By Andrew Welsch
Charles Schwab shares rallied by as much as 4.0% Friday after the financial services company reported strong year-over-year growth in two important business metrics in May.
In its monthly activity report released Friday, Schwab said it hauled in $49.9 billion in core net new assets in May, up 42% from $35 billion for the same month last year. Customers opened 461,000 new brokerage accounts in May, up 37% year over year.
"Looking ahead, rising client asset levels, expanding spread income, and strong trading activity should support robust earnings growth," Jeff Schmitt, analyst at William Blair, wrote in a research note on Friday. He rates Schwab's stock Outperform.
At about 12:15 p.m., Schwab stock was changing hands at $91.21, up 2.8%, after earlier trading as high as $92.21. The benchmark S&P 500 index was up 0.4%. The monthly report revealed increases in both trading volume and margin loans by Schwab customers. Daily average trades reached a record 11.8 million for May, driven primarily by robust engagement in stocks and exchange-traded funds, according to Schwab. Meanwhile, client margin loan balances surged 38% from the end of 2025 to $154.6 billion. Margin loans are loans that brokerage firms make to customers so they can buy stocks.
Schwab isn't the only brokerage firm to see increases in margin loans. Across the industry, total margin balances hit a record $1.3 trillion in April, according to Finra, the brokerage industry's self-regulatory organization. That was up from $850 billion for April 2025. (April is the most recent month for which Finra has margin balance data.)
Schwab is one of the nation's largest brokerage and wealth management companies, and it serves both individual investors and registered investment advisors. The latter group relies on Schwab to provide it with a trading platform and to safeguard client assets. Schwab's total client assets were $13.14 trillion as of the end of May. That was up 27% from May 2025 and up 4% compared with April 2026. The Westlake, Texas-based company has more than 39 million active brokerage accounts.
Schwab has been striving to drum up new business by expanding its offerings for clients. For example, it recently enabled customers to directly hold Bitcoin on its platform. It has also been growing its in-house wealth management offering for customers. In March, it acquired Forge Global, which will enable Schwab to offer customers more access to private assets.
Write to Andrew Welsch at andrew.welsch@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 12, 2026 13:01 ET (17:01 GMT)
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