UPDATE 2-Interactive Brokers Q1 profit slumps on weak revenue

Thu Apr 23, 2009 5:11pm EDT
 
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* Q1 EPS $0.30 vs est $0.47

* Net revenue down 44 pct

* Market making segment drags revenue

* Shares fall 14 pct (Adds details, background, updates share movement)

April 23 (Reuters) - Derivatives trader Interactive Brokers Group Inc (IBKR.O), which handles over a million trades per day, reported a worse-than-expected quarterly profit as revenue from its market making segment more than halved, sending its shares down 14 percent.

"Our strict risk controls have not completely immunized us from the secondary effects of the financial crises as our results have been largely impacted by competitive pressures on spreads," Chief Executive Thomas Peterffy said in a statement.

The company continued to avoid counterparty risks and balance sheet exposure from illiquid positions by making markets only in exchange traded products that are cleared through central clearing houses, he said.

Options contracts in the company's market making segment fell 14 percent to 118,179 in the quarter.

The company gets about 72 percent of its revenue from its market-maker division, while the brokerage segment currently contributes about 27 percent to net revenue.

Revenue from the company's market making segment was down 55 percent at $182 million, while that from the brokerage segment was down $20 million at $107.4 million.

The company's electronic-broker segment competes with the broker arm of TradeStation Group Inc (TRAD.O), while its market maker segment competes with a unit of Citigroup (C.N).

First-quarter net income available to common shareholders was $12.6 million, or 30 cents a share, compared with $27.2 million, or 66 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Analysts expected earnings of 47 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Total revenue fell 44 percent to $296.3 million, which was well below analysts' average estimate of $423.8 million.

During the quarter, Interactive's cleared daily average revenue trades (DARTs) -- a key measure of trading activity for retail brokerage firms -- increased by 9 percent to 330,000.

Shares of the Greenwich, Connecticut-based company were trading down $2.28 at $14.30 after the bell. The stock, which has lost 40 percent in value in the past 12 months, closed at $16.58 Thursday on Nasdaq. Interactive has outperformed the Amex Securities Broker Dealer Index .XBD in the past 12 months, of which it is a component with the smallest market capitalization. (Reporting by Sweta Singh in Bangalore; Editing by Deepak Kannan, Himani Sarkar)

 

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