Interactive Brokers (IBKR) IPO Falls Flat
Published May 4th, 2007 in Trading Tags: canadian banks, dutch auction, ECN, IB, IBKR, interactive brokers, interactive brokers IBKR, Interactive Brokers IPO, ipo, Thomas Petterfy, toronto stock exchange, tsx group.
So after all that breathless preamble… this?
Interactive Brokers (IBKR) faltered right out of the gate and kept stumbling.
Oh well.
It’s easy to be neutral when you don’t have any vested interest - I didn’t get allocated any shares. And I didn’t like the market action so I stood aside. Disappointing.

On the plus side, I narrowly skirted becoming a crystal ball gazing, tarot-card slash palm reader. IBKR didn’t open at $32 as I had predicted. It opened at $33. And it didn’t hit $35. It didn’t even hit $34. It just petered out.
Today I was also keeping an eye on another security: TSX Group Inc. (TSE:X) - the holding company for the Toronto Stock Exchange. Yesterday their share price was pounded by news that a consortium made up of all six Canadian banks (BMO Capital Markets (TSE:BMO), CIBC World Markets (TSE:CM), National Bank Financial (TSE:NA), RBC Capital Markets (TSE:RY), Scotia Capital (TSE:BNS) and TD Securities (TSE:TD)) plus Cannacord Capital (TSE:CCI) would set up their own ECN to compete with it.
The announcement was just that, an announcement. And to show how early they are in the project, they don’t even have a name picked out for the ECN and are using the code-name, “Alpha”. So obviously yesterday’s panic selling was a tad overdone. Today it gapped up and recovered all morning.
I’ll continue to watch both IBKR and TSX Group.
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Anyone interested in the Interactive Brokers IPO could check out www.underactivebreakers.com.
nothing there…bad joke. Well according to bloomberg, there was a single block trade of 143million usd at 33 going through on 4th May, maybe some institutionals are buying at that level.
Man, this one is disappointing, got out completely at 31….waiting for the earnings report to get back in, only if it’s below 23….what a flunk
John Z,
yup, a big flop - especially when the market is zooming higher. You’d think a broker - a leveraged bet on the stock market - would do well.
momoney released an interesting video on what IB is really worth, available here.
anyone who has invested (or is considering investing) in ibkr should definitely watch it, especially as ibkr already broke through and closed below its ipo price today. the video also provides an interesting comparative analysis of ib versus its peers.
Thanks for the link derikj, very good video/ideas