In a gold rush, sell shovels. In a period of POTUS-induced volatility, buy IBKR options.
Anyone following IBKR over the last year knows that their line goes pretty consistently up. I have made money before by buying ITM options on IBKR dips, so I entered again on Thursday. Was 2k in profit before Friday's mini meltdown but I carried on buying most of the way down. Now it looks like I have a YOLO on my hands.
My rationale is as follows:
IBKR is a good broker, and is taking over from RH as the regards' broker of choice. You don't even have to get in your car or risk getting a restraining order for stalking a cashier (in true WSB style) to find this out. Just count the number of IBKR screenshots posted on here. They used to be rare, now they're very common.
As well as an increasing number of customers, they make money from commissions, margin loans to degenerates, and paying Fed rate minus .5% to those enjoying a fleeting moment of glory and holding their fat stacks with them. Commissions and margin loans basically means they make money from volatility. This was reiterated in their last earnings report.
Sell everything and go all cash when you see Elon's offspring using the Oval Office as a playpen? IBKR makes money. Cash out US stocks to buy EU defence stocks in a patriotic fervour? IBKR makes money. Go all in with margin on TQQQ calls when the President calls off his own tariff war? IBKR makes money.
They publish monthly metrics so you don't need to wait for earnings for confirmation they are doing well. In January they did well. Metrics for this month will be out early March and I can't imagine they will be bad.
This should get back in the mid 230s before long. IV is relatively low, so I'm holding 15 x 210C for next month's expiry. If this is the beginning of a market downtrend I'm fucked, but I suppose that goes for most of us.
Tl;dr - IBKR is a good broker, is growing anyway, and does especially well in periods of volatility. IBKR's numbers wull be fine, but downside risk is that if SPY keeps drilling I'm gonna get gaped.
