(This is The Best Stocks in the Market , brought to you by Josh Brown and Sean Russo of Ritholtz Wealth Management.) Josh — Custody is the hottest business on Wall Street. Have you seen Charles Schwab’s stock lately? It’s been on the Best Stocks in the Market list and made a new all-time closing high two weeks ago. As they say in Mexico, ¡Ay, Chihuahua! What happened? Investors have (re)learned just how profitable these gatekeepers can be when the capital markets are hopping and all sorts of innovative new products are proliferating across the country. Take 130/30 funds. They’ve been around for a while, but in the last couple of years they’ve become a standard solution for financial advisors to include in client asset allocations. At Ritholtz , for example, we work with several asset management partners to include them where appropriate. Investors have massive taxable gains in stocks and proceeds from the sales of small businesses these days. It’s part of our job as fiduciaries to help them minimize the impact of these gains or defer them where possible. The runaway bull market since the end of 2022 has made taxable losses pretty scarce. This explains the surge in popularity of tax-aware long-short strategies like 130/30 in the modern opportunity set. As Sean will explain, some of the largest custodians to independent financial advisors like us have begun to limit access to them in the name of risk management (or, as some have suspected, friendly competition.) One firm that hasn’t curtailed its long-short capacity is Interactive Brokers . This could potentially lead to an explosion in new custody relationships for the hidden giant controlled by founder Thomas Peterffy, who still owns 80% of the company. If what I am telling you now becomes more widely known, it could become a catalyst for new highs. Sean will go more in depth on this topic below. We’re also going to catch you up on Travelers , a stock that’s made a tremendous run and is now consolidating those gains, potentially setting up for a new leg higher. We’ve been talking about these stocks with you for the past year. Consider this your update on two of the best financials out there all year long. Here’s Sean: As of Sept 14, there are 195 names on The Best Stocks in the Market list. Top sector ranking: Top industries: Top 5 best stocks by relative strength: Spotlight: Interactive Brokers and Travelers Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (IBKR): Sean — We last wrote up IBKR on June 22, when the stock was pushing $96 and Josh was making the case that names in the 90s get through 100. This one was less than a subway fare away from breaking $100. IBKR printed a record close of $98.10 on Aug. 25, stalled shy of the round number, and has since given back the entire move — down 7.6% since that write-up against a 1.8% gain for the S & P 500. Zoom out, and the story looks better. Since our Oct. 23 spotlight, when we pitched it as diet-Robinhood, IBKR is up 33.7% versus 13.8% for the index. Looking at updated fundamentals, Q2 was the strongest quarter IBKR has ever put up. Net revenues of $1.90 billion grew 28% year over year and net income rose 39% with EPS at $0.69 against $0.51 a year ago. Pretax margin was 77% — the seventh straight quarter above 70%. The client metrics are where this gets elite. Customer accounts up 34% to 5.2 million, customer equity up 40% to $930.3 billion and margin loans up 67% to $108.5 billion. Commissions hit $673 million, up 30%, led by options at 17% growth and stocks at 14%. Net interest income grew 23% to $1.06 billion even as net interest margin compressed to 1.93% from 2.07%. Management plans to operationalize a national trust bank charter by year end to custody mutual fund and ETF assets directly and has layered on Korean trading access, expanded European crypto and the AI-powered IBKR Connector tool. Business is booming. Here’s something not many people are talking about that we see from the inside as an RIA. The tax-aware long-short SMA trade became the hottest product in wealth management, and the two biggest custodians are actively shutting it down for new advisor allocations. Fidelity stopped opening new long-short accounts in early 2026 and raised financing costs on existing clients in May. Schwab capped any RIA’s long-short SMA exposure at 30% of its custodied assets in April, limited leverage to 200/100 and is now taking the account minimum to $10 million from $1 million effective on Wednesday of this week. Schwab had $21.3 billion of its $126.7 billion margin loan book tied to these strategies as of March 31 and has decided it doesn’t want the balance sheet risk. Interactive Brokers is the one major custodian that hasn’t restricted it. The firm has said publicly it doesn’t limit RIAs from running these strategies and will let advisors run the long-short book themselves on its platform. Pair it with the trust bank charter and the margin book already up 67%, and IBKR is positioned to take share in the most in-demand high net worth strategies on the Street. Josh — Interactive Brokers has been climbing steadily since last fall, with the 200-day providing the structural floor the entire way and the 50-day acting as the guide through the move. The stock went from the low $60s to a record close of $98 in late August, stalled just below $100, and has pulled back to where it sits now, just below the 50-day at $92. The pullback has been orderly. The stock is taking a breath. RSI is 49. That is a complete reset to neutral after a run that had momentum stretched at the highs. There is nothing damaged about this reading. It reflects a healthy consolidation, not a broken chart. We’re going to want to see RSI get back in gear as the stock makes its next attempt toward the high. I’d say this is more likely than not and it will give us the confidence to add on strength. The most important level on this chart is $80. That was resistance in February. It became the breakout level in May. It was retested before the stock made new highs in June. The 200-day is at $79 and rising. That is not an accident. Those two things are the same line. Traders and investors can use $80 as their stop. A weekly close below it means the buyers who showed up at that level three separate times have finally stepped away. The business has never been better. We said a break of $100 would be incredibly bullish. We still think it happens. The Travelers Cos., Inc. (TRV): Sean — When we wrote up Travelers on July 20 as part of the insurance sector spotlight , it had just ripped 9.2% on the Q2 print to a new all-time high, and Josh’s call was straightforward. No new entries, let it cool off, best case is it trades flat for a few weeks and cleans up the profit-takers. That is precisely what happened. TRV ran another 8% to an all-time high of $398.70 on July 28, then gave the whole thing back and has essentially gone nowhere – up 0.1% since the write-up. What’s notable is the relative performance. The reason we are writing about TRV is that we have been hemorrhaging insurance names from the Best Stocks list as the insurance group has rolled over. KIE is down 2.9% while TRV held flat. Meanwhile, financials (XLF) are up 1.5% and the S & P 500 is up 2.1%. Q2 was a good quarter. Every segment contributed with Business Insurance income up 47% to $1.2 billion, Personal Insurance up 55% to $827 million and Bond & Specialty at $234 million with net written premiums up 14%. Adjusted book value per share rose 16% to $168.20 and the company returned $1.57 billion via $1.31 billion of buybacks and $266 million of dividends, with the dividend raised for a 22nd consecutive year. On guidance, management pointed to after-tax net investment income of roughly $840 million in Q3 and $870 million in Q4. Nothing much has changed here fundamentally since our last write up. Josh — Travelers has been one of the steadiest charts in the market all year. We like. The stock climbed methodically from the low $270s last fall, riding the rising 50-day the entire way with the 200-day providing the broader structural floor below. The Q2 earnings report in July sent the stock to a new all-time high of $398 on the heaviest volume in months. Profit-takers showed up right at $400 and the stock has spent the weeks since digesting that move. What matters is how it has digested it. The $350 to $360 area that acted as resistance through the spring has now flipped and is holding as support. Fresh capital is absorbing the profit-takers in an extremely narrow band. This is the definition of orderly. The 50-day is at $366, rising underneath price, and the 200-day is at $314, well below and trending in the right direction. As Sean laid out above, the fundamentals haven’t deteriorated. This is a stock that earned its move and is now consolidating cleanly. RSI is 58. After a run to $398 and an RSI that stretched well into overbought territory on the July spike, this is a complete reset to a healthy, constructive reading. Momentum is back to neutral without the chart breaking down. That combination, a reset RSI inside a rising trend with moving averages still pointed up, is the setup you want to see before the next leg. Traders can get long here and use $350 as the stop. A weekly close back below it means the character of this consolidation has changed and the profit-takers won. Double the position on the next assault on $400. If the stock is going to make a new all-time high, you want to be bigger on the way through it. Investors can anchor to $325, the low just before the Q2 earnings reaction sent this stock to new all-time highs. That is about 13% of downside from here. Below that on a weekly close and the buyers who showed up for that earnings move have left the building. DISCLOSURES: Ritholtz holds Interactive Brokers (IBKR) for clients in its Porterhouse concentrated momentum strategy. For full disclaimer and additional details, go here . All opinions expressed by the CNBC Pro contributors are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, or its parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet or another medium. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE FINANCIAL, INVESTMENT, TAX OR LEGAL ADVICE OR A RECOMMENDATION TO BUY ANY SECURITY OR OTHER FINANCIAL ASSET. THE CONTENT IS GENERAL IN NATURE AND DOES NOT REFLECT ANY INDIVIDUAL’S UNIQUE PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES. 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