔数也低于“200 笔”的平均值。而保证金贷款、股票借贷以及 DARTs（每日平均创收交易数）等指标，主要集中在对冲基金和自营交易群体上。

So it's a variety of different clients, all benefiting from the same low-cost platform, but they're using it in different ways.

因此，不同类型的客户都在享用同一低成本平台，但使用方式各不相同。

Zack

When you look at this business's P\&L and I'm looking at 2024 as a reference, you have about \$1.7 billion in commissions which results in around \$2 billion of non-interest related income. And then the rest \$3 billion. Is that net interest income that NIM resulting in about \$5 billion of revenue? How do you think about how that should evolve over time? The mix in quality as it relates to the evolution of their customer base, which you just mentioned? And then a second question related to that: When you see a business that's as significant an earner on net interest margin, you beg the question as it relates to interest rates and how they impact the business and what would happen in an environment where rates were going down versus going up. Just curious on those two items, really. Revenue mix and NIM. As the business evolves over time.

纵观这家公司的损益表——以 2024 年为例——佣金收入约 17 亿美元，对应的非利息收入大约 20 亿美元；剩下的 30 亿美元，是否就是净利息收入（NIM），从而合计约 50 亿美元营收？你们如何看待这一结构在未来的发展？特别是客户结构演变下的营收构成和质量变化？另外，既然该公司在净息差上赚取了如此可观的收益，那么利率变动会对其产生什么影响？如果利率下降而非上升又会怎样？我主要想了解这两点：收入结构和净息差，随着业务时间推移会如何演变。

Freddie

There’s quite a few ways to cut it. This is clearly a cyclical business. It grows very rapidly, and account growth that had been around 25% per year is inflecting up towards 30 and 35% per year at the moment. As the flywheel gathers ahead of steam, the most important thing that I want to compel you to understand from our perspective is that it's account growths that matter.

Freddie

这里可以从多个角度来分析。这显然是一门周期性业务，但增速极快：账户年增长率此前约为 25%，目前正加速至 30%–35%。随着飞轮越转越快，我们最想强调的一点是——真正驱动一切的是账户增长。

And if you need to believe account growths are what matter, then one needs to believe there's sort of stability in the other things like the amount of trading and the revenue per account. And so when we've interrogated the sort of the number of trades that's been going on as the mix has changed and the accounts have been growing, the trades per year have been falling. And again, one would expect hedge funds are trading many times a day, but RIAs and introducing brokers in particular are probably trading less than the 200 average trades per year.

既然账户增长才是核心，就必须假设其他指标——例如交易量和每户收入——相对稳定。我们追踪发现，随着客户结构变化、账户数增加，每户年交易笔数在下降。可预期对冲基金日内交易频繁，而 RIA 与引介经纪商的年均交易量大概率低于 200 笔这一平均水平。

So we expect, and we've observed over the last five or ten years a kind of 5 to 10% decline in trades per year. So if the growth is similarly skewed between the different cohorts over the next few years, obviously in periods of volatility, one trades more, in periods of low volatility, one trades less.

过去五到十年里，我们看到每户年交易笔数大约每年下滑 5%–10%。未来若客户结构继续类似变化，则高波动期交易会增多、低波动期会减少。

But as a trend, we put a deflation, if you like, in the number of trades per year. And I think there's probably small amount of potential deflation to come through from commissions. But the management team have talked about flat average commission levels from here, and it really does depend on mix. Again, a crypto trade is a very different commission level or an option compared to trading Google shares.

总体趋势上，我们相当于对年交易量做了一个“通缩”假设。佣金率也可能有轻微下行空间，但管理层预计平均佣金将保持平稳——这取决于产品结构，毕竟加密货币或期权的佣金与交易谷歌股票差异巨大。

The way it's worked is you have that kind of average 5, \$600 per account of commission, it'll probably trade a little bit lower, maybe 5% down per year on an average basis, and then be cyclical with client equity. But if account growth is 35% or anything along those lines, that will dwarf any reinvestment backing price. That's the easier one, is the commissions. And obviously you can take your own view on average client equity and average equity market performance over the long term.

目前每户年佣金约 500–600 美元，未来平均可能每年再跌 5% 左右，并与客户资产规模呈周期性波动。但若账户年增 35%，佣金下滑的影响将微不足道。佣金端是比较好算的一块，长期平均客户资产及股市表现可按各自假设补充。

Futu的年平均佣金是321美元。

When you factor those things in too, they offset that reduction normally on the nim. And I think this is probably one of the greatest misunderstandings in the business and it was certainly what gave us the opportunity to invest in it 18 months ago is the actual sensitivity. If you think about the alternative, if you think about a business like Schwab, which only a couple of years ago almost needed effectively a wholesale rights issue because it had what was effectively a run on its funding source because they weren't paying anything on their customers cash.

综合上述假设后，佣金下滑也会被净息差（NIM）的变化抵消。我认为市场对 NIM 敏感度常有误解——18 个月前正因这种误解才给了我们买入机会。对比 Schwab：几年前几乎因“存款挤兑”被迫配股融资，只因它不给客户现金付息。

效率高的挤压效率低的。

And customers, when interest rates went up, started saying we'd better go to a bank or we better go to a money market fund. And they robbed Schwab of that source of cash and funding. The arrangement between interactive brokers and their customers is just far more honest and it's very transparent. And it's, as I said, on any large balance, more than \$10,000, which is about two thirds of their entire customer cash, they just pay the local market base rate less 50 basis points.

利率上升后，客户把钱转去银行或货币基金，抽走了 Schwab 的资金来源。相比之下，IBKR 与客户的约定更“坦诚透明”：任何余额超过 1 万美元（约占客户现金 2/3），一律按当地基准利率减 50 bp付息。

That results in a far lower risk. Firstly, to the point about Thomas Peterffy's risk conservation, clients are probably not going to leave because they get 50bps more elsewhere, even if they could. But secondarily, it's actually less interest rate sensitive than you think because if rates go down by 50 basis points, they still just take 50 basis points on a spread.

这大幅降低了风险：一方面，正符合理性偏保守的彼得菲理念；客户就算能多拿 50 bp，也未必愿意折腾走人。另一方面，利率敏感度也低——若利率整体降 50 bp，公司仍保持 50 bp 利差。

And so they do disclose that overall interest rate sensitivity and for 100 basis point move down in interest rates around the globe. And again, this is a global business, probably 40% US. Jacob's nodding at me, but it's global in nature. But if global interest rates fell 100 basis points, NIM would fall by 10%. And again, that's NIM per account. So if you're growing your accounts at 30, 35%, it will more than offset a multiple of times that net interest sensitivity. So that's why we focus so obsessively on the business model and the potential for account growth.

公司披露过整体利率敏感度：全球利率若下行 100 bp，NIM 仅降约 10%（按每户口径）。而若账户仍以 30%–35% 增速扩张，完全可多倍抵消这点影响。因此我们才如此专注其商业模式与账户增长潜力。

Jacopo

From a NIM perspective, Zak, what's also pretty interesting is obviously margin loans tend to be higher yielding products maybe pay 100 basis points more than what they get on cash on the asset side. And these tend to be cyclical, but move in the opposite way of interest rates. So for example, if interest rates were to go back down to levels that we observed in 2019 or 2020 or 2021, the amount of leverage that investors are usually willing to take slightly higher.

从 NIM 角度看，还有一点值得注意：保证金贷款收益率普遍比现金资产高约 100 bp，且呈现与利率相反的周期性——当利率回到 2019、2020、2021 年那样的低位时，投资者往往愿意杠杆得更多。

So the margin loan per account was materially higher back then. And so in the mix as interest rates fall, we would also expect margin loans to pick back up, helping a little bit with a NIM fall. If you go back in time, 2019, 2020 were pretty difficult years for whoever was exposed to rising interest rates and the company was still making maybe 30 basis points less than today net interest income, they have proven themselves in a way through cycle to be able to earn fair, attractive spread on assets and liabilities.

那时候每户保证金贷款金额更高。因此当利率下行时，我们预计杠杆需求回升，会缓冲部分 NIM 下滑。回顾 2019、2020 这些对利率敏感机构并不友好的年份，IBKR 的净息收入仅比现在低约 30 bp，已证明其在完整周期中依旧能赚取合理且有吸引力的资产负债利差。

Rapid Global Expansion

全球业务的迅速扩张

Zack

And so you guys had mentioned the international opportunity here and where some of the growth is coming from. Obviously we've seen through the COVID backdrop, participation in capital markets and investing exploding, perhaps the advent of Robinhood as an on-ramp for that, but also just the financialization of western economies. What are the growth opportunities for this business? And I ask that in the context of on their earnings calls, they're very often asked if there's any M\&A opportunities. And because they operate such low costs and they provide such attractive margin loans to customers, the pro forma earnings of acquisitions make the math very difficult for them. And so I guess weighing organic versus acquisitive growth, where they're going to see their business continue to expand?

你们刚才提到国际机会以及公司增长的来源。显然在疫情背景下，我们看到参与资本市场和投资的人数激增，Robinhood 的出现可能是一个切入口，而西方经济金融化也是原因之一。对这家公司来说，增长机会在哪里？我之所以这样问，是因为在他们的财报电话会上，经常被问到是否有潜在并购机会。但由于他们的运营成本极低，又能向客户提供非常有吸引力的保证金贷款，收购目标的合并后收益很难算得过来。所以在权衡有机增长与收购增长时，他们的业务会如何继续扩张？

Freddie

Interesting, you picked up on that comment too because it's one we've discussed in the past, which is this idea that if we buy a business but then we take it to our spreads and our offering, the underlying revenue and profits would collapse in that business. So they're not able to pay what the owner thinks they can pay. Because if they give back to customers as much as they give back in their main business, it would be a very different profit level.

很有意思，你注意到了这一点；我们过去也讨论过——如果他们收购一家企业，然后按照自家极低的价差和收费模式来运营，那么被收购公司的收入和利润都会大幅缩水，导致无法给出卖家期望的价格。因为如果像主业那样把大部分利益回馈给客户，利润水平会完全不同。

And so that to us is incredibly telling. They are open to acquisitions. They have done them in the past, but there's nothing out there which would make sense. And so they're going to grow organically. They have one of the lowest advertising budgets of all of the online brokers. And despite that, have outgrown anyone we look at.

这一点说明了很多。他们并不排斥并购，过去也做过一些，但目前没有合适的标的，因此他们将依靠内生增长。他们的广告预算是所有线上券商中最低的之一，但即便如此，增长速度仍领先同行。

相比于2023年，FUTU的用户增长是70万，IBKR是78万，FUTU的广告支出是1.81亿美元，6700万美元。

They're growing organically. They're growing because their rates are just better than everybody else's. And if you are trading any meaningful amount of capital, I'm not here to sell it. But I'm sure some people listening to this will be trading their own shares. And it's worth a look because it's a meaningful saving to go to a business like this.

他们靠内生方式增长，因为他们各项费率都优于其他公司。如果你用较大资金做交易（我不是在推销），但相信在听节目的朋友中肯定有人自己炒股，用这样的平台能省下一大笔费用，值得考虑。

And I think at the moment what they're getting asked more about is this sort of potential for growth in the more B2B channels that we've discussed, the RIAs, the hedge funds and the introducing brokers. But notwithstanding that, individual accounts are growing very rapidly too. So the mix isn't changing very quickly. And when we think about growth potential, I mentioned earlier a few different sort of big, hairy, audacious goals for the management team.

目前外界更关心的是他们在 B2B 渠道——RIA、对冲基金以及引介经纪商——方面的潜在增长。不过个人账户也在快速增长，因此客户结构并未急剧变化。谈到增长潜力，管理层之前提出了一些宏大的目标。

Schwab have I think 25 million accounts principally in the US. I think fidelity is something around that level. They are smaller on average, so there's a tail of those accounts which would be less profitable for this business. But three and a half or four million accounts that we have today is still a fraction of that domestically. And they talk about 20 million globally as a sort of first stop in their growth story.

嘉信理财在美国大概有 2500 万个账户，富达也差不多。虽然平均账户规模更小，尾部账户对盈透来说利润也会低一些。但盈透现在只有 350 万到 400 万个账户，国内份额仍然很小。他们把全球 2000 万账户作为增长的第一阶段目标。

And then at a sort of later stage they talk about this 80 million number because in a couple of countries where they operate, they are already at sort of 1% of the population. And that would be that sort of level of penetration. And the key thing to that potential is people will still continue to trade a lot. Whatever happens with markets becoming more digital and outsourcing within the B2B channel will probably continue for the next 5, 10 and 20 years.

更远期的目标是 8000 万账户。因为在他们运营的几个国家里，渗透率已经达到人口的 1% 左右，而 8000 万账户大致对应这种渗透率。要实现这一潜力，关键在于人们仍会大量交易；市场数字化和 B2B 外包趋势未来 5、10、20 年都可能持续。

Big question is, can someone compete with this? Can someone come away to stop them organically growing share? Given the counter positioning and that first comment about acquisitions and the competitors to reinvest, to try to build the direct market access and to invest in prices and cost and automation like this business has, everyone's folding and using this business instead of trying to compete with it.

最大的问题是，有人能与之竞争吗？有人能阻止它继续有机增份额吗？考虑到前面提到的“反向定位”——竞争者若想追赶，就得巨资重建直连市场、在价格与自动化上投入；结果很多机构索性放弃自建，直接使用盈透的平台，而不是与之对抗。

Jacopo

To your comment of more participation into financial markets by all sorts of individuals, especially after Covid, we believe that to be a pretty good tailwind too because as we said at the beginning, someone who is inexperienced and might have a smaller account balance, he might start a Robinhood account or Etoro or whatever else he can get his hands off depending on the jurisdiction.

关于疫情后各类个人更多参与金融市场这一点，我们认为这也是不错的顺风，因为初学者、账户余额较小的人可能先去开 Robinhood、eToro 等账户，具体取决于所在国家/地区。

But after a certain period of time, after becoming more accustomed to trading and honestly after having increased his own disposable income, we do believe the proposition of joining Interactive, especially as an active trader, is so much better than anything that's around there. But we do see a lot of his customers eventually dropping to Interactive over time as soon as the account balances reach \$100,000 or \$200,000.

但过一段时间，当他们更熟悉交易、可支配收入也提高后，我们认为选择转到盈透（尤其是活跃交易者）要比其他平台划算得多。我们确实看到许多客户一旦账户余额达到 10 万或 20 万美元，就会最终流向盈透。

Freddie

And if I can just add one more thing you mentioned earlier, some people are upset with the customer service. We see a lot of analogies between this business and other low-cost businesses that we look at.

补充一点：你之前提到有人抱怨客服差。我们在盈透与其他低成本企业之间看到很多相似之处。

One would be sort of Ryanair. And I think it's really compelling to see that business, another business we like, where Michael O'Leary said, "I didn't realize looking after customers would make me so much profit." And he started making the customer experience more pleasant. I think they're doing that at Interactive too. They've had this obsessive focus on costs and automation for 50 years, including in their prime brokerage business.

例如瑞安航空。其 CEO 迈克尔·奥利里曾说，“没想到重视客户体验还能带来这么高的利润”，随后改进了体验。我认为盈透也在走这条路——50 年来他们痴迷于成本控制和自动化，甚至在主经纪业务中亦如此。

But they've just rolled out what they call the sort of white-glove service, which is a very manual, independent director looking after your account as a hedge fund. And I expect a bit more of that over time coming back into the business on the customer service too, which slightly opens up their market. One final thing they're doing as well is really relaunching their app, which will come in and help that customer acquisition that Jacopo said of those who are out there learning the ropes in apps like Etoro and Robinhood, but may want to grow up into Interactive later.

不过他们刚推出所谓“白手套服务”：为对冲基金客户配备专属客户经理。我预计未来会有更多此类客户服务，能稍微拓宽市场。最后，他们还在重新打造自家 App，帮助吸引 Jacopo 刚才说的那批在 eToro、Robinhood 等平台学习交易、最终想升级到盈透的用户。

Zack

And so we touched upon it in relation to M\&A. But clearly a business that's generating as much excess free cash flow as this one, capital allocation becomes increasingly important. What is their demonstrated strategy as it relates to redeploying the cash that they're generating on an ongoing basis if M\&A is not available to them?

我们刚才谈到并购问题。显然，一家能够持续产生大量自由现金流的公司，资本配置就变得格外重要。如果并购机会有限，他们如何重新部署自己不断生成的现金？他们已展示出怎样的策略？

Jacopo

This is a very important question, especially as the business will eventually mature. And in fact, at the moment the only capital return we are receiving is a dividend yield that's usually targeted to be about 0.5 to 1% of the total market capitalization. And there's a couple of things though to keep in mind. I think the company wants to keep a balance sheet that's as strong as it can be, mostly to develop the prime brokerage and hedge funds business.

这是一个非常重要的问题，尤其是当业务最终趋于成熟时。目前，公司唯一的资本回报是股息，目标股息率大约为市值的 0.5% 至 1%。有几点需要注意：首先，公司希望维持尽可能强大的资产负债表，主要为了发展主经纪和对冲基金业务。

And one of the reasons being that the companies they do compete against, behemoths like Goldman, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Bank of America, are materially larger financial institutions. So to win over customers and hedge funds that manage 1 to 5 billion dollars of assets, they do need potentially stronger balance sheet than what we actually could imagine ourselves.

原因之一是他们的竞争对手是高盛、摩根士丹利、瑞银、美银等金融巨头。这些机构规模庞大。为了争取管理 10 亿至 50 亿美元资产的客户和对冲基金，他们需要一张比我们想象中更强悍的资产负债表。

The second point comes actually with the company structure. It is a publicly listed company, but still today, insiders own roughly 80% of the stock, of which most of it, 75%, is still Thomas.

第二点与公司股权结构有关。虽然是上市公司，但内部人仍持有约 80% 的股份，其中 75% 仍在托马斯手中。

But the CEO and CFO also have a significant stake in the business. And therefore launching extremely big special dividends or share repurchase programs is not necessarily doable until the float of a business is increased. So we, like many other external investors, we are looking at the topic. We do believe over time, as Thomas, as he rightly says, is not immortal and he's approaching or above 80 years of age, we will see how that evolves.

首席执行官和首席财务官也持有大量股票。因此，在流通股比例提高之前，发放超大额特别股息或实施大规模回购并不现实。我们与其他外部投资者一样在关注这一点。随着托马斯年事已高——他自己也说，人终有一死——未来情况会如何演变，还需观察。

But it is something that we do like to an extent, because if you think about ways of maturing as a business, the final phase when growth slows down and is not what it used to be 20 years ago. Any business has a choice to make which can be growing again through M\&A whenever it is possible, or returning excess cash to shareholders. And we are not even close to there. As Freddy has discussed, there's a potential over time to probably 20x the number of customers on the platform.

但我们对这种结构并非完全排斥。企业成熟之后，增长放缓，无法像 20 年前那样高速扩张，届时通常要么通过并购再度增长，要么把多余现金返还股东。而我们离那一步还很远。正如弗雷迪所说，平台客户数量未来可能还有 20 倍的增长空间。

But once that is done, having excess capital to return to shareholders, as the structure has probably changed by then is an option. But as investors, we do like to have—there's other businesses that are in that situation, I guess Berkshire Hathaway being an enormous one, which is in a similar position with an incredible amount of cash and Treasuries sitting on the balance sheet.

等增长潜力消化完毕，届时股权结构也许已发生变化，把多余资本返还给股东就成了一个选项。作为投资者，我们乐见其成。市场上也有类似情况的公司，比如伯克希尔哈撒韦，账面上同样持有大量现金和国债。

Zack

And so when you're evaluating financial businesses, there's always a debate about how to properly value them. And without asking you guys to opine upon the valuation itself, what do you think are the most important metrics here in IT being return on equity, price to book, PE? How do you go about valuing a business like this?

在评估金融企业时，总会争论该如何给出合理估值。不要求你们具体报价，但在这里最关键的指标是什么？是股本回报率（ROE）、市净率（P/B）、市盈率（PE）？你们如何给这种公司估值？

Jacopo

It's really a combination of everything you've mentioned. I think to an extent today the ROE of a business, we can look at it in two ways. One is obviously including the excess capital and one is excluding it. One thing you realize quite quickly is actually how capital-light it is compared to normal financials, especially when you back out the excess capital.

其实三者兼而有之。今天看 ROE 可以有两种口径：一是包括超额资本，一是不包括。你会很快发现，相比普通金融企业，这家公司非常轻资本——尤其在剔除超额资本后尤为明显。

So it might make 15 to 20% ROE, including the 19 billions of excess capital, but it might make 10, 15 times as much excluding that. Earnings and price to earnings, normalized earnings are also another way we look at it. So sticking in our own assumptions obviously of accounts growth and trades per account and commissions, and then looking at what a normalized and average net interest income could be given the prevailing rates of interest around the world.

如果把 190 亿美元超额资本算进去，ROE 大概 15%–20%；剔除之后，ROE 可能高出 10–15 倍。我们也会看经调整后的盈利和市盈率，根据我们对账户增长、每户交易量、佣金的假设，以及全球利率水平，来估算一个正常化的净息收入。

But as you say, it is not one of the simplest businesses to value on either of the two metrics. So we do focus really on both and see how both interact with each other at the same time. We do not feel yet confident enough to assume a significant capital return of the excess capital. So we let it build in our model with our mind going 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, what will that capital eventually earn? But so far I think they've proven to be fairly good stewards of it.

正如你所说，这家公司很难单凭某一个指标就估清楚，所以我们同时关注多指标，并观察它们之间的互动。我们目前还不敢假设超额资本将被大量返还给股东，因此在模型里让资本继续累积，并思考 5、10、15、20 年后这笔资本能带来怎样的收益。到目前为止，他们在资本管理上表现不错。

Freddie

One other way to think about it is to invert it. Given the competitive advantages, given the demonstrable success across these verticals, which are all very nascent, given the arguments we've made around the sort of the limited reduction in revenue per account, either from NIM Sensitivity, which will bobble around or from the commissions and trading per account, you're making roughly \$1,500 an account in revenues at the moment.

还有一种思考方式是反向推算。鉴于公司的竞争优势、在各个垂直领域的早期成功，以及我们提到的每户收入只会小幅下降（无论是 NIM 波动还是佣金与交易量下降），目前每户大约贡献 1,500 美元收入。

What's the probability they can get to 10 or they can get to 20, thus making 15 or 30 billion dollars in revenues? And they make a 75% operating margin. I think they make a 75% net margin. It'll probably be around there. It could go up a little higher. But that's with their generous offering back.

如果客户数能涨到 1,000 万甚至 2,000 万，每年就是 150 亿或 300 亿美元营收；他们的运营利润率约 75%，净利润率也差不多（甚至可能更高），这还是在维持慷慨让利给客户的情况下。

You're talking about a very profitable, rapidly growing business. And the question one really needs to ask is: who's going to stop that happening? Is there a competitor in the marketplace that will stop that? If not, how fast or how slow will it happen is the bigger question. And something Thomas has said is we can grow at 30% with no advertising. We can probably grow at 40, 50% if we do more targeted advertising.

这是一家高利润、高增长的企业。真正要问的是：谁能阻止它？市场上有竞争对手能做到吗？如果没有，那就只剩下一个问题——它增长得有多快？托马斯曾说，不投广告我们也能保持 30% 增长；如果做定向营销，可能 40%、50% 都能实现。

可能是事实，目前广告效率是FUTU的1倍以上。

But they're not looking to do that right now. But I do think they could accelerate the account growth if they wanted to because there's a lever they haven't pulled yet.

他们目前并不打算这么做。但我认为，如果他们想加速账户增长，还有尚未使用的杠杆可拉动。

How IBKR Handles Volatility

IBKR 如何应对波动

Zack

Obviously much of what has been said about this business has been overwhelmingly positive. But when you're dealing with a business that interacts with leverage, margin, long and short side of the investment industry, there's inherent risks. I would love to hear about how you guys assess those risks and maybe some of the stress tests the business has faced.

显然，之前关于这家公司的讨论大多是积极的。但当一家企业与杠杆、保证金以及投行业务的多空两端打交道时，必然存在内在风险。我想了解你们如何评估这些风险，以及公司曾经经历过哪些压力测试。

Even as recent as a few weeks ago, we saw the broader market sell off 10, 15, 20%. And what that meant for their business, I think, would show kind of the resilience and durability of the model that they have here.

就像几周前那样，大盘曾下跌 10%、15%、20%。这对他们的业务意味着什么？我认为可以说明他们商业模式的韧性与持久性。

Freddie

Yeah, I think one of the key things to remember if anyone else goes away from this and analyzes the business is that this was a market-making business in a large part as well in the past. So it's very different to 2009, and 2014 was the day where they really exited most of that business.

是的，有一点需要记住：过去这家公司很大一部分收入来自做市业务。因此它与 2009 年时的形态大不相同；2014 年他们几乎全面退出做市。

So this is now a middleman, a broker, far more than the sort of asset risk. So the risk, as you say, slightly lies in that margin loan piece and their ability to risk-manage and collateralize against those loans.

如今他们更像是中介、券商，而非承担巨大资产风险的主体。正如你所说，风险主要集中在保证金贷款以及其风险管理与抵押能力上。

Because obviously when they make these loans or they do the securities lending, they take and hold collateral, and something Jacopo mentioned earlier, these accounts are stopped out automatically now as if and whenever they get too close to that margin limit.

因为只要发放贷款或进行证券出借，他们都会持有抵押物。正如 Jacopo 之前提到的，一旦账户接近保证金底线，就会被自动平仓。

And so it's all an automated process they have. They claim to have very good risk management systems, but I've never met a financial business that doesn't claim to have good risk management systems. So your question again is right: How have they fared through the last decade of quite a lot of stress tests? I'd argue whether Covid or big drawdowns in 2022 in the very popular stocks or the recent hit.

这一切都已自动化。他们宣称拥有很好的风险管理系统——当然，每家金融企业都会这么说。你的问题很关键：过去十年种种压力测试中，他们表现如何？无论是新冠疫情、大热股票在 2022 年大幅回调，还是最近的市场冲击。

Their largest loss was really from a very strange sort of move in the Swiss franc 10 or 12 years ago, maybe even 14 years ago, where they lost about 1% of their equity capital today. So a very bearable amount for a business that is multiple times capitalized.

他们最大的一次损失来自 10 至 12 年前（也许 14 年前）瑞郎的异常波动，当时损失约占今日股本 1%。以其资本充足率来看，这完全可承受。

And through the recent turmoil of the last three to four or five years, it's de minimis the risks from margin, the losses, the bad account balances. It's not been an issue for the business. So the risk management system ex post has clearly been working.

过去三五年的市场动荡中，保证金风险、坏账户损失等几乎可以忽略，对公司不是问题。事后看，他们的风险管理体系确实有效。

Jacopo

If you think about how financials businesses run into trouble, it's some sort of liquidity mismatch that exists between assets and liabilities. And I think in that, new investors to the company should take quite a bit of comfort. But most of the assets are really 30 days in duration. Now some of that is a function of how the yield curve has been looking for the past four or five years, which is flat to inverted. So there was no point in taking interest rate risk and duration risk in the capital of a business.

金融企业通常因为资产负债的流动性错配而陷入困境，这点值得新投资者关注。对盈透而言，大部分资产久期只有 30 天左右。这部分与过去四五年收益率曲线从平坦到倒挂的形态有关，公司没有必要承担利率和久期风险。

But in general, I think the company has always taken a prudent approach to risk management. I think that again stems from probably Thomas's beginning as a market-making risk manager. And if you think about the mother of all stress tests, which was the great financial crisis when the business still owned a market-making business, one of the leading market-making businesses in options.

总体而言，公司一直采取审慎的风险管理方式，这或许源于托马斯早年作为做市商的风险管理背景。如果回想最严峻的压力测试——全球金融危机，当时他们仍拥有领先的期权做市业务。

The company decided quite early on in 2007 to stop making prices to customers in long-dated options, which eventually ended up being part of a market. But not a lot of people talk about today that was entirely illiquid and where losses just piled up.

2007 年，公司就很早决定停止为远期期权报价，而那部分市场后来极度缺乏流动性、损失惨重，但很少人今天再提。

So I think analyzing the liquidity of the balance sheet and in general risk management choices is where one can get comfortable that downside risks are fairly well managed in terms of long-term risks.

因此，从资产负债表流动性及整体风险管理决策来看，可以确信其长期下行风险已得到相当好的控制。

Freddie mentioned a little bit about competitive landscape and how it might evolve. I would add one to it which is, as you mentioned before, Zack, there has been a huge increase in participation in financial markets.

Freddie 刚提到竞争格局及其演变。我再补充一点：正如 Zack 你之前说的，参与金融市场的人数大幅增加。

Some of it is very healthy. New generations are learning earlier how to invest, and some of it is more akin to really gambling. And if you think about that and the ramifications it might have in terms of regulations in the future, or if losses actually pile up for retail investors, this is an area that is worth bearing in mind.

其中一部分是好事：新一代更早学习投资；但也有部分更像赌博。若考虑未来可能的监管影响，或若散户出现累积性亏损，这点值得注意。

You might have noticed that in the past 18 months they've been talking a little bit more about their new products called ForecastEx, which basically allows—it's almost like a sports betting platform on economic events—that allows customers to really express an opinion that is a yes or no on individual outcomes.

你可能注意到过去 18 个月他们谈到名为 ForecastEx 的新产品，它几乎像对宏观数据下注的体育博彩平台，让客户对某些经济事件作“是/否”判断。

It might be about inflation, about payrolls, and the simple fact that the CFTC initially didn't allow those products to go out because they were too akin to sports betting tells you that there is a component in financial markets today that goes through online brokerages that is more similar to gambling rather than what we would normally consider investing.

可能是针对通胀、非农数字等。美国 CFTC 最初禁止这类产品上线，因为过于类似体育赌博，也说明金融市场中通过线上券商进行的部分活动更像赌博，而非传统意义上的投资。

Zack

And so a corollary to that last question is one that we always conclude with: lessons learned. When you guys evaluate this business, what can be applied to others? And from an operational perspective, what about the way that management runs this business do you think can be applied to other businesses to help drive better shareholder returns?

接着刚才的话题，我们通常用“经验教训”来收尾。当你们评估这家公司时，有哪些经验可供其他企业借鉴？从运营角度看，管理层的哪些做法可以用于其他公司，以提高股东回报？

Freddie

When we're looking at what gives our businesses a competitive and strategic advantage over their industry and that will endure for the long term, one of the really best ones, and we've only got a handful of these that have this competitive advantage, is this low-cost, high-service model.

当我们寻找能让企业在行业中长期保持竞争优势的要素时，最出色的一点就是“低成本、高服务”模式，我们投资组合里只有少数公司拥有这种优势。

And service in this case means better access to markets, quicker trading, neater valuations. Not yet someone on the end of the phone, but wait and see on that.

这里的“服务”指更好的市场接入、更快的交易、更精准的估值，而不是电话那头随叫随到的客服——不过可以拭目以待。

But so this low-cost-to-serve, high-quality product, it's brilliant because it's so hard to compete with. This is one of the best examples that we have found and obviously others being things like Ryanair, Costco, and a few other businesses on our lists, and I think it leads to 10, 20, 30 years of potential advantage which will come through in this case through account growth.

这种低成本高质量的产品极难被竞争对手复制。它是我们见过的最佳范例之一，其他例子包括瑞安航空、Costco 等。我认为它能带来 10、20、30 年的潜在优势，在这里就体现为账户增长。

And so that's been the primary one, and I think when you've dug back as long as you can in the history—and there's quite a bit written about this business over the last 48 years—this obsession with technology, automation, and costs has been there from day one.

这就是关键。回顾 48 年历史，你会看到从第一天起，他们就痴迷于技术、自动化和成本控制。

And so that's a softer point, but it's around the culture of a business. It doesn't have to be founder-led, but it's often founder-led. But it's certainly got to be someone with skin in the game, and it's got to be someone who intrinsically demands that of a business.

这是软性因素，属于企业文化。不一定要创始人亲自领导，但通常是由深度绑定、真正将此视为事业的人领导。

I don't think it's something that you can come through with an MBA and just say, "Oh, I'm going to go for a low-cost model." I think it's got to be something that's really in you.

这不是拿个 MBA 就能简单照搬的“低成本模式”，而是一种深入骨髓的执念。

And I think the final thing that this business helped teach us is just how cheap very high-quality cyclical businesses can become because people misunderstand or fear cyclicality in what is otherwise a very strong growth business.

这家公司给我们的最后一课是：即便是高质量、强增长的企业，只要带有周期性，市场就可能因误解或恐惧而给出极低估值。

This was trading on 12 or 13 times earnings, delivered earnings only 18 months ago. It's a little more expensive now, but it's still inexpensive the way we look at these things, which is with all cyclicals, you'll always get a good chance. You can find the great cyclical. You might have to wait three or five years, but you'll always get a great chance. And the great ones are worth waiting for.

18 个月前，它的市盈率只有 12–13 倍。虽然现在稍贵，但我们仍认为便宜。对于所有周期股来说，总会出现好机会；真正优秀的周期股值得等待三五年甚至更久。

Zack

Well, Freddie, Jacopo, I appreciate you guys coming on so much to discuss IBKR. Around 50 years ago, Thomas Peterffy came here with effectively nothing and has built what is today, I believe, a \$75 billion plus business of which he owns the vast majority. It's a really interesting story from both a business history but also business performance perspective. I really appreciate you guys coming on to help tell it.

非常感谢 Freddie 和 Jacopo 今天来聊 IBKR。约 50 年前，托马斯·彼得菲几乎两手空空来到这里，如今已打造出一家市值超过 750 亿美元、他仍握有绝对控股权的企业。这既是一段商业史，也是一段业绩传奇。感谢你们分享。

Freddie

Great to speak to you.

很高兴与您交流。

2025-05-09 Interactive Brokers: Margin Masters

2025-05-09 Interactive Brokers: Margin Masters

Introduction

The Low-Cost Brokerage Revolution

IBKR's Enigmatic Founder

The Business Model Explained

Inside a Customer Account

Rapid Global Expansion

How IBKR Handles Volatility

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