The Charles Schwab Corporation
Financials · Capital Markets
Structural: largest US retail brokerage by client assets (~$9T) and account count post-$26B TDA acquisition; sweep-deposit bank model means SCHW is a levered read on (a) client cash balances and (b) the spread between what clients earn on cash and what Schwab earns reinvesting it.
~70% of net revenue is rate-sensitive NII; the rest is asset-mgmt fees + trading.
- Cash sorting headwind reversing: clients moved $200B+ from low-yield sweep into MMFs/purchased money during 2022-23 hiking cycle; sorting has stabilized in 2024-25 and reverses as Fed cuts (lower MMF yields make sweep less painful)
- TDA integration complete (2024) - synergy run-rate $1.8-2.0B, expense discipline now flows to operating leverage
- Scale moat: low CAC vs $HOOD / $IBKR, captive sweep deposits cheap funding for the bank arm
- Asset-management fee tailwind from index-fund / ETF inflows and managed-portfolio uptake
- Rate cuts compress NII spread even as sorting unwinds - net effect ambiguous quarter-to-quarter
- Sweep yields are a regulatory/competitive target ($HOOD pays 4%+ Gold cash, $IBKR pays SOFR-minus); sustained pressure to raise client cash yield erodes the bank-spread model
- Held-to-maturity portfolio unrealized losses (~$15-20B at peak) cap balance-sheet flexibility until duration rolls off
- Brokerage retail trading volumes mean-revert from 2020-21 highs; PFOF revenue secularly soft
No key levels recorded for this ticker.