Is Interactive Brokers safe?

[just21]

IB is the 17th largest securities company. The top 16 got bailed out by the US government. IB had buy out offers from morgan stanley and goldman sachs but turned them down.

 

[KINGOFSHORTS]

The only safe thing is to have your share certificates in physical form in your possession.

 

[m22au]

I believe that the 669 million figure for IBKR represents a 10% interest in the company. ie, Petterfly owns a 90% controlling stake, and the entire company is therefore "worth" 6.69 billion.

However don't take my word for it - if you dig around the IBKR web site you can find a corporate tree that explains the structure in more detail.

Quote from noddyboy:

ETFC:
Shares Out 12/31/2009 1893.971M
Market Cap USD 2822.02M

IBKR
Shares Out 11/ 9/2009 41.215M
Market Cap USD 669.33M

Also, why the short interest?
Float 40.28M Short Int 3.146M

 

[noddyboy]

Quote from m22au:

I believe that the 669 million figure for IBKR represents a 10% interest in the company. ie, Petterfly owns a 90% controlling stake, and the entire company is therefore "worth" 6.69 billion.

However don't take my word for it - if you dig around the IBKR web site you can find a corporate tree that explains the structure in more detail.

my bad then. I trust Bloomberg too much. They usually add all the interests. Eg for petrochina, google etc.

I split between ib and etrade, but worry about the sipc limits...

 

[def]

Quote from mgmaggie:

Does any one know if I went to IB's insurance company they would let me buy additional insurance to further hedge myself?

Hopefully, IB will answer this.

thank you

I believe the answer is yes but as this isn't my area so if you you're serious, send me a PM with amounts you're looking at and I'll see what I can find out.

Mkt cap: as mentioned, only 10% of IBKR is floated and thus the true market cap is much higher relative to what is reported on many financial sites. Also, your comparison to other firms in regards to safety is missing a key point - DEBT. IBKR has very little debt and does not hold any CDO's, subprime debt or credit default swaps.

 

[SideShowBob]

Quote from def:

I believe the answer is yes but as this isn't my area so if you you're serious, send me a PM with amounts you're looking at and I'll see what I can find out.

Mkt cap: as mentioned, only 10% of IBKR is floated and thus the true market cap is much higher relative to what is reported on many financial sites. Also, your comparison to other firms in regards to safety is missing a key point - DEBT. IBKR has very little debt and does not hold any CDO's, subprime debt or credit default swaps.

So toxic CDOs are now a bad thing?